Hazards

You’re going to be out of doors a lot, so of course the weather is a hazard, but in winter it is generally mild and not threatening. You are unlikely to get heat stroke. You might get wet and cold, but are unlikely to freeze. However flash floods are a risk, especially as the rain may fall well upstream of you where it will be less obvious.

Other than humans there are no really dangerous animals. Although snakes and scorpions can occur, you’d be lucky to see one and unlucky to be injured by one (see my Scottish National Trail blog for a post about snakebite). 

In the whole trail I saw only one example of potentially dangerous munitions.

A rare example of munitions.

However there are areas which are heavily militarised and I guess unexploded ordnance could be a problem there. Best to stay well away and obviously you don’t go fiddling with anything even vaguely suspect.

The number one hazard is probably mismanaging your water in the desert, either by having insufficient to start with or by consuming much more than anticipated due to hot weather or by accidentally spilling some. For this reason I avoided using a single large water bladder and split my supplies into multiple water bottles. I carried a strategic reserve of one litre in a solid Nalgene bottle.

The number two hazard is probably an injury either due to twisting an ankle on rough ground or slipping while negotiating a tricky canyon section. Certainly a fall there couple prove at best uncomfortable or at worst fatal. But these places are rare.

Lastly there are one or two places where rockfall is something to which you should pay attention. An example of this might be when close to the base of a sea cliff rocks could easily come loose above.

Climate

When to go?
Looking at the weather patterns it is pretty simple to decide that summer is too hot. So that leaves Spring, Autumn and Winter. I chose to start in the first half of November and finished mid way through January. This included several rest days when I stayed with friends. 

Spring in the North when it is carpeted in flowers is said to be wonderful, but I wanted to avoid the time pressure of having to finish before the desert gets too hot.

Having chosen my timing it was a complete no-brainer to decide to walk North to South. Also this way saved the best bit for last.

What was the weather like?
With rare exceptions I found the winter weather perfect, and had difficulty understanding why there were’t more people (indeed any people) on the trail.

The coldest night by some distance was just before Mizpe Ramon (4ºC). The hottest day was probably somewhere in the north in the first few weeks and that would have been about 28ºC. However that day I was in relentless sun with not a lot of shade, so I needed more water.

Mostly it was no more than 22-25ºC and no colder than 9-12ºC. There were very few occasions with any rain. Only after I had finished did was there a period of wet weather in Jerusalem. There was even some snow in Bethlehem.