You could visit Israel as a tourist two dozen times and probably never go to this more than 8 square mile forest! How is there this huge forest in the middle an alleged “desert country”? It’s not the wettest forest in the world – though it does have a very strong smell of pine fresh scent. (Add your own lemon.)

Humidity is low unless you’re along the coast and there is, of course, plenty of shade. There aren’t, however, many marked trails … maybe there’s one?

Your best friends in this forest:
1) huge bottle of water; and
2) Google location history.

Trails

An unmarked trail … one of maybe hundreds

The lack of stimulation overflow in Israel has its pluses and minuses. Roads and shopping centers lack billboards and huge signs … and hikes lack directional indicators save for a few near the entrances. Also – no one is going to baby you here with, “walk here”, “don’t walk here”, “don’t step on the endangered turtle”, “don’t attack a hornet’s nest”. Do as you please. Walk wherever you want. The “trails” are basically a convenience anyway. Where the trail starts … where it goes … which way to go at the junction … nobody knows.

Roads

There are roads – some of which Waze thinks you should drive on while you pray you’ll make it out without a flat tire – and trails that come out of nowhere and sparse enough places in the woods to walk through without a trail anyway. Trails converge and split and extend in all sorts of directions, like a complicated ski slope except “down” is not the only ultimate direction to go. I have a pretty good sense of direction and this was still a tough one. Listening to the sounds of the highway kept me oriented until wind from a different direction decided to sound the same. Then it was time to pull out the trusty compass, GPS receiver, location tracker, and direction finder that we call a telephon chacham (smartphone).

This is a junction of somewhere between two and four trails … or just slight clearing in the woods to walk.

Waze is really only good for driving, not walking. Google maps has some, though not most, of the trails. It was even missing a fairly large road (because roads come in all sizes … some compacted enough to be safe for your tires – mostly those going to camp sites / picnic sites … and others up steep hills with large rocks and therebetween).

Waze says you can drive on this. The tree in the background is trying to tell you something.

Personally, I like to mosey about new places and explore just to see what I will find. Pro tip: that generally works only when traveling alone. That found me an extra hour of hiking to find my way back with the above-mentioned tools … which is fine if you’re good with that. I’m good with that.

Capture the Flag

During my last hour of hiking the idea came to me: This would be an amazing place for a modified game of capture the flag – I’m thinking teams of 50 … with three to five flags per team and multiple jails. That would be epic.

Some More Pictures

It’s a JNF forest – a lot of plaques dedicated to people and organizations who donated
Hidden in the woods.
There’s a fairly large cavity carved into the rock here. Enough for a few people to lay down. Wonder who created this and why?
One of the playgrounds near one of the many campsites.
It’s a JNF forest – a lot of plaques dedicated to people and organizations who donated
Worry of fire, or just to keep the forest clean? It’s very clean.
One of the many campsites. They each of their own character as is typical of Israel.