High hopes

摘要

We were a mixed group of walkers of varying ages and backgrounds setting out from a scented cedar grove high in the Lebanese mountains. Below, the valleys rang with the song of nightingales, newly arrived from their spring migration from Africa, and, above, the first swifts of the year arched across the cloudless blue sky. Gilbert Mouhkeiber, a resourceful mountaineer and long-distance hiker shouldered his pack.'We have 25 kilometres h'i cover today,' he said. 'Let's get going.' He, along with several other members f the group, had spent the past year I rospecting and laying out the Lebanon Mountain Trail, which now extends north-iouth across the country for 350 kilometres at f'titudes of between 1,400 and 2,100 metres.