Beirut

8:30 AM — Departure from Beirut Your professional guide and driver collect you from your Beirut hotel and head south into the Chouf Mountains — pine and cedar-forested ridges rising steeply above the coastal plain as you climb toward Maaser el Shouf and the biosphere reserve.

Shouf Cedars Reserve

Arrive at the Maaser el Shouf Cedar Reserve, part of the Shouf Biosphere Reserve, Lebanon's largest nature reserve and one of the most ecologically significant protected landscapes in the Middle East. The reserve protects one of Lebanon's most extensive surviving cedar forests — ancient trees that are the direct descendants of the vast cedar forests that once covered these mountains and whose timber built Phoenician ships, Solomon's Temple, and the palaces of Egypt. A gentle 45-minute guided hike takes you along the marked trail through the grove — towering cedar trunks, mountain panoramas opening through the canopy, and the extraordinary stillness of a forest that has been growing here for centuries. Your guide explains the ecology of the reserve, and the remarkable efforts that saved these ancient trees. Suitable for all fitness levels — no steep terrain, no technical sections, just a deeply rewarding morning walk at altitude before the mountain crossing into the Bekaa.