MITZPE RAMON

'Mitzpe Ramon' (, lit. ''Ramon Lookout'') is a local council in the Negev desert of southern Israel. The town is situated on the northern ridge at an elevation of 2,400 feet (800m.) overlooking the enormous karst erosion cirque known as the Ramon Crater.
Mitzpe Ramon was originally founded in 1951 as a camp for the workers building the road to Eilat. The town's first permanent residents, immigrants from North Africa and Romania, settled there in the 1960s. Mitzpe Ramon remains small and struggling, with one of the highest unemployment rates in the country. One of the original opportunities for founding a town in this location was to take advantage of traffic on Route 40 traveling to and returning from Eilat in the south, a few nearby military bases and some chalk quarries. Several large military bases (with over 10,000 soldiers altogether) surround the town, including the large Ramon Airbase. The Wise Astronomy Observatory is located 5 km to the east.
The growth of the town was severely halted for several years when Route 90 was opened along the Arava to the east in the late 1960s and virtually all traffic to and from Eilat bypassed Mitzpe Ramon entirely. However, with the increasing growth of ecotourism, jeep trekking and hiking and the upgrading of Route 40, which is considered to be the more scenic route to Eilat, the town has seen something of a revival since the mid-1990s. A high-standard hotel was opened in the town in the late-1990s, together with a Visitors Centre with a breathtaking view over the Ramon Crater, a llama and alpaca farm and other attractions.
The town experiences pretty hot summers and cold winters. Snow sometimes occur as well.

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★ Mitzpe Ramon Local Council (Hebrew)