We didn't hike in March because of too many scheduling conflicts (travel, Naftali's bar mitzva, Yonah and Yael(i)'s engagement (!!), Big Adir's marathon, Pesach preparations) so we're hoping to hike twice in April. We decided long ago that we'd try to do one on chol hamoed. We tried to work it out so at least some of our kids could come. In the end though, we opted to do it on the third day of chol hamoed with no kids. We planned for a hike of less than 20 kilometers so we could be home at a reasonable hour and still spend some time with the families.
After a bit of negotiation on the start time, we decided to meet at the end point around netz (6). The problem was that the end point was in an Arab village called Ka'abiyye-Tabbash-Hajajre. Shira was not crazy about spending a lot of time there davening and stuff so we first met at a gas station and then drove to Ka'abiyye to leave the car. We then drove to Nof Hagalil to start our hike. We got started at 7:13 and walked in the city for a little before finally being put on a dirt trail. The first half of the hike was very easy trails with few hills. So it wasn't bad at all.
The hardest part about these hikes is staying on the trail. I keep two maps open so I usually know soon after we veer off course. There are also quite a few markers that help direct us. Sometimes, there are markers every 50 meters and it's easy. Other times, there are big gaps and/or the markers are well hidden and we make a wrong turn. Seems to happen on almost every hike but we've gotten much better at finding our way. On this hike there was one point where we were supposed to go straight but it was closed off. It wasn't clearly marked what we should do but we figured it out. It does make our hikes a little longer.
A cool thing that I mentioned before is the tunnels they make under highways. On this particular hike, we had to cross both highways 77 and 79. Under highway 77, there was a clearly marked path to the tunnel and it was long, wide and easy. Next we had to cross 79 but we couldn't find the tunnel. After some searching, we found the tunnel but it seemed to be full of water. The women noticed that there was a raised path on the side where we could walk without getting wet. The problem was that either we had to walk a couple hundred extra meters to go around the water or walk through the water. Shira got new hiking boots so this was a good opportunity to make use of them. She and Ahuva walked through the water while Gershon and I went around.
As usual, we did not see many hikers or other people. At one point, we saw a woman who appeared to be Scandivanian hiking by herself. We ran into a couple families who were out for joy hikes. We also saw lots of cows. It was weird because every time we saw cows, there were these white birds hanging out with them. Despite all of our deep knowledge of animals and birds, none of us could identify what they were. Based on a google search, I now believe that they were cattle egrets who apparently like to hang around cows to eat the tics and flies who bug the cow.
We also passed by the kever of R' Yehuda Hanasi (though somehow Ahuva and Shira didn't realize). Pictured are the four of us on the outskirts of the beautiful (you can't really tell from the picture) city of Hoshaya.
We finished the hike around 1. We walked about 22 kilometers and knocked off 19.5 kilometers from the shvil. We have now completed about 180 kilometers total on the shvil out of about 1080.
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