The Israel National Trail passes only in the pre ’67 borders, and so there are several parts missing in it. One of them is the Golan Heights – and for that specific reason a new trail has been created. Traveling for 130 Km all the way from the Hermon mountain to the fountain of Ein Taufic (near Hamat Gader), it gives the hiker a different experience that the INT – for the Golan Heights have a lot more water (and thus are much greener) than most of the regions in Israel. It took me five days and a bit to complete it.
I started the trail on March 10th, in Neve Ativ. I originally Planned to climb the Hermon to the starting point of the trail, but since that route passes through military zones, you have to have permission to hike there – and on that particular day, I wasn’t given one. And so I walked to Magdal Shams, and started the trail from that point.
The trails climbs to the Village of Nimrod, to give a nice lookout on Birkat-ram ( a large water reservoir near the Druze village of masade). Then it goes down to the reservoir, from there to Odem, then to Bukata (again, a Druze village – and this time the trail actually travels inside the village). I stopped about 4 km north of Merom golan, right before their water reservoir.
I must admit that this day was a bit disappointing. the entire day was on paved or gravel roads, walking from one village to another. True – one has a view towards Syria, and the general views are of green, but somehow I got the feeling of tamed nature, very much more than the one I encountered on the INT.
