Should have been an easy hike

 We continued on our path in the Carmel and it looked like it should be an easy hike. We decided to only do 16 kilometers since it was hot. We chose a Sunday for the hike again so we were under no pressure and only met at 7:30. The drive from one end to the other was only 12 minutes and we started the actual walk before 8 AM. The hike would be mostly parallel to highway four going south and didn't look very hard. The only problem was that usually after I choose our end point I put it in Google Maps and find the exact path that we will follow and measure it exactly. I couldn't do it this time because Google insisted that there was no way to walk directly on shvil yisrael and at some point we'd need to cut across to highway 4. 

The good news is that it really wasn't that hard... at least at first. Right at the beginning, we had to climb a bunch of steps up but it wasn't bad. We had the energy and it wasn't so hot yet. It wasn't scary at all but was good exercise. The terrain wasn't terrible - was slippery and rough at times but not impossible. There were no scary cliffs - a few climbs up and down but nothing we couldn't handle. Normally, I could estimate how much longer we have on the hike but I was having trouble on the app I usually use and Google was clueless because it didn't think we could walk where we wanted to. 

At some point, after we had walked more than 10 kilometers in less than 3 hours, I tried figuring it out but it seemed like we still had more than eight kilometers left. I refused to believe it. We kept on going. It was starting to seem like the hike would be further than I thought. The heat wasn't helping. It also took us longer because some of the shmoozers kept stopping to talk to every person we passed but it was becoming clear that we wouldn't finish as early as I'd hoped. I had wanted to visit my sister in Zichron after the hike but we also wanted to be home by 4. 

Finally, we neared the end. We got to highway 7021 and we had parked at a Keren Kayemet L'yisrael parking lot right off that highway. So we knew that we could just turn right on the highway and walk to the road and then walk to the car. Would be less than a kilometer. We were exhausted but the official route said to cross 7021 and to walk on a path parallel to it until you get to the car. It didn't look any longer and we are rule followers so we went that way. It was clearly marked and we were doing fine. Then all of a sudden the path seemed to end. I mean, we could see a path but it was covered by thorns. We kept on going. It was a few hundred meters of walking through thorns until it was cleared again. We were on the right path the whole time. It's the first time we've experienced anything like that on our hikes. We came out a little bloody and with lots of stuff attached to our shorts, shirts, skirts and socks. Soon after that we got to the car. We walked close to 21 kilometers in about six hours and I'm really not sure how it was only 16 on the path. 

We only saw cows one time on the hike and really didn't see any other animals. For the first couple hours we didn't see any hikers. About halfway we got to a shvil gift shop with cold water fountains and gorgeous bathrooms (maybe not gorgeous but they were clean) and the women were thrilled to actually be able to use a clean bathroom. That was the first time we've come across something like this on the shvil. There we saw a family hiking. We also saw an 18 year old boy hiking by himself. We saw a large group from a school with at least 50 kids and lots of staff. There was a woman, seven months pregnant who was one of the leaders of the group. It was a hot day but she had a camel pack and seemed like she was doing really well. Of course we had to stop and talk to all of them and took pictures with some. 

Overall, the hike was much harder than we expected because of the heat, the thorny paths and the unexpected length. I think next one should be easier and we'll be better prepared.