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| Trail Map |  Hike it with Google Earth | |
| Distance: 6km | Time: 2 hours | Difficulty: Strenuous |
| Ascent: 142m | End Point Parking | End Point Parking |
One might imagine that I, being the creator of Hiking the Holyland, always arrive at any hiking trail perfectly prepared. In an ideal world, I’d have the right gear, be wearing the right clothing, and have a map of the day’s adventure planned and ready.
But the reality is often quite far from that picture. Since hiking is such a regular part of my life, it sometimes happens haphazardly, without proper planning or preparation. Take this past Friday’s hike in Nahal Shiloh — a beautiful valley near Peduel that also happens to be a National Park.
Let me set the scene.
The day before our outing, I was wracking my brain to remember the name of a water hike that my nephew had mentioned to me almost a year earlier. After searching through my notes unsuccessfully, I finally remembered that the trail was near Nahal Shiloh, so I did a quick search and happily discovered that Nahal Shiloh was also a National Park — with a page on the Parks site and everything. Before going further, I forwarded this information to my husband. I knew he would appreciate that the trail was in an official national park.
Then I went about my planning, scanning the map for the set of trails along Nahal Shiloh that I had scoped out a year earlier. I found them, but I couldn’t really remember the name of the spring or exactly how I had planned on hiking to it. I sent a message to my nephew and moved on with my day.
Fast forward to 8:45 PM — that’s bedtime for me. My nephew hadn’t replied, so it was up to me to figure this out on my own. I showed my husband the trails, and he promised to look at it and figure it out — but he was quite sure that the National Park was nowhere near the trails I’d shown him on the map. He said it was near Peduel.
“Yes!” I replied excitedly. “Peduel — it was Einot Peduel. That must be right!” And I went to bed and left the rest of the planning to him.
The next morning, I got up, got dressed for our water hike, packed up our bags, and we set out the door. We were in quite a hurry, I might add, because a bike race was scheduled to close down our highway at 7:30 AM — no time to do any further planning before then. Before we knew it, we were in the car headed to Peduel.
As we drove along, a feeling of confusion set in. We seemed to be headed north towards the center of the country. And the way I remembered things, this trail was supposed to be near where my sister lives in Kochav Hashahar. “Where are we going?” I asked my husband.
“To the Nahal Shiloh National Park — in Peduel,” he replied. Then, looking at my outfit: “I’m pretty sure there’s no water there…”
I sat for a moment, tracing the source of my confusion, when a lightbulb went on in my brain.
“Not Peduel!” I exclaimed. “It was Einot Petzael!”
So there we were, headed to a mountain valley cave hike about an hour away from the trail I had actually meant to hike that day. I share this (embarrassing?) story only to show you that even I fall short in my ability to plan and execute hikes in this country.
But you know what?
We had a fabulous time anyway.
Nahal Shiloh National Park
We pulled up to Peduel, parked our car, and set out in search of the trailhead. Past a construction site, we found that someone had painted green arrows to direct hikers to a new access point to the green trail. We followed them over wild terrain, down towards the valley below.
It was a beautiful day, cool and overcast, and the wild scenery looked even better in the dim light. After working to follow the green trail through overgrown spring grass and grain for a while, we decided to continue along a wide jeep path instead.
This was no great loss, and we were able to walk freely without worrying about thorns scratching our legs (I was wearing a swim skirt, so that was nice!). We walked past tall pink hollyhocks as we followed the trail up towards Tzereda Farm.
On the way, we passed a huge cistern. We paused to drop a rock into it — and yes, there was water inside!
Towards the Farm
We approached Tzereda Farm, named for an area nearby that is identified by most scholars as the site of biblical Tzereda, Yerovam ben Nevat’s hometown and stronghold. The farm was perched at the top of the hill, and were taken in by the scenery. Piles of wool sat in huge crates next to bales of hay. A few small houses were scattered around, seemingly empty that morning.
We continued over fun, rocky terrain towards a gorgeous lookout at the top of the hill, where someone had placed a bench. From that spot, you could see far out to the surroundings, and down into Nahal Shiloh below. In the valley, we could see ruins which some identify as the ancient fortified city of Tzereda.
It was windy there, so we decided to keep going and find a different spot to eat breakfast.
To the Cave
This part of the hike was wilder. We climbed over big rocks, past wildflowers bouncing in the wind and beautiful butterflies. Trail markers were there, but not easy to follow — someone had clearly taken great pains to mark the path, even adding hand-painted arrows to the trail markers, which were somewhat obscured by overgrowth.
We followed the path until we reached the opening to a cave.
From the outside, it looked quite special, and I paused to take a whole bunch of pictures. But then we stepped forward into something truly spectacular.
Perfect Place for a Picnic
The cave was huge and incredible. It was the sort of place where one would definitely want to seek shelter on a rainy or sunny day — a place to relax in the dark quiet and have a cup of coffee or make a little fire.
But the best part was the huge window on the other side of the cave, with an impressive view out to green hills and valleys. It was absolutely gorgeous.
We knew right away that this was where we wanted to stop and eat. The only question was whether to sit in the shade of the cave or to step out onto one of the flat rocks on the ledge on the other side. It was a nice day, so the sun and outdoors won out. We perched ourselves on some rocks over the valley to take in the scenery over breakfast.
Really Wild
After a relaxing breakfast in a truly beautiful place, we continued on our journey. The end point of this one-way trail was in the valley down below, on the road where we were planning to hitch a ride back to the top.
Had I known what terrain was in store, I may have just decided to turn around right there and go back the way we came. We’d seen the cave, the beautiful scenery — that was probably enough for the day. But we had a (sort of) plan, and we were going to stick to it.
We traipsed over rocks, through thorns, and followed an extremely overgrown path through beautiful but wild scenery. I must admit, it got challenging at times. By the end of the day, my legs were thoroughly scratched up from the thorny overgrowth.
But eventually, we made it onto the highway.
All in a Day’s Adventure
Within minutes, a nice couple picked us up on the road and brought us back up the hill to Peduel. Back in our car, we mulled over the day’s adventure. No, it wasn’t what we expected — at least not what I expected. But we discovered a bit of biblical history and an incredible cave above a beautiful winding valley in a place we probably never would have visited if we hadn’t stumbled upon it accidentally.
We’ll get to Einot Petzael a different day.
Hikers’ Notes:
Here’s what you need to know to hike this trail at Nahal Shiloh:
- This is a one way trail.
- This trail is in Judea and Samaria. Please take precautions for your personal safety before hiking this trail.
- My recommendation would be to hike out to the cave, then turn around and go back the way you came. If you are intent on hiking the whole thing, use the Google Earth file in the table at the top of the page to find your way on the trail. There are trail markers, but the trail is quite overgrown, so they are difficult to follow.
- Bring plenty of water and sun protection, along with good hiking shoes to hike this trail.
- The terrain past the cave is difficult and better suited to adventurous hikers.
- Read more about biblical Tzereda right here.
