Syrian Arab News Agency S A N A
Related Articles
Lattakia, SANA – In the lap of nature and in the midst of night, hikers of the Syrian Exploration and Documentation Society started on Monday a two-day exploration trip in the countryside of al-Qerdaha in the coastal province of Lattakia.
The hike, dubbed “Ghoul”, was classified as being of the 4th degree of the Society’s 6-degree difficulty rate, fathoming out an area west of the coastal mountains in northwestern Syria.
After dividing themselves into groups, named after animals to their liking, the 1220 participants, who were volunteers from Aleppo, Damascus, Tartous and Lattakia, set off early morning going down deep into a valley and through al-Dairouneh riverbed.
The “amphibious” hike, as it was called, took its way down southwest and northwest at a 680-460 m degree slope and up 2 km to the mountain’s top at a 65 degree slope angle.
Overall, the trip course totaled 6 km, according to Khaled Nweilat, leader of the activities carried out by the Society’s teams.
Citing some of the signs of difficulty the hikers were faced with, Nweilati told SANA that temperature dropped to 11 °C at the outset of the hike and further down to 8 °C at its end, when night had already fallen.
He went on saying that water temperature was 2 °C, while the wind speed amounted to 12 km per hour. Heavy rainfall poured in the evening hours.
Against the drop of those conditions, Nweilati stressed that hikers did not have their enthusiasm abated at all. On the contrary, “they grew more zealous and excited, coming to feel an enlivening sense of a real adventure.”
Speaking of the exploration-related objectives, Nweilati said the hikers recognized soil biodiversity in the region, varying between rocky, limestone, and fertile nitrogen-rich soils.
A wide array of plants, conifers and perennial trees was documented, including sycamore, oak, pine, walnut, chestnut, wild thyme and juniper, in addition to various sorts of mushrooms.
Animals also figured throughout the course of the exploration trip as a variety of them was seen and documented by the hikers. Most notable among those were wild salamanders, wild owls and pine beetles. A trace believed to be for a wild lynx was also detected in the area.
The amphibious hike was the second of the fourth round by teams of the Damascus-based Syrian Exploration and Documentation Society in 2014.
Last September, a hiking trip in Wadi al-Zahab (the Valley of Gold) in Tartous was organized where hikers, eager to explore and document a place that has not been tracked down being not listed on references, including on internet, and unfortunately unknown for many Syrians, walked a long way to finally reach an archeological monument dating back to the 11 century D.C..
The target was namely Alkahef Castle (The Cave Castle), which lies on top of a mountain overlooking the deep valley to the north of al-Shiekh Badr area in the countryside of the coastal province.
The Exploration and Documentation Society was established in 2008 with the aim of exploring and documenting landmark natural, historical and archeological sites in the country and giving its members and volunteers firsthand experience with nature.
