Al Mazarah trail of Misfat Al Abriyyin
Misfat Al Abbriyin is an absolute stunner - a little mountain village without car traffic, hidden among lush plantations and cooled by the extensive falaj system. It is 2.5 hours drive from Muscat, little too far for a day trip but the village itself is worth for a weekend visit.
First time we visited the village in 2016 and clearly a lot happened since then. We saw pictures on the wall in the Old House guesthouse of Prince Charles visiting and having a chat in the dining area where you get breakfast. We saw two western style cafés which were new to us - one in the new part and one in the old (Rogan Cafe). We did not try them but they looked very nice. There are few guest houses to choose from, the oldest one is Misfah Old House - we stayed here before (back in 2016 this was the only one), the rooms are clean and food is nice. If you can, ask for the balcony room - the view from the huge terrace is to die for!
Misfat is perfect for relaxing, chilling, to slow down - and to hike. There is an easy village hike (perfect with toddlers as well) which connects the old and new parts of the village through the wadi bed - there is a fair amount of stairs to be climbed but the views compensate for the effort.
The w9 marked trail (with the usual tricolor flag, signs are inside the village) is a long trek following an ancient donkey path through the Western Hajar connecting Misfat to Balad Sayt or to Sharaf al Alamayn. These are challenging, possibly multi day treks which need preparation.
It is however worth to start off on the w9 to see more of the plantations and also to have a nice view of the village. At some point still within the village there is an option to go left or right - we took the right fork which followed the falaj and led to an impressive stone staircase which reconnected us back to w9. A couple of 100s meters later the w9 takes a sharp turn to the right crossing the wadi bed and climbing steadily up on the other side deep into the mountains - we however decided to follow the arrows and white dots leading inside the wadi towards Al Mazarah village and we did not regret it.
The wadi usually have water all year around with deeper pools good for swimming - we did see water but this winter has been very dry and the wadi was also quite dry. But water aside, the wadi was impressive! It did remind us of Snake Canyon - it is narrow with high walls, it turns and curves and dotted with pools. We have also found lots of interesting fossils and rock formations, even a little cave. The signs were very clear and useful to navigate through the huge boulders. At some point they lead us to the left side of the wadi, higher up on the side where the path became very narrow, exposed and wet from the dripping water pipe - this is where we decided to turn back as it simply seemed too dangerous to continue.
Back and forth from Misfah old house we walked just below 8km and it took us around 4 hours. The deeper you walk to the wadi the more challenging it becomes and there were some more exposed parts before we turned back as well - be careful, know your and your kids limit and make a good judgment when to turn back!
There is a good description of the full track here and Omantripper also did part of the trail - they did make it further than us.
Update 2023.01: it seems chains and metal steps had been installed for better safety. We are planning to return to check it out!
Location: You can check out this trail for coordinates - if you click on the flags you can see them. You have to keep to the left for the wadi we did - w9 is crossing the wadi and climbs the mountains. The farm of Al Mazarah is around here, we did not reach at when we hiked .
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