Aint Trek Beach Clean Up

One Sunday last month, our hiking group went back to the Aint Trek with the goal of taking trash bags to clean up the beaches.  The beaches get lots of trash washed up on them.  Lots and lots and lots of bottles along with some wood, rope, shoes, and about 3 straws.

From the ridge line looking down on the beaches.  The beach to the right of the nearest point is where we cleaned up.

From the ridge line looking back toward Ruwi (?).

On the ridge line with mountains and the ocean in the horizon.

I wrote up about how to manage the trek through the mountain before.  This time around, the hike reminded me just how steep the climb can get to the top.  I found it to be a lot of fun because the rocks are grippy.  It really is fun in my opinion.  The climb down, however, is not my favorite.  It is lots of loose rocks and unsure footing.  I enjoy the quietness of the beaches even if they are rocky and not sandy.  I think it's great to clean up nature.  But I think next time, I would prefer to follow the shore line to do my clean up.  That may not be up to the adventure level of our hiking group, though.

What I thought was cool was that this was our largest group of ladies to ever go hiking!  Yes, we grow over time as more ladies are invited, but to see so many come out to clean up beaches was heart warming and faith in humanity restoring.

Rocking group of ladies with our bags of trash.  Sadly, all these bags couldn't handle the amount of trash one just one beach area.

Trash washed ashore getting caught in these  shrubs.  This is a before picture.

Another before picture showing some trash amongst the rocks.

We had trash bags and gloves for the clean up.  We had water to drink which was much needed as it gets warmer and warmer here in Oman.  We had quite a long and harder trek back to our cars loaded down with our trash bags.  Depending on how we carried our bags, we had either wrists, shoulders, elbows, or muscle aches.  We also had a hard time getting all of our trash bags in the cars we brought as there were no trash bins to be used in Aint.  That's a whole other issue.  Back in Muscat, the trash was sorted (when possible) at recycle bins.  There is a place at American British Academy and one in The Wave.  Working on faith here that the recycle bins are taken to a separate location for actual recycling and not thrown in with the trash.

Carrying out our trash.

What a fun and tiring morning.  My legs were quite sore the next day thanks to the trek down (I believe).  Great job, ladies!