Well here I am again, waiting at tzomet sheva at 6.29 for my two partners in crime. This summer walking is putting my friday sleep-ins at risk. I think for the first time in 5 months I arrived to start a walk without any real enthusiasm. The previous two days had been the hottest so far this summer season and today's forecast was for more of the same. Add to this the fact that I'd been playing, as usual, taxi driver at 12.30 that night for one of my 4 teenagers coming home from a party (yes, Yoav and Aviv are 12 and definitely teenagers). Yoni crawls out of his drug-dealer's Mercedes, stooped over, looking as tired as I feel, having gotten home at 1.30 after a Shalom Chanoch concert. Garry limps out of his car, carrying a basketball injury incurred when Lea whipped him round the court. Old men playing at being young men? Couple with all this a sort of feeling that is is an "in-between" leg, a chore that we had to do in order to move on. The last leg was fantastic, and the next leg is Nachal Amud, regarded as one of Israel's premier walks. So here we were, in the same empty carpark that we started in a month ago, with an attitude of "8 downhill kilometres, get in early, get out early, get it over and done with". This was despite the fact that it had been a month since we'd last met on the shvil (we'd met for hummous the previous week). What, between Koln, San Diego and Afulla we just couldn't find a free friday. It appears that between Shanghai, Sorrento and Afulla it's going to be another month before we find the next free friday.
After wandering around for a few minutes trying to find the right path down the hill, off we set. It quickly became obvious to us that we weren't the only ones that viewed this leg with that in-between, unenthusiastic attitude. The shvill painter also must have been in a rush to get to Nachal Amud. The signs weren't real consistent, blue marked paths turned into green and the orange, blue and white markings were faded and not always clearly leading one to the next. Up until now most of the trail had been well marked (with the exception of my missed trig point around the top of the Horn of Naphtali) but this wasn't the case here. And what wasn't done first time round didn't get a second chance. Mr Shvil-painter hasn't been back on this section for a while.
What also became obvious was that both Mr Shvil-painter and the 3 intrepid shvillers were wrong. This is a beautiful leg. Very different from the previous leg, which of course was different from that before, which was different from that before. We've done a fair bit of the walks so far in what passes as "mountains" in Israel, but each time the angle, direction and view changes. And we've only completed so far 5 legs, a total of about 75 km. Not every leg has to leave us with with our tongues hanging limply from our mouths and a feeling that we've answered the physical challenge presented to us. We've got plenty of time and kilometres ahead of us for that. Today we were strolling, and enjoying it too.
Last time, once we'd looped the mountain top we descended the mountain through forest and continued a large part of the way through forest. This side of the mountain led us in the direction of broad vistas ahead of us, with wide open expanses beside and in front of us. Having started early we avoided the heat and the haze. There was even an early morning mountain breeze that had faded by the time we finished. Yoni and Garry agreed that they prefer the wide open vista. I'm more of a deep canyon man myself though many of the views that we've had over these last 5 months may convince me otherwise.
The path was wide and easily followed, which as I just mentioned was just as well, since the markings weren't so clear. We passed through olive groves , orchrards of summer fruit and grape vines. I hesitate to call them vineyards because they're owned by Druzim who don't drink alcohol so I figure that these were table grapes. The rainbow colored Druze flags (not to be confused with the rainbow colored gay flags. What flag does a gay Druze fly?) fluttered in the wind and Druze villages dotted the mountain sides around us. Even though there was a lot of the dry summer grey and brown around us it had its own highland beauty. Its interesting seeing the views change not just because we're walking in a different area but because we're in a different season. This was especially true today. If we were to do this very same walk in December or April then it would be totally different, even if we walk down exactly the same path. What's interesting is the color reversal. In the winter and spring the countryside is green and lush. There is, however, little agriculture, so that the many fields and orchards around us are just plain brown earth. A lot of the trees are deciduous and leafless, the earth barren, waiting for spring planting and summer growth. And sure enough, now the opposite is the case: the countryside was brown and dried up, but the fields all have their summer crops, each crop a variation of green. Likewise the orchards are in full bloom, adding their own colours the scene. I always had it in my mind that the summer in Israel was just grey, dry and hazy, but today we saw that this just isn't the case. No doubt that in winter and spring it's more beautiful, but on this hot early summer's day the beauty was inescapable.
