Shvilist

Woke up at Meitzar stream, it took me about three hours to reach EinTaufik, where the trail ends. The route goes from the stream to Mevo Hama, and then turns south and goes along the cliff overlooking the Kinneret – and again, unfortunately, I couldn’t enjoy it too much because the visibility was poor.

Reaching the end of the trail, I carried on all the way to the hot springs of Hammat Gader – for a bath after a full week without a shower….

Thus I finished the Golan Heights Trail. I must admit that it didn’t meet my expectations – for the Israel National Trail was so much better:
a. The markings – The GHT is poorly marked at certain areas, to the point where many hikers get lost
(as an anecdote it occurred to me that when someone says ‘I’m lost’ he means ‘I’m not where I wanted to be – I don’t know where am I’. The Golan Heights translation to the previous sentence is – ‘I’m in the middle of a MINE FIELD and I don’t know WHICH ONE’… … true, there are many mine fields in the Golan Heights, but they are all clearly marked and fenced.
b. There are way too many passages – you walk on a boring 4×4 road, o n your way to an interesting site. Obviously you had some of those on the INT, but the ratio was much better. If I had to estimate, I’d say between 40 and 60 percent (!!!) of the GHT is expandable.
c. As along the INT, there are many historical sites along the GHT – but unfortunately these sites lack even the simple road sign to explain the name of the site or what exactly  is it you’re looking at.

Hiking the GHT, you can feel the military presence in the area. There are many military bases, many mine fields. Tanks could be found along the way (probably old ones – but I don’t really know all that much about ‘em to know. I can hardly tell the Syrian Tanks from our own…). The Hermon is the meeting place of Syria, Lebanon and Israel – and Both Syria and Lebanon are hostile countries. The southern end of the heights meet Jordan. And so I believe that hiking the trail is important to every Israeli – but if I had to rank it as nothing more than a hiking trail (and I do try to keep this blog focused on nothing more than the trails, and not go into politics or personal encounters) I would rank it as an “ok” one – say 5or 6 out of 10 (the INT I would rank about 9.5, more than any other trail I ever hiked)

Woke up in the middle of the wadi, I was faced by what could have been the most beautiful day of the hike, if the visibility wasn’t bad. As it were, I immensely enjoyed the first part – climbing out of Semech wadi.

After getting out of the wadi of Semech stream, the trail does a tiny loop, descending an unnamed wadi and climbing into the ruins of Uvenish, which was pretty much a waste of time – I didn’t see any special flowers (though the entire loop is supposed to be due to some flower which blossoms there).

The trail continues on a fairly easy route, overlooking the Kinneret lake. unfortunately for me, the visibility was poor, so I didn’t enjoy it all that much. I did, however, saw a hawk hunting. The trail reaches and enters Meitzar stream, and I took the time to go to the waterfall (not really worth it – there were hardly any water n the stream) and camped for the night in the parking lot of the waterfall.

I started the day with a side trail : from Daliyot camping site to the ancient city of Gamla – about 3 km, fairly easy walk along the cliffs of Daliyot stream. Looking at the sky along the way, one is able to see the famous eagles of Gamla soaring. I was even more fortunate – I had the chance to see another wild boar on the way.

The ancient city of Gamla was fortified by Josephus Flavious in 66, during the great revolt and was captured by Vespasian in 67, after a several weeks long siege.
Being there, I found that quite surprising. True – there’s only a single path leading to the city (quite like in Masada), but the city is surrounded by higher hills, which are quite flat (the entire region has many cliffs in it – see pic below), and so the Romans could have places artillery (ballistrae and catapults) and bombard the city, as I’m sure they did on their second attempt. On the first, much like in Masada, They attempted to build a ramp and took heavy casualties, which explains their ruthlessness when they did capture the city (pretty much everyone was slaughtered or jumped to his death).

From the ruins I hitched back to Daliyot camp site, and at about noon I started hiking the GHT again.

The trail goes southward to Semech reservoir and from the reservoir – into Semech stream. It wasn’t easy finding the trail in the thick growth, but later it connects to an easy to walk, 4×4 trail.
Semech stream is, to my humble opinion, one of the most beautiful places along the GHT, outranked only by the trail from Bental to Ein Zivan (see Day 2 of the GHT ).
I spend the night inside the wadi, at the lowest point of  the trail (sea level. The altitude I started from was approx. 1 km above the sea level)

(took place on March 23rd). If I had to choose which day of the GHT to skip, this would be the day. Don’t get me wrong – there were several nice parts along the way, but most of it was….. well let’s just say that if it wasn’t a part of a longer trail, I probably would never have hiked it. The trail was very easy one, moving from one plowed field to another, walking along paved roads.

Still, I have to say that the abundance of water was remarkable – there aren’t many places in Israel where the roads themselves are muddy a month after the last rain.

The route heads south from Alonei Habashan, along paved roads (very easy walk). For no apparent  reason it turns east, and reaches the ruins of Hushania. This place is a historical site, and the ruins are about 2000 years old, but unfortunately there are no signs on site, and so you don’t really know what you’re looking at (except the rubble). As a matter of fact, this is very characteristic : there are several historic (maybe even pre-historic) sites on the golan heights, and you have full access to (almost) all of them – but without any guide, you will see nothing but stones and rubble. The one exception is Gamla, which I visited the following day – but I’m getting ahead of myself.

From Hushania, along an unnamed stream, you walk to Peham fountains – which are a true gem in the surrounding. Then you head southward, and walk to Daliyot reservoir, and – along Daliyot stream – to Daliyot camp site, where I stopped for the night.

(This trip was on March 11th). To any of you who noticed – I am not that thrilled about the first day of this trail. True, there are some beautiful parts but they are relatively short compared to the long, quite boring road the trail travel on.

The second day was different however. Much more nature sceneries, with some tourist attractions on the way – I really got the feeling of hiking abroad (the feeling of Ireland kept coming to my mind). I started by reaching the Bental reservoir – which is actually a small lake in Israeli terms. Then you climb Mount Bental for a spectacular view of the surrounding (It was a clear and beautiful day, and I was able to see Damascus, about 80 Km away). After descending the mountain, the trail encircles mount Avital – and this is one of the most beautiful parts of the trail. You walk along multi-coloured grove (the outskirts of Odem forest) and some open fields -full of flowers. I saw several turtles and an Ibex over there. This beautiful part ends at Ein Zivan, and I would definitely recommend on hiking it as an easy day hike (on the right season, if possible)

From that point, the trail goes westward, towards Bney Rasan nount. and the wind mills – the only wind mills in Israel. The road to the mountain is quite boring, unfortunately, but on the mountain itself I saw a wild Boar (I think it was a fully grown one – it was really huge. It didn’t hear me approaching due to the noise the mills were producing, so I got quite close before it ran away).

The trail continues, through a very nice grove, to mount.  Hozek , where you can see large sternbergias (see here for the Hebrew site with some pics) blossoming- if you’ll get there in September or October. As it were, it was a very nice walk. I stopped for the night right after descending the mountain.

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.