The Ascent of Hod Akev

Hod Akev looms over the Nahal Zinn wilderness that is just steps away from our house. Hod means "peak" and akev means heel. The latter word likely refers to the biblical story of the birth of Jacob and Esau, in which Jacob came out holding on to Esau's heel. Indeed, it is from that moment that Jacob is named. In Hebrew his name is Yakov, which isn't so different from akev. (My name is an Americanized version of Jacob.) So iconic is the view of the Hod Akev, that you can even see it in the gate in front of our house. In that gate design you can see, as well, Hod Akev's basic form: a slightly flat-topped peak on the plateau on top of a butte.

Here is the view, mid-morning, as we approach the butte on which stands our destination. On the other side of the peak is a spring with a pool that is large enough to soak in. The spring is a common destination for mountain bikers and hikers.

We follow the dirt track you can see in the picture above until we reach the trail head for the ascent.

When we get to the base of the butte we scope out our trail. It basically consists of two parts. First is a walk up a sloping surface of hard packed dunes combined with crumbling limestone and chalk. You can see part of this trail clearly eteched out in a backwards "C" on one of the lower slopes. That part looks challenging but doable. The steep limestone cliffs that form the escarpment that goes around the top of the butte do not. How we are going to get past that obstacle is not at all clear. We decide to investigate.

Walking up the slope proves to be easy going. There's only one small obstacle and that's easily scaled. Here you see me going up the ladder at a rock outcropping.

Here I am at the top of the slope. It's not any clearer here how we'll get past the cliffs, but we press on anyway.

OK. Here's how we scale the cliffs. First we walk along the narrow ledge at the intersection of the slope and the eroded limestone cliff.


Next we scramble up cracks in the rocks up to ledges that we traverse on. The path is the lighter colored lines in the picture below.

Lynn, as usual, pushes at the boundaries.

These lines were created by water seeping through cracks in the rock.

At the final climb up to the plateau, there are metal rungs embedded into the cliff wall.

I stretch for that final rung.

Once we're on the plateau, it's easy to walk across and hike up the peak. Here's Lynn on the final ascent.

Ahhh, life is sweet at the top. From here, we get a broad vista of the Nahal Zinn area, including the Nahal Akev, which includes the winding mountain canyon in which the Ein Akev runs. Looking at Hod Akev across the landscape will never be the same.