And if we're talking about summer then the sounds and smells are quite striking. A number of times we'd suddenly get a waft of some wild plant, the natural oils evaporaing into the air due to the heat. The wild sage was particularly noticeable. The crickets were also out in force. When you're out on a path and you don't have the distractions of traffic, cell-phones, work conversations and the like then the competition is between the crickets,various different birds' chirping and frogs' croaking. Whilst all were evident, the crickets won hands (wings?) down.
After wandering around for a few minutes trying to find the right path down the hill, off we set. It quickly became obvious to us that we weren't the only ones that viewed this leg with that in-between, unenthusiastic attitude. The shvill painter also must have been in a rush to get to Nachal Amud. The signs weren't real consistent, blue marked paths turned into green and the orange, blue and white markings were faded and not always clearly leading one to the next. Up until now most of the trail had been well marked (with the exception of my missed trig point around the top of the Horn of Naphtali) but this wasn't the case here. And what wasn't done first time round didn't get a second chance. Mr Shvil-painter hasn't been back on this section for a while.
What also became obvious was that both Mr Shvil-painter and the 3 intrepid shvillers were wrong. This is a beautiful leg. Very different from the previous leg, which of course was different from that before, which was different from that before. We've done a fair bit of the walks so far in what passes as "mountains" in Israel, but each time the angle, direction and view changes. And we've only completed so far 5 legs, a total of about 75 km. Not every leg has to leave us with with our tongues hanging limply from our mouths and a feeling that we've answered the physical challenge presented to us. We've got plenty of time and kilometres ahead of us for that. Today we were strolling, and enjoying it too.
Last time, once we'd looped the mountain top we descended the mountain through forest and continued a large part of the way through forest. This side of the mountain led us in the direction of broad vistas ahead of us, with wide open expanses beside and in front of us. Having started early we avoided the heat and the haze. There was even an early morning mountain breeze that had faded by the time we finished. Yoni and Garry agreed that they prefer the wide open vista. I'm more of a deep canyon man myself though many of the views that we've had over these last 5 months may convince me otherwise.
The path was wide and easily followed, which as I just mentioned was just as well, since the markings weren't so clear. We passed through olive groves , orchrards of summer fruit and grape vines. I hesitate to call them vineyards because they're owned by Druzim who don't drink alcohol so I figure that these were table grapes. The rainbow colored Druze flags (not to be confused with the rainbow colored gay flags. What flag does a gay Druze fly?) fluttered in the wind and Druze villages dotted the mountain sides around us. Even though there was a lot of the dry summer grey and brown around us it had its own highland beauty. Its interesting seeing the views change not just because we're walking in a different area but because we're in a different season. This was especially true today. If we were to do this very same walk in December or April then it would be totally different, even if we walk down exactly the same path. What's interesting is the color reversal. In the winter and spring the countryside is green and lush. There is, however, little agriculture, so that the many fields and orchards around us are just plain brown earth. A lot of the trees are deciduous and leafless, the earth barren, waiting for spring planting and summer growth. And sure enough, now the opposite is the case: the countryside was brown and dried up, but the fields all have their summer crops, each crop a variation of green. Likewise the orchards are in full bloom, adding their own colours the scene. I always had it in my mind that the summer in Israel was just grey, dry and hazy, but today we saw that this just isn't the case. No doubt that in winter and spring it's more beautiful, but on this hot early summer's day the beauty was inescapable.
And if we're talking about summer then the sounds and smells are quite striking. A number of times we'd suddenly get a waft of some wild plant, the natural oils evaporaing into the air due to the heat. The wild sage was particularly noticeable. The crickets were also out in force. When you're out on a path and you don't have the distractions of traffic, cell-phones, work conversations and the like then the competition is between the crickets,various different birds' chirping and frogs' croaking. Whilst all were evident, the crickets won hands (wings?) down.
