Updates on trails from "Hozrim Lashetach" by Aviram Barkay

Trail 8: Har Horshan visited on 6.1998 A trail suitable even for a summer day. Much of the trail goes through wood areas. We did it in a friend's Subaru Outback, which is a fwd SUV with a 19-cm ground clearance. Although this trail was defined as 'easy' the Subaru had difficulties handling it, especially in the steep descent towards Bat Shlomo (p.109). The problem encountered on this trail is a path blocked by a wire fence (p. 111 paragraph starting with 1.90, n.z 153100 222050) where you are supposed to turn left. The solution: continue forward (southbound) along the side of the hill on your left. Soon you will come to a steep crossing of Nahal Dalya (don't worry, it is not as bad as it looks) after the crossing look up and you will see half left an ucaf (saddle) with a white path going up in it's center. Drive towards the ucaf you join the trail at the place in p. 111 starting with 0.40 (a clime up the ucaf with blue simun shvilim).

Trail 12: Gvaot Goral Velahav visited on 4.1998 Quite a short trail, and not really interesting scenery speaking. Many know this area very well as a military navigation area. It does provide some interesting encounters with Bedouins, and the kids love seeing all the sheep, camels and donkeys walking freely in the area. Driving is quite interesting although not very challenging. There are some bumpy ascends and descends with potholes but nothing more than that. The only problem on this trail is nahal Betarim (n.z 13486 081220, P. 144 bottom). Barkay promises a wild ride inside the small canyon with no safety risk. However, maybe because of floods bikes or ATV can pass the nahal but not by Jeeps. I almost rolled over trying to pass through the steep walls. The solution: do not turn left into the canyon. Go straight forward and turn left along the side of the hill with the canyon below you. Continue until you see the path coming out of the canyon and join it driving towards the electricity pylons. .

Trail 15: Following the Nabatim, visited on 10.1997 This is a 99km long trail. If anybody did complete it in one day after coming from the center - let me know. We only did the first half of the trail and saved going into the sandy part beyond Shivta to other occasion. The part we did is very nice. It is well described by the book apart from one big problem. The starting point is an orange road sign pointing at 'Atar Ovdat'. Well, there are two such signs, and if you take the first one you are quite a long way away from the start point (that's what we did, but then recovered). Be sure to start the trail at the second orange sign pointing at Ovdat Nabati Town archeological site. Also, do not miss the visit to Shivta Nabati town. It is very impressive.

*** My advice is to sleep over somewhere near Ovdat and to start the trail on the morning. I slept on Sleeping area (Henyon Layla) on River Zin - near Sade Boker, and started the trail on about 9am - I finished the whole trail on about 4pm ***