We woke up at about 4:10 am to get breakfast at 4:30. I laid in bed for a while, then dragged myself up to get dressed. It was so cold in our room as we forgot to turn on the heat. Whoops. I woke up my roommates Rachel and Abby Glass, then went to the bathroom and put on socks and shoes. I finished packing up all of the things I would need for the day and grabbed my CamelBak. I headed down the ramp from the room and saw some of the boys, then turned and went to the area where people were gathering. I went to Lisa’s room to grab my breakfast bag. It had two slices of cheese, an egg, two rolls of bread, a cucumber, tomato, and a chocolate wafer bar. I put butter and cheese on the bread and ate the cucumber as well. There were some random sauces and jellies at the bottom of the bag. I didn’t eat the egg or tomato. There was a juice box which I saved, but when I tried it later, it tasted exactly like cough syrup, awful. We ate breakfast on the stairs waiting for the bus driver, then we got on and drove about 29 minutes to Masada.

We had a little less than an hour to hike Masada to make it for sunrise. I was worried about being too cold and Nitzan not having water, but I found my warm things and she got water. We started strong. When we got to the base of the hill, the real journey began. We started up the base as one big group then quickly separated into smaller ones. When we got to a stopping point about halfway, Aubrey asked the strongest to go to the back and help motivate them. It was very nice and I hope it helped. The pace was aggressive as we wanted to see the sunrise. At the foot of the trail, you could just barely make out the stones from the light. The ground was in shades of blue. As the sun rose, the ground transformed into browns and yellows.

Miriam kept me company, even though I was in pain and whiny. Her company made the hike much easier. I was glad but frustrated for Miriam as I felt like I was holding her back. She didn’t have a problem with the trail but also found it challenging. We kept moving at a good clip, staying at the middle speed. As we climbed, my right shoulder started to ache, so I tried shifting around the weight which didn’t help. In the end, I just sucked it up. My arch hurt but not anything like before. We climbed and talked some, but just a little as I was so out of breath, it was a great distraction.

The stairs were killer. As we climbed higher and higher, the view got scarier and scarier, as I am not a fan of heights. I kept my eyes on the rocks below my feet. The edge moved in. Towards the final bit, the stairs were so close to the edge that they had installed rails and prevention measures.The surrounding area was vast and scary. The edges were rocks going sharply down. Not a fun hill to run down. The view of the vast rolling mountain was crazy. You could see the many layers of rocks and the paths the water carved into the rock. We made it most of the way up by the time the sun begin to peek out. The sun was a lovely pink color. It didn’t appear to fully rise as the clouds and mountains shrouded the sun.  We listened to the Lion King as we completed the second to final part. We made good time but I think we missed the sunrise.The drive to finish and not fall behind was what kept me going. I knew that I would be proud when I got to the top. I wanted to be proud of myself.

I struggled to breathe and walk. As we kept moving, I drank water, but the speed made it harder.I was aching and exhausted. I felt though if I stopped for too long I would faint. I had a very hard time focusing my eyes. It was so hard to breathe. The weather was warm at the bottom and as we climbed, but the top was extremely windy. It was so worth it in the end. I felt unbelievably proud of myself and everyone else.

We spent about 6 hours at the top. We explored the area. We started at the old synagogue.We took pictures then went to the Zealot synagogue and prayed for a bit. It was wonderful to hear the songs and prayers from the group. Afterwards we went and talked about Harid. We talked about the challenges of establishing a settlement on the top of a desert mountain, how they got water and food up. They created an aqueduct that fills when the valley floods and then they had slaves carry the rest of the way up. They had lots of water. With it they created fountains and Hellenistic bathhouses. We toured the Northern palace where much of this things were. We talked about the Hellenistic life and also the political atmosphere of the time.

We also talked about the history of the Zealots and the fall of them. We talked about how they got to the top of Masada, what their life there was and what happened in the end. It was really cool to learn about them. We screamed off the edge “ Masada will never fall again.”