Jean Louis Burckhardt | Go Tell It on the Mountain

October 11, 2014

The Sinai: in five travellers…

Travel writing about Egypt stretches back thousands of years; the Greek historian Herodotus was writing about travel here in the 5th century BC. Over history, it’s probably been one of the most written-about travel destinations in the world. But the Sinai’s different. Faraway from the Nile, out on Egypt’s frontiers, it’s always been hard to reach. Things changed a bit in the 19th century, with travel becoming easier, and plenty of intrepid types made the trip to Mount Sinai. A golden age of travel writing followed, with lots of travellers keeping diaires; some of which are still brilliantly readable today. Since then, few folks have written about the Sinai. I wish we had accounts of Bedouin travellers. But, being a people of the spoken word, they never recorded their journeys. Anyway, here are five of the most interesting travellers we DO know about.

1. EDWARD HENRY PALMER Palmer grew up an orphan, spending a lot of time with Romany Gypsies and developing a love of travelling, nomadic peoples. He was diagnosed terminally ill aged 19 – with just a few months to live – but recovered and went on to study langauges at Cambridge University. He finished with a 3rd class degree, the lowest possible. But his brilliant language skills outshone the exam results and he was soon made a professor. Soon after, he was employed as the interpreter on the 1869 British Ordnance Survey of Sinai. Through him – his Arabic and his way with people – his colleagues put together the best survey ever made on the area. He wrote The Desert of The Exodus – a beautiful account of his travels – before being killed here in 1882.

2. ISABELLA BIRD Most stuff about the Sinai is written by men. Isabella Bird was one of the few women who wrote anything. She was fiercely independent and adventurous with a wanderlust that drove her all the way from the Rocky Mountains to Tibet and Kurdistan. She covered thousands of kilometres in her lifetime, a lot of them on horseback. She visited the Sinai in the 1870s, swapping her horse for a camel and following the old route of The Exodus to Mount Sinai. She captured the beauty of the Sinai and its people as well as anyone, all with a cutting, self-deprecating humour.

3. SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE Held up as a travelling hero through the Middle Ages, Sir John was an English knight who penned his memoirs in retirement. Or that’s what he said, anyway. He was branded the ‘greatest liar OF ALL TIME’ a few centuries later. Honestly, nobody really knows if Sir John existed. Or who the author of his stuff was, if it wasn’t him. The likelihood is his memoirs were written up from a mishmash of other diaires. Whatever the story, I can say that the Sinai bits ARE very evocative. That they DO capture something of a much, much more distant time here. Also that – whoever wrote his stuff – compiling such a huge, complex narrative was a feat surpassed only by the epic chutzpah of passing it off as his own travels for a few hundred years.

4. JEAN LOUIS BURCKHARDT Burckhardt was born into the Swiss aristocracy; he moved to Germany when he was young, before travelling to England, becoming almost destitute in London and landing a dream role as an explorer in the Middle East. He spent a couple of years in Syria, perfecting his Arabic so he’d really understand the region. Later, he won immortal fame as the first European to see the ancient Nabataean city of Petra, before going to the Sinai, making notes upon which later explorers built and which are still brilliant to read today.

5. GEORGE W. MURRAY Hailing from the Scottish highlands, George Murray took his love of high places all the way to the mountains of Egypt. He worked on the British Survey of Egypt, mapping the Red Sea Mountains from Hurghada to Jebel Elba, moving south at a degree of latitude every year; he also mapped the Sinai’s mountains. Without a doubt, he climbed more mountains in Egypt than any traveller before him. I’d say probably more than any since too. The Sinai was one of his great loves and he walked far and wide, seeking out its hardest peaks and its most little-known wadis, even when he wasn’t working. He’s one of the great unsung heroes of mountaineering in Egypt and you can read his memoirs in the beautifully-titled book Dare Me To The Desert.

September 5, 2014

Jebel Umm Shomer: a history

Jebel Umm Shomer is an amazing peak. One with a high, pointed top that looks almost alpine – especially in the snow – and which stands in one of the most hard-to-reach parts of the Sinai. Europeans in particular were always fascinated by Jebel Umm Shomer; mostly because of its height. Up until the 19th century ,they reckoned it was Egypt’s highest peak: NOT Jebel Katherina, as we know it is today (Jebel Umm Shomer is the SECOND highest peak in Sinai and Egypt at 2537m). The Bedouin never saw its height as important in the same way; for them, this was a more magical, mythical mountain. They once said an immortal maiden lived on top; one whose hair flowed in rich waves down her back and who filled the valleys with her enchanting song.

