Muscat: Oman's Al Hajar Mountain range has received snow as temperature dipped in the country drastically following winter rains in the last couple of days.
Mountains in both Jabal Akhdar and Jabal Shams were covered with snow as campers woke up early in the morning on Tuesday.
"We were camping at Upper Sayq Plateau and woke up to see snow all around our tent at around 6.30am," Briton Mandy Hendry told Gulf News on her return to Muscat.
Hendry family was camping at Jabal Akhdhar with some visitors from Britain. "It was gorgeous surprise for our ‘white Christmas' in Oman," said the English woman.
She confessed that the family — husband Steven, and sons Kris, 15, and Michael, 6 — were ill prepared for the pleasant surprise. "Normally in Europe we go prepared for such trip in winter but here we had carried only sweat shirts and no gloves, hats or warmer cloths," she said, adding that fortunately they had carried a weather-proof tent.
"We reckon that temperature was -2 degree Celsius when we woke up and could have been even cooler at night," she said.
She said that they were lucky to see snow in Oman although some of the long-time residents hadn't experienced something like that. "My younger son was keen to go home this Christmas as he has heard a lot about snow but hadn't experience in the last three years, he was delighted," she said.
Her son was last in England during winter (snow time) when he was three, "he doesn't remember anything about snow so he was thrilled."
Talking about the difference in snow here and in England, Mandy said that here the snow was powdery unlike slushy snow in England. "It was very much snow," she reiterated.
Kownain Holalkere, Marketing Manager with Jabal Shamsh Base Camp, said that the country's highest mountain range at over 10,000 feet was also enveloped in snow.
"This was my first ever snow experience," Holalkere, 26, told Gulf News on phone from Jabal Shams. The computer science diploma holder from India has been working at the Jabal Shams Base Camp for the last 18 months and has fallen in love with the mountain range that also has Oman's own spectacular Canyons.