If we needed further evidence that the seasons had changed then it was in the fact that we didn't see any other shvillers. We started our first walk in the end of winter. No shvillers, too cold. We did see some, even plenty, of shvillers during the spring high season, but no-one would be crazy enough to walk in 35 degree heat. Only us. Likewise the cows. The first few walks, lots of cows. Gradually the numbers dried up with the grass. I imagine that if we were to return here in the winter Yoni would have countless opportunities to go diving in the cow cuck. A month ago we got back to the starting point with a carpark full of cars and buses. Today we got back and the only addition to Yon's car was a strange looking VW combi-van with a man sitting outside it gaping into the haze.
Dotted through this area of the Galil are a number of hutas. A huta is a crevasse or a cavity in the ground, akin to a vertical cave. Some go down only ten or so metres, the deepest a hundred and fifty metres. There are 2 along this route. Their entrances are only a slit in the ground, a few metres long and a metre or so wide, so we missed the first one. I was anxious not to miss the second (I've previously mentioned what a pain the arse I can be when there's a certain feature that I want to see and we miss it) and luckily the second one was protected by a barrier so some dupe doesn't fall down it, so we couldn't really miss it. Garry and Yoni humored me patiantly but it was quite obvious that they couldn't have cared less if the huta was there or not or whether they'd seen it or not. I remarked that in my next life I would love to be a caver and how much I'd love to go down into the huta (you need heavy duty climbing\caving equipment. Its not like just walking into a cavern) They fascinate me and cater to my sense of adventure. Garry and Yoni were now humoring me a little less, horrified at the thought of walking around with a mad caveman. I was convinced that I was wandering around with a couple of chickens. I almost proved to them that I really was a caveman when, 300 metres before the car park at the end, we came upon a strange crypt-like concrete structure. At first we thought it was one of the burial sites dotted around the Galilee where supposed great Jews of the past are supposedly buried. Jews who believe in these things come and throw themselves on the mausoleum, believing that it will help them in some way or another. Blessed be the Believer. In any case no one was buried there, supposedly or not. It was the covering of a dry spring. I imagine in the winter and spring there is water there but being the end of June, no water. The entrance to the spring was covered by a heavy grate, partially open. I wanted to enter though this partially opened grate and climb down the metal wrungs into the spring below. Once again Yoni and Garry humoured me, or at least were willing for me to live out my caveman fantasies whilst they walked on to the car. As they walked off leaving me to manoeuvre my way into the crypt, I realised that getting myself in was going to be difficult, but getting out would have demanded acrobatics that even when I was younger, lighter and more nimble (Who am I kidding? light and nimble were never my fortes) would have proven a challenge and that if I slipped then it would indeed turn out to be my mausoleum, where future shvillers would come and pay hommage. So I caught up with my partners with my caving desires yet to be realised.
As we approached the car we had to decide what to do next time. As I've mentioned already, Nachal Amud is one of Israel's premier walking paths, but doing it in the summer seemed to us a "waste" of a beautiful walk. And its long and hot. And Yoni and I are traumatised about doing Nachal Amud in the summer. 20 years ago we walked Nachal Amud in late July. Between the two of us we took one small 500 cc bottle of water, which, needless to say, was not enough. We crawled out, baked and dried and called Favel Search and Rescue to come scrape us off the bitumen. We'll wait till the first rain, or at least till the temperature drops into the 20's to do this one . But there is a bit of a problem here. Having explained in a perfectly logical manner why we shouldn't do Nachal Amud in late july, I don't like chopping and changing too much, even though we have already, in only 5 legs, played with both the order and the direction. I view Shvill Yisrael as a join-the-dots puzzle. You can lift the pen up occasionaly but you basically go from one to two to three and so on. Yoni and Garry see it more like collecting cards. It doesn't matter too much the order you buy your cards as long as you complete the set in the end.
So after barely 2 hours we got back to my van, the time being just 9.30 in the morning. I can safely say that for the first time we finished the route feeling more refreshed than when we started.
Since we'd barely even started to burn calories today, and the Nirenses and the Glickmans were eating together at the Favel's tonight, we decided that last week's hummous would substitute for today's.
I've been getting your blogs through my Google Alerts for the Israel Trail. I recently organized a group of friends, and we too are hiking the trail once a month. We're doing according to the "collecting cards" method, as you so aptly described it. But we do have a particular rule: ALWAYS from north to south. You can follow our adventures on my blog. Happy trailing!
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