When the Lebanon Mountain Trail’s thru-hike was cancelled this year due to war, here’s what walkers around the world did instead

When British artist Ali Pretty was unable to walk on the mountain trails and through the wildflower fields of Lebanon as she had planned to do last April, she headed instead to the coast-hugging trails of Türkiye.

She was on a mission. She also wasn’t alone. Over a month, in over 25 countries from Australia to Nepal to France, others were hiking too. And for the same reasons—to show their solidarity, concern and love for Lebanon’s nature and people in a time of war.

The initiative, ‘Walk with Lebanon’, was an adaptation of ‘Mountains of Hope,’ a project which stemmed from an earlier partnership between Pretty’s London-based arts organization Kinetika and the Lebanon Mountain Trail Association (LMTA). The original idea was to create hand-painted silk flags to represent communities during April 2026’s (by-then cancelled) Thru Hike.

I’ve walked about a quarter of the Lebanon Mountain Trail (LMT) on two separate Thru Hikes, wading through mountain streams, literally hugging 2,000-year-old trees, and soaking up the contagious spirit of the LMTA, an organization made of people passionate about the natural beauty of their country.

The LMTA, which celebrates its 19th anniversary in November, has overseen conservation, management and promotion of the LMT, a 279-mile (450-kilometer) path stretching along Lebanon’s spine from Andqet Akkar in the country’s north to Marjeyoun in the south.

Combined with its 93 miles (150 kilometers) of side trails, the main trail crosses 80 towns and villages, covering altitudes ranging from 1,870-6,797 feet (570-2,072 meters).

“I think that what the world needs is for people to connect and come together and try to imagine other ways of being.”

- Ali Pretty, founder, Kinetika

Twice a year, in April and October, LMTA organized ‘Thru Hikes’ which traverse the main trail sections. Led by local guides, hikers walk along mountain paths, through remote villages, valleys, nature preserves and cedar groves, before spending the night in accommodations ranging from convents to guesthouses to homes, and filling up on hearty homemade meals. Participants, many of whom come from abroad, can walk the full month or for a shorter duration.

“When you realize the richness, the beauty of what you have … you feel like you’re responsible to do everything possible to protect it, to manage it, and to promote it,” says LMTA’s Executive Director Omar Sakr, a member of the LMTA since its founding in 2007. Growing up in Jounieha, a coastal city just north of the Lebanese capital Beirut, Sakr spent much of his childhood in the mountains outside of Beirut and has raised his three children to have an equal love of hiking and the outdoors. “Nature is really home for me.”

In 2024, Kinetika and the LMTA partnered to create hand-painted bespoke silk flags, each one representing the 27 trail sections, and to be revealed during a Thru Hike that Pretty planned to complete.

Pretty uses batik silk painting as a medium for community-driven art and design to inspire awareness. Some of her projects use walking to connect communities such as ‘Beach of Dreams,’ a UK walk and festival to raise awareness of coastlines in the face of climate emergency. Through another project, Pretty worked with five communities on the El Sendero Pacifico Trail in Costa Rica to create silk flags representing the trail’s biodiversity.

When Pretty presented on the Costa Rica initiative during the 2024 World Trails Network Conference in Ottawa, she was immediately approached by artist and the LMTA’s Environmental and Education Officer Takla Khoueiry, who was adamant about doing a similar project in Lebanon for the LMT.

Khoueiry spent months gathering stories and drawings of place and identity from communities along the trail, which were translated into unique designs. A flag representing Akkar communities in the north, for example, depicts local cedar, fir and juniper trees, the rare Lebanese hyena, a shepherd’s tent, and one of the area’s typical wells. Another design representing the Rachaya to Hasbaya section, shows the local citadel and mosque, an olive press, and the flowing Hasbani River. Khoueiry traveled to London where she worked with Kinetika to transfer the designs onto 3.9 square-foot (1.2 square-meter) silk flags, to be gifted to each respective community.

