return to roots
Written and photographed by Pinaki
There is a code to unlock the best that Oman’s mountains have to offer this summer, and that is W18b. After you’ve pooh-poohed
the Jebel Akhdar – too touristy and too accessible – and gone on to conquer the further reaches of the Hajar, hiking path W18b’s jumble of letters, numerals, flowing water, hidden pools and vegetation will get you back to where you started, to the Green Mountain.
As a first timer, the Jebel Akhdar is a logical place to start, and its flawless, floodlit road ferries every tourist with a day to spare and every resident looking for weekend respite. This is not a good thing if you like mountains for solitude and adventure, and so your logical progression would be to head west to the higher reaches and hiking paths that start off from dirt tracks.
This is not to say that the Jebel Akhdar has nothing to offer. Most tourists would normally move up and down its sole road, perhaps exploring both branches after its sole hotel. But most don’t know of Soqra, the enchanting, fairy-tale village perched midway on the side of a cliff, with gardens at its foot and a earthen helipad above. Or Srab, the recently abandoned, perfectly intact village. Or the ancient, gnarled juniper, sitting on the slopes behind Shnoot, its branches, like its trunk, knotted round itself in a frenzy, writhing under the sky.
But, honestly, are these really reasons to force yourself on to
tarmac? The junipers you can find at Birkat Sharaf, six hours’ hiking above Misfah, and the walk itself will make you appreciate the dry, scented leaves better. The abandoned village you can discover perched on the inside edge of the Grand Canyon is in a location none can beat. And the hiking from Jebel Shams to Sharaf al Alamayn and Bilad Seet is the best. The Jebel Akhdar, then, is
better left for its selling point: green. And, instead of getting bored of asphalt under your feet as you peer down on to faraway slopes below, W18b offers you a four- to six-hour walk, right through those fabled gardens you see from the road.
It seems silly to state the obvious, the fact that everyone has been harping on for ages: these slopes of the jebel are green. But W18b is a revelation: an enchanting walk through the backs of the villages, away from the roads and public meeting places, through lush gardens that open out on to the slopes of the mountain. When coming from the direction of Muscat, or the hotel on top, follow the road straight towards Saiq, and turn off to the left, just after the new
Al Maha filling station, at the brown sign signalling the hiking
path. The first right after this will take you to the new hotel, under construction; take the second right instead and you will find more signs. Park your car at the parking lot, just above the village of Al Aqur, and follow the painted flags that signal W18b.
It’s best to start early, not later than six in the morning, when the light is good and most others are still indoors. Al Aqur was deserted when we entered through the back, and the sounds of children
playing and households waking came from behind a succession of old wooden doors and more recent, metal ones painted green and blue. The best part about many of the villages on the jebel, from the smaller ones up to Saiq, are the tunnelled walkways burrowing their way under and between the houses. Apart from wooden beams, the construction material is an earthen mix called sarooj, which you will find in the older buildings across Oman. Coming out, the painted flags direct you down a quick succession of steps and into the
gardens. This, of course, is the best part, and the foliage is so thick in places that it completely encompasses you for some of the way. You won’t come across many people at this time, but might occasionally spot the lone villager tending his plot, half hidden behind leaves, or a few women on the opposite slope clearing through weeds. On the whole, you should be on your own and free to spend as much time as you wish pottering among the plants. One of our other unexpected pleasures was chancing upon a beautiful natural pool among the green, its bed of rounded stones perfectly visible through crystal-clear water, reflecting the surrounding foliage and sky. It is perhaps fed by a natural spring. We followed its ensuing, now-dry watercourse, which the pool must spill into when full, under overhanging branches and around a corner to the edge of the cliff, from where it feeds a falaj network waiting below.
The route leads past a couple of villages between Al Aqur and Saiq, but you’ll lose track of where exactly you are in between. It’s quite an organic mix of habitation and terraced gardens, so you’re not quite sure where one village ends and another begins, or
to whom a peripheral house or the gardens overlooking empty
space belong to. It doesn’t matter. Although long, the walk is easy, partly level, and sloping down in parts if you start from Aqur. And with so much to see and sniff at along the way, it isn’t really hiking at all – this is literally a stroll through a garden. How much time the
four kilometres will take you is more dependant on how much time you spend investigating its nooks and crannies than how fast you can walk.
Indeed, the path is rated easy, at Grade One, officially at two hours, one way. You can easily take three or a little more if you
stop for photographs, water and a quick bite, so might find yourself in the village of Ash Shirayjah, as we did, after a couple of hours – alarmingly only halfway through the walk as the crow flies. This
worried us a bit as we stood in the main square, bathed in sunlight by now, but the first half takes longer because it goes through
the tangle of vegetation and mountain slopes, while the second half is plain sailing.
The latter part, after Shirayjah, is open and could be skipped altogether. You follow the road from this village for an extremely boring 15 minutes or so, and then turn off it on to a bleak, rocky plateau spread out in front.
This is where the original hike mapper must have run out of paint, for after a flag that seems to point left directly to the edge of a cliff, there’s no more direction, and you might wander aimlessly around looking for the next marker without success. Whatever you do, don’t head off where the edge meets the next plateau, further on to your left; instead, stick to the fence on your right and walk straight on till you rejoin the tarmac, and the next painted flag. Just over the slight hump is Saiq.
If you’re up to it you can always retrace your steps back to
your car, but after walking 3.5 hours and now grilling in the sun, we didn’t see much point in that, especially as much of the path would now be uphill. Instead, wait by the side of the road and hitch a ride back. Most vehicles will stop to offer you a lift, and the only ones that won’t will be either turning off before Aqur, or too full.
Resources
Trekking statistics
Distance: 4km
Duration: three hours, one way
Difficulty: easy going,
through villages
Equipment
Water, hat, sun protection, sturdy walking shoes. Each village along the way gives you a chance to get help, or to rejoin the main road
Waypoints
(GPS data in UTM)
Start at Al Aqur
40 Q 0568347, 2551631
Elevation: 1,948m
Water pool
40 Q 0567956, 2551819
Elevation: 1,927m
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