Short Hike From Mevaseret Zion Through The Judean Mountains

These pictures are from the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv corridor. It was the site of many battles during the 1948 war, as the Israelis fought to keep the Arabs from cutting off communications to Jerusalem, which was under siege and whose residents almost starved. There are a lot of  very interesting and inspiring stories, including the Burma Road, a bypass built in record time to keep supply convoys to Jerusalem running as they were being ambushed on the main road. Anyway, I hiked south of Highway 1, which links Jerusalem to Tel Aviv. After the war, the corridor, which is very mountainous, was planted with trees by the Jews. In the pictures from 1948, you can see barren hillsides covered with garrengue, the landscape you get after you chop down all the trees for wood and then herd goats and sheep over the land to such a degree that only spiny, thorny bushes can survive. Today, there are huge trees everywhere, pines, figs, even palms. It looks a bit like the low mountains of Bosnia or the Appalachians.

Olive grove

Jerusalem from the West

Hadassa Hospital and a church to the left

Judean Mountains

The blaze on the left is a marking for the Israel National Trail, which is 1000 kilometers long and zigzags from the North to the South of the Country

Flowers are still in bloom

There is this big complex of ruins, with a couple of springs feeding pools. Kids were in there, diving into the pools off the ruins

This is a sprawling fig tree. There are many fig and almond trees growing around here, and in the summer you can walk around picking and eating the fruit.

An Arab village across the hillside. Beautiful traditional stone architecture.

This is the upper Sorek streambed. This high up, the stream (which is now mostly sewage) runs underground. The vegetation is pretty lush in the streambed.

This is a wall listing the names of all the Jerusalem Jews who planted this valley with trees in 1960.