One of the most fun things I did in Israel was a competitive orienteering race in Timrat, in the lower Galilee mountains. In this sport you get a topographic map marked with about 20 spots, and your task is to find them all as fast as possible. To verify you found all spots, each has a flag (usually hidden) and a unique stamp that you add to your card. You use a compass and the map to navigate your way, trying to choose the fastest route from spot to spot.
And thus, on a hot Saturday in early March I set out with Hagai to Timrat, a small forest in the northern part of Israel.
We met there with Itai - Hagai's brother, Itai's son Tomer, and Hagai's sister Naama. While Naama and Tomer went for the easy short trail, Itai, Hagai and I chose the difficult level.
I used to do it a lot with Hagai in the 90s. I wasn't very good, but I thought I was decent. Thus, with (in retrospect, completely baseless) optimism, I set on the task, looked at the map and started running.
I got lost immediately. It took me 20 minutes to find the first station. At that rate, the entire thing would have taken 6-7 hours. On top of it, it was an exceptionally hot day (about 90F), and I didn't take water with me (counting on water in stations along the trail - which was foolish). Looking for the second station, I realized that my compass was broken.
To make a long story short, I did finish it in two hours (minus half the stations), and realized I need to practice more and lower expectations.
You can see the rest of the pictures in Hagai's album.
