1/ Go forth north! – 2/ Snow patrol – 3/ Sloping off – 4/ Nimrod’s Fortress – 5/ Badgers Rock

After much driving up and up, we took a bit of a wrong turn, and saw an Arab town and a military checkpoint ahead, then realised it was a border into Lebanon!  

Note at the time of writing this, the Lebanese government has collapsed, meaning Hezbollah, a terrorist organisation could be filling this gap as they seek to become a satellite post of Iran, threatening Israel even more.   This really needs prayer as this huge worry for Israel, and awful for the Lebanese people as well, this country has one of the largest Arab Christian communities.

We were not in any danger at all, as this checkpoint is well protected, I took this picture of some run down farm buildings out of the window which was close by.

Just a short drive later, we reached Mount Hermon!

Mount Hermon is considered a possible place of the Transfiguration, where Jesus took Peter, James and John up for prayer, and reportedly turned bright white, where he spoke with Moses and Elijah who appeared.  The scriptures reveal it was known as two other names – ‘Sirion’ by the Sidonians; the Amorites call it ‘Senir’.  Deuteronomy 3 : 9

The Bible’s own romantic style book of Song of Solomon mentions it too in versus 4 : 8 and Psalms 89 talks about Mount Hermon giving praises to the Lord too.

Only last friday I had a Shabbat dinner with a couple from my work and they had a bottle of wine the came from this exact part of the country.   After my trip to the Dead Sea which was the lowest place on earth (ie: below sea level)    Hermon is 2,814 metres high.

Once parked and we went through the visitor entrance and a initial bit of childish exploitation of the first glimpse of snow meant a snowball fight, there was some good places to get photos done:-

Woohoo!  all manner of types of military and rescue vehicles for snow use, something most people would think you would never have in Israel…

We were hoping the girls would want a photo of themselves next to some interesting piece of winter military gear here as well, but they chose a giant plastic snowman.  Tsk.

Then off onto the chairlift, yay!!!

This requires the man operating the lift to get you positioned exactly right so quickly sit down and he raises the safety bar down.   Top: someone (probably the boss I guess) has a nice collection of different snow vehicles.   Both pictures: note the strategically placed net, in case you get scooped by the chair lift by accident, or, fall out!

check out www.skihermon.co.il

Next up the slope….

1/ Go forth north! – 2/ Snow patrol – 3/ Sloping off – 4/ Nimrod’s Fortress – 5/ Badgers Rock