Around a dozen hikers from an environmental organization made a trip to the peak of Mount Bradost in Erbil province on December 24 as a blizzard raged around them, Rudaw reports.
Mahdi Faraj, a member of the Nian Organization for Environmental Protection, told the media that they began hiking on the mountain in the early hours of Friday. This is the first significant snowfall in the Kurdistan region, covering most of the mountainous reign in snow. Mount Bradost is over 2,000 meters above sea level.
“We encountered too much hardship when climbing the mountain. There was a blizzard, so we got lost. We finally found our way to the top of the mountain where around 50 centimeters of snow had fallen,” Faraj added. The Bradost Mountain is a unique habitat, and in this wintery weather, trees were frozen like crystals.
Other groups attempted to ascend the mountain, but they were not well equipped, so they gave up, Faraj added.
***
Our columnist advises everybody to beware of the Christmas tree. “My conscious is safe, I’m going home with the natural scent of a pine tree, and everyone is happy,” writes Kimberley Monges here.