When the-then two-and-a-half-year Israel-Lebanon conflict escalated in early March 2026, and April’s Thru Hike was canceled, Pretty didn’t want to abandon the project. “I think that what the world needs is for people to connect and come together and try to imagine other ways of being,” she tells me. Essentially, if she couldn’t walk in Lebanon, she would walk with Lebanon—from afar. And she’d ask others to join her.

Via social media, Pretty invited people to join her in Türkiye, or to join Walk with Lebanon by walking wherever they were in the world anytime between April 3 and May 3. Each day would be linked to the section of the trail that would have been walked during the regular Thru Hike.

Starting with Section 1A, which began in Andqet on April 3 and ended in El Qoubayat on April 5, Pretty read the ‘story’ of the section’s flag, which was also posted on the project’s website. Section 1A’s story, for example, describes the area’s high-altitude villages, community connection to agricultural production and traditional arak distillation, and its focus on environmental protection through its Karm Chbat Nature Reserve.

Pretty also urged people to ponder five questions from philosopher Bertrand Russell: Who are we? Where did we come from? Where are we going? How should we live? What is sacred? Each silk had a story so people had something specific they could respond to, she says.

“What I realize is that people don’t really know what to do when a country is suffering. When you give them an opportunity to come and celebrate that country and be in solidarity and support it … They say, ‘Look, it was an opportunity for us to do something.’”

- Azul Thome, walker, France

Pretty and others hiked sections of Türkiye’s Lycian Way and the Carian Trail while carrying some of the flags. They’d pass other walkers who, often curious and after learning about Walk with Lebanon, would join them.

Scottish artist Donna Campbell had also planned to walk the April 2026 Thru Hike before it was canceled. She joined Pretty for the Lycian Way before traveling to Nepal on a volunteer work assignment where she organized an additional three-day hike along the Chisapani Nagarkot Trail, during which she carried a hand-embroidered mandala flag.

“It’s the power of the arts to bring people together to celebrate hope and humanity,” Campbell says, when asked why she joined. “And to show solidarity with the communities along the Lebanon Mountain Trail and the people of Lebanon and the wider region.”

When walker Azul Thome saw Walk with Lebanon’s call in March this year on social media, she set to work organizing an 11-mile (18-kilometer) walk starting from her village Chatillon-en-Diois in southeast France.

Searching for something that connected France and Lebanon, Thome, who is French-Lebanese but had no prior connection to the LMT, found it through identifying seven migratory bird species that move between the two countries.

She set up community workshops to create seven upcycled fabric flags of the birds, which were carried during the April 25th walk. Around 50 people—from parents pushing strollers to a 90-year-old woman—joined her.

“What I realize is that people don’t really know what to do when a country is suffering,” Thome says. “When you give them an opportunity to come and celebrate that country and be in solidarity and support it … They say, ‘Look, it was an opportunity for us to do something.’”

In total, Walk with Lebanon registered 67 organized hikes across 32 different groups and organizations in over 25 countries this year. And responses to the community stories and the five questions were so strong that Kinetika is now in the finishing stages of compiling them into a 27-page magazine.

Pretty was finally able to travel to Lebanon in September where she and LMTA’s Khoueiry led batik workshops to create 11 additional flags for each LMT side trail. This time, community members were able to have a more hands-on role in painting them.

The full October Thru Hike was reduced to weekend hikes only. All 38 flags are planned to be revealed during the planned April 2027 Thru Hike, during which they will be gifted to each of their communities. “They were really grateful that we did Walk with Lebanon,” Pretty says, “and it has given them a kind-of boost of ongoing energy to be resilient and to keep the trail alive and kicking.”

Despite the June ceasefire, conflict continues to impact Lebanon, particularly the south. While travel is often discouraged, the conflict does not impact the entire country and the LMTA is planning to do the full April Thru Hike next year. “Everybody loved the idea of the flags, the colors, the content, the story of each,” says Sakr, adding the flags are also being used to ‘tease’ the spring hike. “If the situation continues as such, we expect high occupancy next year.”

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