Israel – Har Meron

Har Meron (3,963 ft)

Eric and Matthew Gilbertson

March 31, 2018

*Highest legal point attained – we didn’t make it inside the fence on the summit

Israel is one of the most complicated countries in the world to determine the highpoint. This is because there is some debate over exactly which land is part of Israel. Within the internationally-recognized borders of Israel, Har Meron is the highest point.

In 1967 Israel invaded the Golan Heights region of Syria, and it still occupying the Golan Heights, though the UN still considers this land part of Syria. Within the Golan Heights lies the highest point of land in disputed Israeli territory is a subpeak of Mt Hermon, Mitzpe Hashlagim. However, the borders of this disputed territory are also not clear. There is an alpha line and a bravo line separating Israel and Syria, with Israel occupying terrain up to the alpha line, the UN administering land between the alpha and bravo lines, and Syria controlling land to the east of the bravo line.

Matthew and I decided to climb Har Meron, the highest point within the internationally-recognized borders of Israel. Then, for good measure, we would also hike as high as legally possible in the Golan Heights region of disputed Israeli territory.

Unfortunately, Har Meron has a fenced-off military installation on top, and it is not clear how to gain access. We tried in vain to call military contacts beforehand, but could not figure out how to get permission to enter the complex. We decided our only chance was to talk to the soldiers at the entrance and hope we got lucky. Otherwise, we’d have to settle for the highest legal point outside the fence.

On the morning of March 31 we got in a taxi in Jerusalem headed to Tel Aviv. It was a Saturday, so trains and buses didn’t run and the only option was a taxi. The roads were empty and the driver was going 151 kph in a 110 kph zone and got pulled over by an angry policeman. He got a ticket, but once around the corner continued driving at his previous speed.

We got dropped off at Ben Gurion airport and picked up a rental car there, then drove in to Tel Aviv to pick up our friend Yuval from MIT. Yuval would join for the hike up Har Meron, then take a bus back to Tel Aviv afterwards.

We drove north on highway 2, avoiding the toll roads, and a few hours later reached a trailhead on the southeast side of Har Meron, just south of the town of Meron. Yuval had done a lot of hiking in the area, and recommended

this trail as a longer, more fun way to the summit than just driving all the way up.

Around noon we started hiking up through the woods, then entered open grazing land and hiked through some farms. We eventually arrived at a road just south of the summit, and encountered many other hikers enjoying the Passover holiday.

We started hiking the circle trail around the summit, and at the first viewpoint cut up through the woods to gain the access road. At the road we saw a huge blue gate with two soldiers stationed nearby, and we nervously approached.

Yuval started talking to the soldiers in Hebrew, telling them we were trying to get to the highpoint of every country on earth and asking if they could let us in. One of the soldiers spoke English and was super interested in our highpointing project. We talked about mountains for a while, and he said he really wanted to let us in, but he had to get permission from his boss and he was certain his boss would say no.

We thanked the soldiers anyway and hiked back down to the trail. We would have to settle for the highest legal point. According to our topo map, the highest legal point was on the northwest corner of the circle

trail, where a dirt road accesses the back side of the summit complex. We hiked around to this dirt road, then walked up the road for a few hundred feet to the edge of the fence. The topo map shows an elevation of about 1185 m, and the highest land is just to the right about 20 ft along the fence from where the road intersects it. This is where we

took our pictures.

The rest of the hike down was pretty easy, though we took a detour to descend a 3^rd class scramble route down a

dried streambed. I’d highly recommend this as probably the funnest trail on Har Meron.

We dropped Yuval off at a bus station and that night found a good stealth campsite in the woods northeast of Meron.

The next morning we drove into the Golan Heights, disputed Israeli territory, and continued up to the Mt Hermon ski resort. There was no snow on the ski slopes, but people were riding the chairlifts up to the top anyways. We hiked up the ski slopes to the top, and saw people playing in a big pile of snow. Not far away we could see the military complex of Mitzpe Hashlagim, and in the far distance we could see the summit of Mt Hermon, the highest point in Syria.

There were six soldiers with big guns standing on the paved road just outside the ski boundary, making sure nobody wandered where they weren’t allowed. We walked over to the soldiers and asked if we could hike any farther. They said the road up to Mitzpe Hashlagim was off limits, but that we could hike up to one other hill to the right.

I was surprised they allowed us there, but we didn’t argue. We started hiking over to the right, and it looked like an abandoned military outpost on the top. We crested a local maximum at about 2100m, and this was the highest we could legally get in disputed Israeli territory. From the top we had an excellent view into Syria, and down into the no-man’s land between the alpha and bravo lines.

We hiked back down as another group was hiking up, and decided to take a less direct hiking route back to our car. We traversed to the northwest edge of the ski resort, then hiked down a ski run that looked like it would intersect a road back to the base. At the bottom of the run we saw a bunch of bullet shells and two big army tanks parked. Once we reached the road a Humvee sped up to us and five soldiers with guns immediately jumped out and asked what we were doing.

We innocently explained we had just hiked down the ski slopes and thought we were still in the resort. Apparently we were not supposed to be there, and they instructed us to keep walking down the road to the yellow gate and go

back to the resort.

The soldiers were nice, but it’s hard to get used to so many soldiers all over the whole country. We continued down

the road and soon made it back to our car. We quickly drove away, before we could get in any more trouble. There was still plenty of daylight left, so we drove south and climbed up one other peak, Har Bental, with great views into Syria. We then drove down to the Sea of Galilee and went for a swim, before returning to our previous stealth campsite. The next morning we drove back to Tel Aviv and flew out, with me flying back to Seattle and Matthew continuing on to eastern Europe for some more highpoints.

Video of summit tour from the highest legal point:

More pictures from the trip: