UltraHiking defined, and some ultra hikes to start with

Have you heard about Ultra Hiking ? Maybe not yet… I guess you heard about ‘Ultra Running’ and ‘Ultramarathon’ (any footrace longer than the traditional marathon length of 42.195 km) which have been with us for quite a while. So what about defining another way of covering long distances – by continuous walking ?

We may start defining an Ultra Hike as a continuous hike which significantly exceeds the average distance covered in a normal hiking day.

Usually a distance covered in a normal daylight hiking trip would be 15-25 kilometers, depending on technical difficulty from terrain features and cumulative ascend or descend. So any significantly longer hikes may regard as UltraHiking. Doing several sections or legs of treks continuously can be regarded as UltraHiking.

What is continuous? Well, this needs to be further defined, I suggest walking with only one break of several minutes per every 10 kilometers. 

I felt the need to start defining this kind of extreme-outdoors-hiking activity, after doing two ultrahikes and highly enjoying this kind of activity. Following many years of hiking an trekking all over the world, I thought it’s about time to push limits a bit. I chose areas at home to practice, and I found that Israel is a heaven for ultrahiking. It is compact yet highly diverse in landscapes and people and an endless variety of ultrahikes can be tailored based on your own wishes and/or marked hiking trails.

Starting point – Urban Outdoors

My starting point was Haifa Trail, a 73 kilometers trail defining urban outdoors. This trail zigzags along the city built on the steep Carmel ridge and switches between green forests and built-up areas every couple of Kilometers.
As the initiator of this trail, I was curious to hike it continuously and it became my first Ultra Hike.

I embarked on this hike with two friends, an set an aim to finish the whole trail within a day: 24 hours. Eventually we managed to complete it in 21.5 hours.

Doing an Ultra Hike in a city like Haifa is a great way to start Ultra Hiking. Since water and snacks are available throughout the trail, you only need to carry a tiny backpack, if any. Night time is not much of a problem, even though we planned our starting time such that we shall reach the forested trail sections during daylight. You climb lots of stairs on hilly Haifa (The cumulative elevation gain is 2.2km…) and tackle some technical parts in the forested wadis, but generally it is a very long kind of a ‘walk in the park’…

Ultra Hiking in the desert

Ultra Hiking in the urban-outdoors Mediterranean environment was highly motivative, so I decided to set to the real outdoors, and chose the wilderness of the Israeli deserts. I decided to cross a significant portion of the Negev desert in Makhtesh Ramon (Ramon Crater) area towards the Arava Rift Valley, based on marked dirt paths and hiking trails. Eventually I mostly followed the path of the Israel National Trail from Mitzpe Ramon to Sapir and squeezed what normally takes 3 hiking days into one continuous walk, covering a distance of approximately 56 kilometers in about 17.5 hours.

An ultra hike in the desert is a whole different story. You need to carry at least 1 liter of water per 10 Kilometers, and that is in the winter season or slightly before or after it (in the summer such activity in the desert should be avoided). Technical parts are more frequent (providing that you mostly take interesting foot paths rather than dirt jeep roads), you meet less people, and if you do it totally by yourself it is a truly challenging yet magical experience. Planning the schedule is critical, especially in nature reserve areas, where roaming during the night is limited to designated spots.

So these two ultra hikes are great by themselves and demonstrate two completely different UltraHiking experiences. After finishing each one of them I had to take a full day of rest recovering from sore muscles. Still these were amazing experiences and I smell a new hobby here. Who’s joining?

If you have done similar long continuous hikes, or have ideas how to further define UltraHiking and how to develop this activity, please comment!