Walking Up Wadi Madabah Above the Pools

Visitors to Wadi Madabah, deep in Wadi Agran, usually visit either the waterfall below the escarpment or the pools above. For this trip in 2004, we drove to the plain above the falls and hiked up the wadi bed deep into the mountains.

We were rewarded with some spectacular scenery capped by what we believe was the sighting of three tahrs as they scrambled over one of the high ridges.

We now refer to this walk as a 'three-tahr' event!

The "bedrock" is laced with intrusions	Some of the magnetite is more crystalline than other	In many places the wadi bed was a narrow channel with bedrock on either side	Water was flowing at many locations though it had not rained in months
Plants enjoy the shade and humidity in the wadi bed	This plant appears to be a healthy example of *Schweinfurthia imbricata*	The pools were filled with wadi fish, toads and insects	Will and Brigitte looking for different wildlife around a small pool
Several varieties of grass were recorded	The wadi bed is about 30 meters deep in this section	Footprints noted on a gravel bed; we believe these were tahr	The droppings nearby were similar to those of tahr
Some of these droppings were collected to confirm the presence of tahr	Deep into the mountains there was no sign of habitation	We believe this drainage system backs on to the wadi near the copper mines of Wadi Jizzi	Wadi beds were consistently deep
The wadi bed for most the walk consisted of large stones	A good example of the gravel plain draped over the 'bedrock'	A more conventional wadi bed with exposed rock on one side and conglomerate on the other	Like most Hajar mountain wadi beds, this one was constantly twisting
Unlike many wadi beds, this one was often wider the deeper we went inot the mountains	Footprints of a small mammal in the clay	Many rocks were fractured	An example of the moving water undercutting an exposed tip of 'bedrock'
Evidence of two waterfalls (left and above Geoff)	The layers of gravel deposit were visible in many places	Another stretch of wide wadi bed	Two side wadis left this sharp point of conglomerate
Erosion created many caves along the way	Will negotiating one of the narrowest sections	Stagnant water where the ponding occured on the impermiable bedrock	Smooth channel of a waterfal (left)
Many of the views were simply breathtaking	The wadi bed stones were large making walking challenging	Another example of exposed conglomerate	Salts left lines as the water eroded in this dry pool
Another view of 'rings' of salt on stones	A 'fotk' in the wadi bed	An example of bedrock meeting conglomerate in a vertical setting, as opposed to the more common horizontal setting	Will inspecting another stagnant pool
Geoff, Will and Brigitte	Geoff making his way through some especially large boulders	The largest of the caves discovered.jpg	The hikers are tiny figures inside the cave
At some points we had to climb over and around obstacles	The setting sun on the upper slopes	An excellent example of the fractured bedrock