Route type: Circular
Difficulty level: Moderate
Waze to start point: 32.700744, 34.974074
Notes:
- Start early to beat the heat. The 2nd half of this hike has little shade.
- Do not hike here if there are flood warnings in the area! If you are not sure, ask a more experienced hiker or check the Israel Meteorological Service website.
After an extended hiatus for brutal summer heat, we somehow found a free Friday amongst and between the holidays and set our sights on Nahal Bustan in the Carmel Mountains just north of Zichron Yaakov.
Pulling off of road 7111, we parked under a tree just on the right and set out on the red trail at 7:45 am. Being close to the sea, it was already humid at this hour.
We didn’t have to wait long to start finding treasures.
Cows were the theme of this hike. LOTS of cows!
We also saw two wild boar in broad daylight and closer than I’ve ever been to them before. Unfortunately, they tore up the bank on one side of the road and took off under the trees so fast that I couldn’t get a picture of them.
At 2.8 kms there is a red/blue fork. Stay to the right (blue trail).
At 3.9 km, the blue trail starts a long descent in Nahal Bustan. This walk down the dry creek bed was quite long and while completely shaded and very pretty, there wasn’t much moving air. The humidity and scramble over the stones and boulders was tiring. Caution slowed us down.
Once the descent in the nahal is complete, the terrain flattens out for a bit.
The Oren Campground is the next landmark and it is here that the blue trail markings turn into the white/blue/orange INT markings which you will follow from this point back to where you left the car.
The campground provided bathrooms, picnic tables under gnarly olive trees and water points for filling bottles……
…..or to cool off under.
At the campground, we found the INT trail markings and began our 2nd ascent of the day. From here on, the trail was, for the most part, very exposed with little shade although the higher we climbed, the more sea breeze we got which helped.
On the way up, we began to get expansive views of the sea…..
….some interesting caves….
….and swirly tree trunks.
The INT takes you through the Ein Hod artists village which was established in 1953. It is located on a hillside among the olive groves with a view of the sea. Many Israeli painters, sculptors and musicians live there, and maintain studios and galleries that are open to the public. This would be a fun place to come back and explore!
