Around Monfort (Kziv)

Participants: Sergei, Issana, Bella, Misha, Ilya, Eran, Natasha

After 2 crazy days of student's festival in Technion, we woke up at 9 on Friday (personal masochistic achievement), and headed toward the Monfort fortress.
The cars arrangement took way too much time – we've started in Ovadon (or something), and left the second car in Abirim. Personal memo: _never_ try minor roads shortcuts on the north. The 20 km way took us more than a hour, the roads were narrow and bumpy, the locals didn't know the directions.. I have no idea why these paths are on the roadmap anyway. The way back we took the highway – twice more distance, twice less time.

After the reunion with our frustrated friends, we've started walking up the Kfir stream. There were actually small puddles in it! I had a small allergy attack, but it wasn't that terrible. Soon we've reached the Monfort fortress accent. Unfortunately, we didn't have the time to go up. I must notice, that the way till Monfort wasn't that remarkable, especially comparing to the upper part of the stream, which is much more attractive (and actually has a stream of water in it). So for future walks, the classical path from Hila down to the stream via Monfort will probably be a better choice.

I'll make a remark #1 here – once, in the pre bloging era, we've done a hike in this area, starting from Monfort, and we went down in the [unmarked] watercourse just on the left to the red path, which was really beautiful.
We've continued to the pools, and had our lunch a bit before them. There where many fish in the small pool we were in, that tried to eat us. Eran told it's actually a healthy skin treatment that they do, but apparently, that's exactly a phobia #1 of Isasna. (Actually, Issana's phobias are also a motive in this trip :) ). Somehow, Issana's twisted perception took over me, and I wasn't easy till I took my legs out of the water.
The real pools are of course much more beautiful, and there were no people there, but you can never know. We continued with the path, which is pretty annoyingly jumping from one stream side to the other, without any obvious purpose. Which might be actually fun, if you are trying to impress a 13 years old girl which is afraid to get wet, but as we were a bit in a hurry, the strange zigzags felt like an overused joke.
When we arrived to Ein Tamir spring, we found a family of local Christian Arabs there, which delighted us with fruits they had, and told an interesting story, of how the women of their village were climbing each day up the mountain, to bring water from the spring.
One more remark – on that previous trip, I remember we've been running out of time, and were climbing the very same accent the guy was talking about. I remember it as a horrible experience – the steep accent, actually grabbing on the trees on the way up, jackals' yowls, sunset.. And then, after we finally got up the mountain, we felt frighten of being so close to Arab's village we took the knifes and the forks we had and put them in our pockets, feeling real relief reaching Jewish Hila. Well, we were young and stupid and didn't know anything :)
Anyhow, the guy told, that if we enter the cave the water come out of, we can walk deep into the mountain, and reach the origin underground pond. We didn't have a lot of time, but the temptation was too great, so we ignored the "access forbidden" sign, took our shoes off, and entered the cave, leaving the girls to watch the bags. It was AWSOME – reminding the joyful days of the school trips; crawling through the narrow cave, half body in water, lighting our way with cellphones – such an adventure! The path was pretty long, I estimate it to be several dozens meters length. After we came out, the girls got in, led by Misha. But they didn't get too deep inside – suddenly a horrible shout sound, and they rushed out; Issana noticed a spider.
We didn't have much time left, and we hurried our way up to Abirim. Too shame we didn't had more time to make stops on our way - this is definitely the way to leave the value: the accent is not too steep, and it presents some beautiful views. We were up just on time – in 20 minutes it was dark. We didn't even go to the Abirim fortress, and headed strait to the cars.
This trip we did it the right way – carrying little food, coming hungry to the cars. Personal memo #2 : When you do the trip _the right way_ make sure there is FOOD in the end, not just chewing gums!! We met all together in my place. Apparently, that is not an easy task to order a pizza in Haifa on Friday night – every exotic restaurant is open, but not even one pizzeria. So there was a very unpleasant delay with the food, but finally, we all eat and laughed.
And then they finally have gone home.
Don't get me wrong. I LOVE my friends, and they ALL are always more than welcome in my humble residence, but after 3 days of constant partying, drinking, eating and generally having a good time, I was really tired, and my apartment was a total mess, so the sudden quiet couldn't be more appreciated :)

Nahal Oren & Nahal Galim

Participants: Misha Zab, Dima Potekhin, Ilya Surdin.

Last Wednesday after a quick decision a couple of days before, and decision upon the area of travel the night before, we set to go out around 7am to the Carmel area. After a short delay in the time of embarking upon our way towards the region, we took Lev to his base, so he can give us the precious path-marking map(מפת סימון שבילים). Thus going all set-up north. There we decided in general terms on our itinerary, and sent Misha to find some lost sleep time, which he did quite successfully.
We shortly arrived at our parking point, Oren junction, and organized for going out. The clock showed 10:30 and all was well in the region. Actually, we parked at a place which looks likes it is going to be an organized park and people will have to pay for entrance some day, but for now it was still for free and had some water spots for drinking, and had beautiful olive trees growing around.

Index:
Purple solid line - walking upon a road
Purple "cat's paw" - walking upon a path, or other way
Red solid line - Hitched a ride, aren't we lucky.

