Hiking in the meandering gorges of Karkur Tahl up to the Spellbound Valley (Jebel Uweinat)

November 2003

Spellbound Valley

North of the complex branching system of Karkur Tahl there is another important unnamed wadi ending in Wadi Handal, just in correspondence of the famed rock-art site N.72 discovered by Winkler in 1932. Up to now this wadi was only partially explored because of the fossils waterfalls requiring good climbing skills. By studying satellite radar elevation data and 14 meters resolution satellite images we discovered that a secondary branch of Karur Tahl represents the secret door opened over this unnamed under-explored wadi. The crossing point is very high in the massif. There the small gorge of the northernmost meandering branch of Karkur Tahl suddenly abuts in the upper section of the unnamed valley, clearly featured by a bright flat bottom. This high plain is just few km before the wadi head located in Libyan territory. We provisionally named it the "Spellbound Valley". What we recognized on the satellite images is a fluvial-capture process by which a secondary branch of Karkur Tahl intercepted the northern independent watercourse. The upper part of the "Spellbound Valley" was completely unexplored; it is not represented even on the Russian maps, the most detailed maps available on the market. It is also poorly imaged by the old freely internet-downloadable Landsat images. So, after visiting the main section of Karkur Tahl, spending one day in taking pictures of the many rock art sites, the 25th November 2004 we organized a small party and started to climb the northernmost branch of Karkur Tahl, following our careful planned route with our GPS devices. We started walking in the dark at 4.00 a.m. At sunrise we were still climbing the lower section of the wadi we known it was explored by the Belgian archaeologists and more recently by our friend Andras Zboray. The scenery was fantastic and the hike superb. At 11.00 a.m. we passed the last explored point. Then we entered a narrow gorge where we started playing to be serious explorers. We had to find the way. Only barbary sheep footprints were in front of us. We had to climb some big boulders but it was possible to go further. So, we reached the "Spellbound Valley", our primary target. All along the way we found many green acacias and a lot of small birds we were not able to identify. In the above picture we present the last point we reached: it is the first picture ever published of this quiet and remote place that really deserve a name like “Spellbound Valley” but possibly in Arabic or better in Tebu idiom. Unfortunately, because of our time constrains, we had to turn back before reaching the valley head. Others will follow and complete our modest but satisfactorily "exploration" (20 km by foot from-to the parking site). Hopefully, the archaeologists will find in the next future something interesting also in the "Spellbound Valley" as it happened everywhere in the Jebel Uweinat (Gebel Auenat).