"Ditching" Responsibilities

While staring out the window during the beginning of our drive to Timna, I caught a glimpse of a large manmade feature next to the road. This filled me with excitement and glee, which probably made little sense to the other passengers in the car.

As we drove past, I saved the GPS point and snapped this quick photo out of the car window.

I was pretty confident that we had driven by an agricultural drainage ditch. But this was larger than any ditch I'd ever seen. 

Later that day, an investigation of satellite imagery confirmed that it was likely indeed a ditch. Whatever it was, it was big.

 

My interest in the ditch was due to its potential as a site for something very close to my heart: skateboarding. 

Drainage ditches are really fun to skate. A gently sloping concrete trough is an indescribably fun place to play around with a four-wheeled wooden toy. Good, skate-friendly ditches can be hard to find. The concrete needs to be smooth enough to roll on, and not filled with debris or water. The ditch should be both empty and dry, so any recent precipitation needs to have evaporated. It needs to be large and steep enough to gain some momentum while rolling on your wooden toy. 

Even if the "skateability factor" is high, the question of access still remains. Is the ditch behind closed gates or a barbed wire fence? (Can you climb over the gate? Is there a hole in the fence?) Is the spot a "bust" - i.e. are you likely to be hassled, fined, or arrested by security guards or scuba cops? And in this case: Is there any reason to be concerned if the ditch happens to be right next to the border between Israel and Jordan?

There was only one way to find out. I had to go back. 

One day shortly after the initial spotting, Karen and I went for a drive. We took the exit closest to the ditch; turns out there's a desalination plant right there. As a scientist researching desal, Karen may have had some mixed feelings about the spelling on the exit sign.

"Sign making intern, you had one job."

After driving down the off-ramp, we arrived at a T-intersection. 

The watching of birds and the crossing of borders sounded fun, but were of no benefit to our mission. 

We turned right onto a gravel path. 

Scenic views of the "Desallination Installation"

Suddenly, the expanse of concrete banks appeared. We had made it to the ditch!

The ditch in all of its gravel-filled glory. Karen for scale.

A cleaner, slightly steeper section of the ditch further downhill.

It wasn't perfect - there was plenty of gravel and larger rocks deposited throughout most of the ditch. Not enough to discourage me, though - I kicked stuff around to clear out a few different routes, and skated!

Dropping in and hoping my soft wheels absorb the shock of bumpy surprises.

Final assessment

Skateability: 7 

Potential for higher skateability if you bring supplies for large-scale gravel sweeping. Bigger and/or softer skate wheels will also help.

Accessibility: 8 

Easy entrance, no problems with authorities. If you are in a car, you can drive right up to it. Otherwise, the nearest bus stop is right before the highway turnoff.

*Bonus*

It turns out, we weren't the first people to visit the ditch with skateboarding in mind:

Eilat ditch footage begins around 7min30sec.