There we found the Israel-Path which goes nearby, and soon Nahal Oren upon which we set to go, until decision otherwise, it also coincided with the blue trail. The Nahal is very green and pretty, with some annoying traces of human presence.

Around the place where the Nahal crosses the road from North to South, we went upon the road did a survey of the surroundings and checked our place of being. Then continuing on our way. From that point on, we met quite a lot of school kids going in the other direction, probably because in the end of this section there was an ascent which they didn't want to go up, but preferred the other direction which didn't present any technical difficulties, but offered the same wonderful view. We went on the Red and Green paths in the beginning, and then continued on the blue path which followed the Nahal. Somewhere in the area we went up a hill and discovered a building which had a big sign on it saying "Holy Place" and a 4 colored flag. We resolved not to find out what it is, and return to the track. This part was handsome as well, and offered a lot of views of hills full of trees and pretty ways of different kinds of trees mingling among themselves, and yet staying in groups with quite well defined borders, except some spies here and there moving slyly in the rows of the opponent.
The end of that part of our adventure was after arriving at Damun Junction, where we had to walk about 100 meters on the road to get the spot where the path of Nahal Galim began. Some of us has already tried their strength upon that path, and one has even done it several times. It's an easy, pretty and fun part, which takes around 2 hours, and is recommended if you're in the area and have a couple of light hours to spare. Misha said we can go on the path or go along the Nahal itself, and after a short assessment of time and what we've completed, it was decided to do the marked path, as we have went along the Nahalim already in the beginning of our program. Also, we didn't wanna get stuck along the way in the dark.
After doing this forested descent we arrived at Tirat ha-Carmel, which is a mixed Jew-Arab
town, where they live in harmony. Unlike most mixed towns where there is a Jewish area and Arab area, there everyone lives together, and it fills you with some hope of the future and better times. There we were lucky in hitching a ride, with a minivan which was going to Atlit, and brought us almost to our car itself! It was a very good ending for the trekking as we have considered taking a bus from that point to save us some time.(Driver, if you're reading this: Thank you very much!)
Listening to our rumbling bellies, as we washed strategic parts of our bodies at the place we parked the car, we agreed to go and satisfy some of that hunger at Usefia, a Druze town nearby, which has excellent "restaurant" and has featured several of the previous posts.(It is located in front of the town hall, and I promise to remember the name of it, next time we're there).
From there we went all happily satiated, happy and a little tired, home.

P.S. Nahal is Hebrew for stream, brook. Usually they don't feature water, unless there is some serious raining going on. None featured it this time.

EOP,
Surd.

Karbolet Haririm - Sapir

Participants: srj,zbz,c,garz,Dan,Bella,Issana

A long time recommended trek, beautiful, various attractions.

The only minus of this trek is the car logistics - to get a car from the starting point to the finishing is taking more than a hour..

I think I'll stop publishing maps, because of the new great service of http://www.mapa.co.il

The starting point is on this map (You better put a topographic layer on :) )

Parking: from rd. 40 turn to a red path "nahal afor", turn left to the black path on the T junction, there's some beduin han to leave the car in.

We've actually started going after noon, splitted to three parts - Bella, Issana and Yossi started going towards the Karbolet Harirrim from "Han Saaronim", Dan and Anton were waiting with the bags in the Han, while me and misha took the car to the parking

We all met again for a late launch only at the observation point of the Karbolet. It was pretty hot (no way it was 26 as promissed..). I just love this observation, from the southern wall of the crater, with a view upon Hardon mt. Last time I was there with c,lev,vova and boaz , we turned back with a feeling that we have to complete it some day.

We stopped for the night just before the night parking, which is on the intersection of the blue and the red pathes, between the two waterfalls, just about here . Now, I know that's not a nice thing to do ecologically (it's actually close to water sources and is distrupting the animals), but Issana started feeling dizzy, and I didn't want her to go down the second waterfall this way.

In the night we've found we brought damn too much food. Next time there'll be a strict control over food we carry for 2 days! But, it was fun for sure (KINUA).

On the second day, Dan did a cut via an umarked path, which he told to be hard, but quick (and that's meaning HARD, from what I've seen of Dan :) )

This day was even hotter (well, we were going down towards BIKAA..), and we actually finished without water reservs.. Not something critical but not pleasent at all.. Need to be more carefull with hot days - less food and coffee, and more water.

On the way , we've seen these amazing SDAKIM in the ground - they where some 20 meters deep, worth seeing.

But the big surprize we had when we came to Sapir: some guy that looked like junky-BRASLEV-MITNAHEL combination asked us where we come from, and said something like "Hmm, you must be full of sweat and dirt after these 2 days! Go to our LAKE then! I swam there yesterday, and I will go tomorrow probably. Just around the school.. Yes, yes, with trees and grass and everything. Go, go!"

Now this was a message, and he was the messenger :)

After cleaning and refreshing, we've gone to Moa restaurant. Frankly, we must agree that the MAAHAL we've been to in Pesah (just nearby) was much better

One last pic I must post for future generartions:

Issana's pics:
http://picasaweb.google.com/bella.vaks/sKWmKK
Dan's pics:
http://www.nevela.com/gallery2/v/easternramon/