Haifa • Tel Aharon Trail

One of the most beautiful trails in the western valleys, is not well known enough and rightfully so. The walk on the Mount of Carmel in a natural grove flooded with a variety of wildflowers also offers the opportunity to go deeper and observe the mammals that live there, listen to the birdsong, look at the open landscape and discover the ancient lime pit that was one of the early industries on the Carmel.

Tours project 'For Haifa'

The 'For Haifa' group was established in 2020 with the outbreak of the Corona epidemic, as an independent initiative that invited members to go out into nature, travel and stay in it. The initiative has become a leading community social enterprise in the city, whose members are dozens of residents who volunteer to lead tours in the Haifa wadis and their tributaries, in the streams and in the natural areas.
This month (April 2024) we are holding the seventh project of wadi tours, in the shadow of the war and with the aim of strengthening the community resilience of the city's residents in this difficult time. Every Friday and Saturday of this month, residents of the city lead tours to a variety of trails in wadis and nature sites, all of which can be updated exclusively in the Facebook group 'For Haifa'.

The first tour that opened the month of tours took place on Friday 5.4.24/XNUMX/XNUMX along Tel Aharon, the tour was led by Ehud Sabirsky, a resident of the Ahuza neighborhood, a talented biology teacher and a volunteer guide, every tour with him is a multi-sensory learning experience and he also wrote the article for this week.

The start of the track

The alley named after Aaron, the first of the priests and the elder brother of Moses who led us out of the land of Egypt, the alley is not known to the general public despite its central location near the Carmel Hospital. Just as Aharon served as the mouthpiece of the hard-mouthed Moshe, so we will find out the beautiful trail that remains in the image of the classic routes descending from the Carmel despite its unique nature.

The monument to Beni Ahoza

It is recommended to start the route at the monument to the "Mansioners" who fell in the Israeli forces, at the intersection of Mapo-Michal and Tel Mana streets. This is a "eye-level" monument. A sculpture made of metal parts, placed on a marble base. The broken rectangular shape resembles a wave of stones like a method The ancient burial of the nomads or perhaps the shape of a sarcophagus ("the flesh eater"). Inside the metal casting lies on one side a soldier with a helmet and his head tilted back and on the other side of the monument, the mother falls on her face, weeping for her dead son.

The monument was sculpted by the late artist Gershon Knispel, who served as an artistic consultant to the Haifa municipality in the years 1964-1989 and many of his works are in our local public space. You should read about the monument and a conversation with the sculptor Gershon Knispel, on Michael Jacobson's excellent blog "Rear Window".

dead end alley

Tel Aharon Alley is a dead end street at the end of which is a short flight of stairs that leads you to the silence and coolness of the forest. Thorns and characteristic dung indicate that there is a lot of porcupine activity here. They are especially fond of the bulbs and bulbs of the geophytes (onion and bulb plants) that thrive in the shady grove. In the shade of the pine grove, you can see a lot of activity of a rat (what is usually called a "rat"). Carpets of thoroughly gnawed pine cones indicate that there is a large and respectable population of rats here, an integral part of urban nature.

The ancient lime kiln

Right at the exit from the grove, an ancient lime pit is hidden to the right of the path. All that remains of it are the stone-hewn walls of the firebox into which thorny cypress bushes were pressed which fed the fire. Above the heating chamber, the ancients piled field stones, chalk and chalk, and covered them with large stones. After "baking" for about a week at a temperature of about 900 degrees, the stones disintegrated into "quick lime" which, when wet, becomes a sealing and plastering material for buildings and cisterns. And there is no one who does not know the expression about the student who does not forget his nation from the Talmud "a secret pit that does not lose a drop", meaning - like the lime plastered pit that does not lose a drop.

