Saqyet el Khayt - Abeidat - Mar Semaan -Mar Antonios

A beautiful loop starting from Saquiet el Khayt village. We parked our car next to "Knisset el Saydeh" before starting the hike with a short village walk. Soon after passing by the old monastery of Mar Semaan, we took a beautiful wild forest trail. The trail is not blazed, but it's easy to find your way to Abeidat village, another calm village to the east of Saquiet el Khayt. After a pleasant 1km walk in Abeidat, we took a trail to the right following 'Mar Semaan" signpost. Unfortunately, what used to be a stunning zigzag trail down to the valley is actually intersected by a disgusting rocky steep road. A person from Abeidat told us that this road is part of a project to pump water from the valley but the contractor did it the ugliest way (like most corrupted projects in Lebanon). Here, you have two options: either you stay on the upper old trail but you will have two tricky parts because of the newly opened road (check waypoints) or take the very steep rocky road. In both cases, you shouldn't follow the road all the way down. Instead, you will have to catch back the trail under the cliff (check waypoint). From here, the amazing trail and sceneries will let you forget the previous "ugly" part. The path is stunning, blazed but still wild. We soon reached one of the most beautiful monasteries built in the rocks. Take time to visit the Hermitage using the two installed metallic ladders. From there the trail continues on the rocks. Very beautiful sceneries all around. At some point, the trail starts going up and intersects at half-way with the trail from Saquiet el Khayt to Mar Antonios. Go down to visit Mar Antonios, another hermitage in the valley. You will have to "crawl" through a small opening in the rocks to reach the "church". There are chains on the way to assist you while going down. After Mar Antonios visit, you can continue your way down to the dry riverbed but this is optional unless you want to walk in the valley to reach "Ghabbit" as described in the trail posted by Ray Kodsieh. I didn't have time to do it (i may explore it another time) so i took the trail back up to the starting point. Enjoy, keep it clean and stay safe.