2024-03-15 31 35

Fri 15 Mar 2024 in 31,35: 31.7855395, 35.1460467 geohashing.info google osm bing/os kml crox

Location

Just outside of Jerusalem, in a forest close to Mevaseret just past the Beit Zayit dam. That makes three straight Fridays with points within walking spitting of Yerushalmi's house.

Participants

Yerushalmi (talk)

Plans

As before, Fridays are usually occupied by preparing for Shabbat. But if I wake up early enough - and I will - I'll drive to the nearest road, walk into the forest, walk back to the car, drive home, then go to the shuk to buy food.

Expedition

I did not wake up as early as planned, but I did wake up early enough. I set out at 9:00 and imposed upon myself a deadline of 10:00 to reach the point or turn back, otherwise I won't finish cooking in time.

My first mistake was not taking a backpack. I took a bottle of water in my hand. I knew there were steep hills in the area but I didn't realize just how steep, and having that hand not free would turn out to be a problem.

I parked the car at the end of Olive Street and climbed down some overgrowth until I reached the "Surrounding Mevaseret Nature Trail". And that was where I discovered I had a major problem: the trail goes in a sort of ^ shape, from southwest to north to southeast. And the point was in the middle. And the middle was... a massive, massive cliff into a valley.

I needed to find a way down into it. I tried some promising routes through the underbrush, but each one led me to an life-threatening edge.

Luckily, some old joggers were taking the nature trail, and I asked them for advice. One of them told me that based on the map I showed him the point was on the other side of the valley. So I went to the western edge of the ^. And there was a path going down.

The path only went a few meters into the valley, then leveled out. But I found some ancient structures, and climbed down one onto a large flat area with rich soil. There was another path - a few meters descent, then leveled out into a large flat area with rich soil. And so on and so on. It's basically a terraced hillside that used to be used for agriculture, probably starting in the Bronze Age.

(I looked it up later. This particular mountain is mentioned in the Bible, in the time of King David. Later, when Arabs arrived, they used it too, and named their town after the Biblical mountain. The ancient structures were designed to irrigate the terraced fields using a natural spring that came out of the mountain, until modern excavation of the mountain destroyed it.)

Anyway, I continued going down, terrace by terrace, until I eventually ran out of time and had to turn back. I was about 70 meters from the point when this happened. Any other day but Friday I could have continued, and possibly reached the point - but I don't know for sure. Each terrace I descended only brought me closer by about ten meters, and while I know for sure there was at least one more I could've reached with more time, I have no way of knowing if there are more beyond it or if the point is unreachable.

Photos

• 

  Overlooking the valley

• 

  Second try

• 

  Ancient wall

• 

  Some kind of circular thing that was either filled with water or a guardpost

• 

  This is as close as I got. I can see at least one terrace below me, possibly two. The point is 70 meters straight ahead.

• 

  The sign to the now dried-up spring.

Videos

• An ancient structure

• Video of the circular thing, so you can see its depth

• Failed attempt to show how deep the valley is, because I didn't want to get too close to the edge

• Slightly more successful attempt