Yabrud

The area is access sensitive!

The trip to the Yabrud cliffs takes about 20 minutes by car from Ramallah. There are two ways to get to the location by car from Ramallah depending on whether or not the road next to the Beit El settlement is open. There are several ways to reach the climbing site with your personal vehicle or public transport:

🚗 Option 1 (if the road is open):
From Al-Manara circle in Ramallah drive northeast on Ersal Street towards Bir Zeit for about 4 km. Take a slight right onto route 463 and drive one kilometer. Take a left on route 466 (the old Nablus road) and drive 3.6 kilometers north past the Beit El settlement on your right and Jalazun camp on your left. Continue for 7km down into the valley past Dura El Kari’a village on your right and Ein Sinya village on your left. At the bottom of the valley, take a right onto a dirt road that heads up a valley to the right. You will see the cliff band ahead of you up the valley. Park your car anywhere alongside the dirt road and walk all the way up the dirt road until you are at the same height as the bottom of the cliffs, then hike north to reach the climbing routes. Most recently (January 2018), a barricade of rubble has been erected at the beginning of the dirt road to prevent illegal garbage dumping. You can either park in front of the barricade and hike a bit further, or you can take a longer detour to the actual village of Yabrud and approach the cliff from the top of the hill.

🚗 Option 2 (if the road is closed):
From Al-Manara circle in Ramallah drive northeast on Ersal Street towards Bir Zeit for 4 km. Don’t turn right onto route 463 but continue on the road for another minute. In Surda, take a right up a steep hill towards the large golden mosque. If the main road is closed, there will be other cars using this route. Take a right at the T intersection and follow the road until it joins the old Nablus road in front of the Beit El settlement. Take a left and drive north past the Beit El settlement on your right and Jalazun camp on your left. From here, follow the directions in Option 1 (above).

🚌 Option 3 (public transportation):
The Yabrud cliffs can be reached easily and cheaply by “service,” the yellow minibuses that are omnipresent in Palestine. The service to Yabrud village can be found in the tunnel directly across the street from the Area D youth hostel near the Jamel Abdul Nasser mosque. This is right next to the station for buses to Jerusalem. The service to Yabrud costs 7 shekels. It runs on weekdays during daylight hours but waits until the bus is full to leave. This can take up to 40 minutes during slow hours. The weekend connections are far less frequent and almost non-existent on Fridays. Ask the service driver to drop you off on the dirt road just past the supermarket in Yabrud. You will then follow the dirt road down into the valley and reach the cliffs on your right after a 10-minute walk. At the end of the day, you can a catch a service back to Ramallah in front of the Yabrud supermarket.