Tag Archives: Mount Hermon

Feb 5 2011

Mount Hermon snow trip: Part 4 Nimrod’s Fortress

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

Back past this Arab town on a steep hill we saw earlier, Rachel tells us this town is called Majdel Shams which is one of the largest Arab Druze communities in the Golan.

Driving out of Mount Hermon, we travelled south only a little bit to see another place, on the way down from the hill there are some small sheds with people selling fruit and vegetables by the side of the road.   Reminds me of some similar stands I saw on some highways in Jordan in 2009.

The stretch of road leading up to the fortress has some slightly scary sights, I can see a glimpse of three wrecked cars at the below the side of the steep hill, yikes!

Nimrod’s castle is interesting, there is a mention of this in the book of Micah:

Micah 5 : 5-6 And he (Jesus) will be our peace when the Assyrians invade our land and march through our fortresses.  We will raise against them seven shepherds, even eight commanders, who will rule the land of Assyria with the sword, the land of Nimrod with drawn sword. He will deliver us from the Assyrians when they invade our land and march across our borders.

Like the Golan Heights and Mount Hermon, this section of the top of Israel, was owned by Syria and claimed back by Israel in 1967 Six day war, this prophecy is spot on!

These stairs lead into underground rooms in the fortress, but you can walk around the sides to see all kinds of history.

The fortress was built by Al-Aziz Uthman in 1229 who was a Sultan of Egypt and stands 800 metres above sea level.  Nimrod himself dates back from Genesis.

Genesis 10 : 8-9 Cush was the father of Nimrod, who became a mighty warrior on the earth.  He was a mighty hunter before the LORD; that is why it is said, “Like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before the LORD.”

An earthquake damage the fortress in the 18th century.   I was looking today on the new version (6 beta) of Google Earth to find if earthquake faults are documented, but shows the Galilee marked with a zone marked ‘Dead Sea’  oops, (epic geography FAIL!)  Maybe another time I will be able to to research this.   I do know earthquakes do happen in this country, not that I have seen but there was at least two small ones in the north a few years ago.

In my last story of this trip I will show you some mysterious biblical animals that roam around the top Hermon….

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

Jan 30 2011

Mount Hermon snow trip: Part 3, Sloping off

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

The ski lift was good fun, I don’t think I have been on one of these before.   I have never been skiing in my life, and despite snow, there isn’t enough to justify a proper skiing season at the moment, even if there were, without sounding like a total wuss, my travel insurance doesn’t cover skiing I don’t think.   Only one of the 4 ski lifts was running, its more of case its fun to come up here and see some scenery that’s very different from the rest of the middle east.

These plastic sledges can be rented from a small shed, but they feel extremely cheaply made, they are highly thin, like the plastic used to make ice cream tubs, and some stress lines I saw in the middle, felt it wasn’t going to last very long, still it was fun to propel down the this short hill.   There was an official looking steward to stop people colliding into each other, and make sure they walk around the side back up the top.

Also at the top was border control.  There is a DMZ (demilitarised zone) in between Syria and Lebanon up here, ie: a gap of land between the borders.   Said a quick hello to the soldiers and asked if it was ok to take pictures.

They seem to oblige 🙂  They might of been more comfortable guarding a base in Eilat maybe though 🙂

Dave decided to build a snowman, and felt that he should have hands free access to a phone 🙂

The cafe has an extra redundant piece of the machinery that operates the ski lift in the cafe as decoration.  It was nice and warm in this cafe, and got some great views from the top of Hermon.

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

Jan 26 2011

Mount Hermon snow trip: Part 2, Snow patrol

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

Jan 24 2011

Mount Hermon snow trip: Part 1, go forth north!

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

On Sunday I got up very early to meet with friends to get to the snow capped Mount Hermon.

This place is not so well known by non-Israelis, as its at the very extreme north east corner of country, where the borders are for Lebanon and Syria.

After a not so pleasant start of my phone waking me up at 4am, necessary given the time to get up there, after teetering around my flat to get things together and have breakfast without waking up other room mates, strangely probably because of the weather is quite cold also at this time, I decided to do a fast sprint for no real reason on my bike out of East Tapliyot all the way through central Jerusalem all the way up Jaffa Street to the main Jerusalem Bus Station only took just over 30 minutes, quite amazing consider how slow I normally pedal.

Once off the bus close to Rachel’s house, the sun was just coming up.   This trip came at a good time seeing I was disappointing in not seeing my dad up here and was also concerned about a lot of choices I have to make this year, so this excursion was a welcome change, one of a lot of blessings this week actually, getting over a stupid week-long cold another one, and also once at the bus station finding a coffee shop that was open there was another one.  I was just about to text my friend Dave to see if he was close and he was suddenly in the shop in front of me.

The drive up there is different from previous drives up north I have done.  It involved going back on ourselves to head down towards a bit of the Dead Sea, then up from the West Bank, on a main road that passes through some Palestinian towns, at times running parallel with the Jordanian border as this above picture shows.

As we overtake this Nissan Micra on the motorway, if you look really really carefully on the horizon you can see a faintly see Hermon.  Once you get as far as Tiberias, the white peaks on it start to become prominent.

This drive through a small but friendly Arab village up in the Galilee, we got some directions as we kept going higher and higher.  This town had a couple of interesting bronze statues that looked more like something from native American history I have seen in Arizona that from a Galilee Arab community.

This felt very different from any part of Israel I had been before…

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