The first attempt – the first attempt in written records, anyway – was made by Jean Louis Burckhardt: the son of a Swiss aristocrat who moved to Germany, became almost destitute in London, then landed a dream job as an explorer.

He’s the guy who’s credited with re-discovering the ancient city of Petra.

Anyway, he travelled through the Sinai in the early 19th century, penning a hugely readable travelogue (Travels in Syria & The Holy Land – definitely worth a look). He loved mountains. And Jebel Umm Shomer wasn’t the only one he tried. He went to Jebel Serbal too – another of the Sinai’s most majestic peaks – but headed up the wrong summit after an argument with his guide. At least, he didn’t do the highest one. Which, I think, is what he meant to do AND what he thought he’d done!

Jebel Umm Shomer’s peak isn’t hard-to-find. It towers above you all the way. Burckhardt started the climb in a ravine that runs up the mountain. At the top of this ravine, he took a breather; huge views opened up over the sea to mainland Egypt and he gazed down to the port of El Tur. Between him and the top were now just the last cliffs, and he wrote this in his journal:

“Umm Shomer rises to a sharp, pointed peak, the highest summit of which it is, I believe, impossible to reach; the sides being almost perpendicular, and the rock so smooth, as to afford no hold to the foot. I halted about 200 feet below it, where a beautiful view opened upon the sea of Suez“.

So he turned back there, declaring the mountain unclimable. Others tried after him, but none of them found a way to the top.

Jebel Umm Shomer, high crags, Go tell it on the mountain_result

The mountain remained unclimbed – by Europeans, anyway – for about half a century. Two Englishmen – T.E Yorke and the Reverend T.J Prout – were the first on top in 1862. And a local Bedouin guide showed them the way (as ever, the Bedouin had been up this mountain long before Europeans; their climbs just aren’t recorded in writing). They submitted an account to Britain’s Royal Geographical Society – ‘ASCENT OF UMM SHOMER: THE HIGHEST PEAK OF THE SINAITIC PENINSULA‘ – which you can still read today. They walked in from St Katherine, camping at a spot called Zeituna before carrying on over Jebel Abu Shajara – Mountain of the Tree – to Burckhardt’s ravine.

Here’s what the Rev T.J Prout where Burckhardt stopped:

“It is a little higher up [ie from the top of the ravine] that the difficulty of the mountain occurs. The huge buttresses which support the biggest summit are, at first sight at least, quite insurmountable. But on further inspection the perpendicular face of one of these buttresses is found to be rent by a fissure… gradually contracting until there is barely room for a man. On the floor here boulders rise within reach of a small ledge…”

From this ledge they carried on, threading through the crags to the top.

Jebel Umm Shomer, summit graffiti

Since then, Jebel Umm Shomer has been climbed many times. It’s well-known to any enthusiast of the Sinai’s mountains. If you get the chance, you should definitely do it too. You’ll follow that same route in the ravine that Burckhardt wrote about nearly 200 years ago; and which Yorke and Prout finished describing later. If you DO go, be sure to have a good look around the top, because there’s some interesting stuff. I found the names of T.E Yorke and T.J Prout carved on a boulder (obviously there from way back in 1862). There’s a pilgrim’s crucifix carved in an early style too (meaning an outsider was probably on the top centuries before Burckhardt even tried). Also, there’s a footprint scratched on a rock: an old form of Bedouin marriage proposal – which you can read more about HERE – which I’d love to think was something to do with the Bedouin story of the immortal maiden who lived on top…

Don’t be worried by the accounts of early explorers either. Jebel Umm Shomer is a good scramble: that’s it. The way is well-marked and there’s nothing technical. And nothing too exposed. So how do you do it? First of all, head to St Katherine; go to a local Bedouin camp, and arrange a 4×4 – or a camel – to a place called Zeituna. Zeituna is the name of the spot you start the walk to the mountain; there’s an old garden with a well here. If you want to sleep, there’s an unlocked storeroom that belongs to the Monastery of St Katherine too. You can use that as shelter. There ARE other approaches: if you’re feeling adventurous you can start in South Sinai’s capital El Tur: this way, you’ll approach the mountain through Wadi Isleh – a spectacular gorge – then go up Wadi Rimhan. If you want even more adventure start at St Katherine and go via Wadi Jibal and Naqb Umm Siha: from here you go down to Wadi Zeraigiyeh, which you can follow up to the mountain past the ruined chapel and mosque of Deir Antush.