Hitting Hatta hard

It has been a while since my last blog post – apologies for that. As Matt has shown with the excellent set of photos, this weekend we went off to Hatta in search of a good hike. And a good hike we found. We were walking for around six hours in total, and even managed to get some climbing/ clambering in as well.

The setting was brilliant. Again it was a different terrain to the desert, but the hard, stony surface tested out ankle and foot strength, which will be a major challenge in the desert. Hatta is a lot more interesting to walk in, instead of wandering into the horizon in a never ending landscape, there was a sense of intrigue at every corner.

As Jeff pointed out on the way back though, the intrigue faded when you came to the realisation that around all the corners was a fresh set of jagged rocks.

I decided to try out the skins for this walk. They worked really well, at first it was like wearing a personal sauna, but the moisture trapped by them then gives a satisfying cooling effect.
Also, having a hat and sunglasses helped a lot. Looking back, it was a pretty bad mistake wandering off into the desert for the training with no hat for shade and no sunglasses to prevent a permanent squint.

So all in all, it was a successful hike. My main problem with walking is the boredom, but with an Indiana Jones setting, some sharp rocks to climb over and a ridiculous hat, you can’t go wrong.