Two weeks ago, our all girls hiking group had our largest group ever to take an exploratory hike in Wadi Ghala. This is an easy hike with it starting on a path that TAISM takes younger kids when they are doing a rock exploration field trip. At the end of the path, the wadi starts. At this point, it is all about scrambling over boulders and finding your way as far back as you like. This was the fun part.
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| Our awesome group in a cave |
We started near a hot spring "tourist attraction." In fact, to find this hike, look up "Ghala Spring Water" in Google. I have no idea how this tourist attraction pans out, but it does allow for parking spots. Once in the wadi, the first pool you encounter also has hot water. We could feel the heat when we reached our hands close. I wouldn't actually get in, though. For one, there was trash (an unfortunately all too common problem here in Oman). There was also quite a bit of algae. The green, fuzzy bottom of the pool didn't look inviting.
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| Posing above the hot spring. I edited 2 large pieces of styrofoam out of the picture. Wish I could have reached them, but I'm pretty high above the water here. |
The starting path is an actual, gravel path that zig zags up and over a small hill. Near the top, there is a cool mound of rocks that looks like a dog. There are also nice views of surrounding neighborhoods from the top. I really liked all the palm trees around the houses. So much greener than one might expect.
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| Dog rock: looks a bit like a poodle to me |
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| A view of the nearby neighborhood |
At the beginning of the wadi scramble, there are red dots that someone has spray painted to make a path of sorts. We ran out of dots before we decided to turn back. No idea how far back you can go, but the wadi continues for quite a ways. Part of our group even climbed up to check out the ridge. I believe the plan next time is to climb up sooner and do a ridge walk.
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| In the wadi, note the red dot in the lower right corner of the picture |
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