Coming up: ALYN Heels of Love

Getting Ready

Get hiking boots!
Is this going to be hard?

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Another successful Heels of Love Hike for the ALYN Children's Rehabilitation Hospital.

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This was my fourth year on the ALYN hike - this year we were about 45 hikers, divided between the "Scenic" and "Challenge" routes. I was seriously debating which group to walk with on Wednesday - 20km or 9km.  The point that tipped the scales was that the 20km hike would be a section of the Israel trail, and I really liked the idea of getting started on a 1000km goal like that.  Some hike it straight in 6-12 weeks.  There are others who hike one day a month and it takes about 5 years. 20km sounded like a lot, but I decided that since my increased running schedule went well the week before, and because I was coming from a women's retreat earlier that week (I was a Tai Chi instructor there) so I would be well rested - I was up for it. Our 12th grader had a school performance Tuesday night, so I drove down from Jerusalem to Machtesh Ramon (Ramon Crater) on my own.  I pulled into the campsite at midnight, brushed my teeth, unrolled my sleeping bag into the empty ten
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Hearing from Parents of ALYN

Each evening, after a long day of hiking, we get to sit around the campfire and hear stories about who we are helping. This year, we had two ALYN parents on the hike and they shared some of their stories.  One mother told us about her book - about a superhero in a wheelchair - which she wrote to help normalize being in a wheelchair.  After she published it, she distributed copies within the community and her son went from being somewhat outcast into a superstar.  (https://www.wheellustratedtales.com) Another parent, a father, talked about how nausea quickly brought them to discover their son's brain tumor.  And after the operation he suffered from a complication which makes motor skills start from zero (I don't remember the name) - bringing the parent-sleeping-in-hospital estimate up from an impossible 3 weeks to something like 1.5 years.  But his son speaks again, and they continued with daily hospital outpatient work to help him regain mobility and ability in many many areas.
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After: ALYN Heels of Love Hike, part 3

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Nothing like a fresh breakfast Fresh scrambled eggs, whole wheat bread, tea, a little granola with soy milk - so simple, so delicious. I was debating whether to go with the "tougher" group today, on the one hand I figured physically it should be fine for me, on the other do they have things as scary as climbing Har Shlomo in wind and rain planned again for today (they didn't plan weather of course, but are the climbs similarly difficult to look at?  Later Elad enlightened me that the fear factor is often limited and very specific - for one it's going up, for another down, for another ladders....) The decision was made partly by having a small cold and headache the day before, partly by waking up on the later side, and especially by the preference to linger over a cup of tea versus rush out for the earlier group. Pack up and out But not much time to linger anyway, pack up the night bags to be sent ahead for the end, fill up waters, etc.  Today I wasn't car
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