Atop Masada
July 9th, 2010 | 
Author: Atop Masada
We approached through what looked like a lunar landscape with the traditional ruins of Sodom and Gomorrah lying off to our left. I looked up at the huge shiplike mountain we were approaching and could make out the outlines of the northern palace terrace with some of the ruins on the flat summit above. I could even see people wandering around up there. Watching the tiny cable cars inch up one side of the mountain and watching people come and go on the serpent path on the other side I wondered if I would have the nerve to make it to the top.
There was little time to think about it. …When our driver parked the sherut we ran hoping to catch the next cable car up. Peter one of the Englishmen and I bought oneway tickets hoping to take the serpent path down.
We made the next car. Minutes later we were dangling over the chasm on our way up the mountain. … It was like being in a bus at rush hour but in midair.
At the upper cable car station I gotout and surveyed the rest of the way to the top. It was not a long distance…but it was not encouraging to look at. …A railed pathway led horizontally along the cliff face and ended in metal stairs fastened to the rock. The stairs too were protected by a railing. Yet they were daunting to a person who feared heights. And I feared everything.
Still going back was just as daunting; and I could not go back to America and say I had not been on Masada. I forged ahead on the cliffside path and stairs. Once on the stairs I even managed to look down and see the outlines of the old Roman General Silva’s camp. To my surprise I found myself leaning over the railing and taking a picture of it. Where I lived Roman camps to photograph were not encountered every day.
And suddenly there I was atop Masada.
About the writer: JOAN CAMPION is a historian and memoirist whose works include “In The Lion’s Mouth: Gisi Fleischmann and the Jewish Fight for Survival.” Most recently she has published “Jerusalem Journal: Adventures In A Desert Landscape.” She is fond of cats and of all kinds of music especially opera. More information can be found at http://authortree.com/joancampion
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