יער בן שמן

To be honest many of the JNF forests feel like the facilities were put together haphazardly, not very well planned or executed in terms of maps, trails, and overall experience. There are ups and downs to this, since the sites tend to feel more untamed and let you discover things on your own. They're often much quieter and more expansive for when you want to go hiking or camping and really get away from civilization. But the downside is that when we showed up to visit Ben Shemen Forest, it was really difficult to figure out what to see and do, and pretty underwhelming once we actually got to the points of interest in the forest.

We first visited Mitzpe Modi'in, which had several food trucks at the parking lot selling Knafe, Malabi, Burekas, and other items. We had Knafe and coffee at a picnic table in the shade which was pretty good. We walked to the lookout tower but it wasn't that impressive. I think it would be a great starting point for a mountain biking excursion, and there is a sign with bike trails labeled on it.

We then drove to a second entrance further down 443, to visit the mis-named Maccabean tombs (which apparently are frequently visited during Hanukkah, even though they are actually from 500 years after the time of the Maccabis). The tombs are not well marked and there is no information about them, but it was still pretty cool to climb among the rocks and suddenly find a bunch of tombs carved in the ground around you. There was also a memorial for the War of Independence just past the tombs. On our way out we were startled by a family of wild boars that ran right past us.

Our final stop was at Tel Hadid, which was a pleasant enough viewpoint with a bench and shady tree at the top, but we were disappointed that it was completely unexcavated so really just felt like a hill. The olive trees on the way in were lovely, and we saw a herd of goats in the forest.

Overall I don't know that we'll be back here - maybe for a camping/hiking trip where we want to go deeper into nature, but not for any of the archaeological destinations. If I did mountain biking I would definitely check it out for that.