The branch house

Further on, a blooming "meadow" stretches out, where the species composition, colors and smells change every season. If you arrived at the end of the winter, you will meet mats of sage dagula (from flag language, and does not indicate the nature of the plant), a modest annual plant that does not exceed 15-30 cm in height, but understands something about marketing and advertising.
Above its flowering column (with standard white flowers with an oval cap) hangs a large purple "flag", which is actually made up of the remains of degenerated flowers, and its purpose is to attract pollinators.
We continue to descend along the branch and upon exiting the grove into the open area we found the golden branch, as its name suggests: six gold-colored petals, with a greenish stripe on their outer side. It is a geophyte, i.e. an onion/bulb plant, from its onion shoots with bells are formed, which allow it to propagate vegetatively (asexually).

Tongue - Egyptian bull

Another flower, modest and hidden in the dishes, is an Egyptian sedge, which has rough leaves that are covered with bright spots. The flower is small, cream-colored, with hairs that close the corolla tube. The purpose of the hairs is to prevent small nectar thieves from entering and it allows only stinging insects to receive nectar while they perform pollination services for the plant. The formation of the landscape is called in scientific language: "Griga", and it consists of bushes and shrubs such as for example: hairy bower, Marvani and hairy lotem, Eretz-Israeli ash.

In nature there is a developmental process called succession (followed in Hebrew), in which - after a disturbance in the area (fire, volcanic eruption) the vegetation recovers in stages that replace (follow) each other. The Griga is a stage in the succession, before the high-Mediterranean forest society. Apparently, there was a fire on the slope we are walking on and the vegetation has gradually recovered, and if the conditions permit it will reach the peak company or remain at the stage it is in now.

common pygmy

Among the rocks, a simple-looking interlocutor looks at us, clearly not impressive, but for those who bring their hand closer and mumble his face, it is impossible to mistake the identification: a common pygmy. In Arabic Ruda or Pij(i)n (that is, there is a jinn, a demon in it). The pygmy is one of the surrogate plants on which a handsome swallowtail lays its eggs (along with common smurf, kelach, and on the beach sea chert). In the spring, swallowtail butterflies will fly above us, waiting for us to leave so that they can cast on the pygmy.

A scaly rash

If we arrive in late March and early April, the rocky outcrop is awash with the blossoms of hairy bower, spiny harness and lots of pink and white lotem bushes. But, if we look towards the herbaceous we can see a modest flower, belonging to the umbels, white with a black scale in the center. Most of us call any umbrella with a dot a "carrot", but this time it's a rascal (from the language of rascal and not rascal in the network). Its fruits form a perfect circle in the inflorescence, like delicate leaves, and when they dry they are incredibly beautiful.

Later we also met three types of flax: hairy flax (pink and familiar), common flax (yellow, delicate petals) and Ashuna flax (yellow, with a stiff stem with small leaves attached to it along its length)

There are grasshoppers hiding among the bushes, and one of them, camouflaged in an amazing way, firmly grasped a branch and allowed us to give it an impressive "buck". He was identified by Amir Weinstein, the insect expert, as a chubby mature female. Right on his shirt, another grasshopper "Pitfo" jumped on him and it turns out that this is the male of the same lady. They have no wings at all, unlike many grasshoppers. After mating, the female lays eggs on the ground And the eggs hatch only after the rains.

The end of the route

In the sky we are accompanied by a large raptor, whose belly is bright and speckled with brown horizontal stripes: this is the snake creature. "Havia" in Aramaic means: snake, and this is the specialty of the haviai, hunting snakes. These days, most of the migratory birds pass over us on their way back to Europe, and it is precisely the hawkmoth that has arrived especially now from Africa, and it will spend the summer here ("summering species"). The slope is exposed to the sun, the limestone rocks allow only those who are fit to survive and it was not surprising to meet at the bottom of the slope layers of rocks and "islands" of scalped thyme. The thyme is a shrub with small leaves that have a powerful aroma of thyme. It is more spicy than the moss, the main ingredient in "zaatar". In the last section of the route, between the western entrance of the "Carmel Tunnels", the satellite dishes of "Hot" and the Azrieli-Haifa Mall, we will find caves and agricultural facilities that were part of the magnificent city of Kastra, and about that in a separate article.