Author: Ben Hoffler

February 2, 2015

Five holy peaks of the Sinai

Mount Sinai is the spot they say God spoke with Moses, giving the 10 Commandments. It’s the Sinai’s holiest peak. You could make a good case for it being the holiest in the world too. Holier to more people, in more parts of the world, over a longer time, than any other mountain on earth – which is really something. It isn’t the Sinai’s only holy peak though. There are plenty of others. Some of them are holy because – like Mount Sinai – they’re on the Biblical map. Others, because of later miracles. And some were holy in much more distant eras, to much earlier peoples of the peninsula, whose religions we know little about today. Here are five holy peaks of the Sinai you rarely hear about:

1. JEBEL SERBAL Jebel Serbal looks amazing. If you had to say any peak in the Sinai was holy based on looks alone, it’d probably be this. And for a long time, people did say it was holy. Some scholars reckon the name Serbal comes from ‘Baal’, a pagan God who was worshipped in these parts of the Middle East in ancient times. There’s a little ruin on the mountain top that dates from a later era, which archaeologists reckon was a Nabataean temple. Later still, in Christian times, Jebel Serbal took on a whole new association. Early Christians believed it was the real Mount Sinai of The Bible – i.e not the peak we call Mount Sinai today. The ruins of the Sinai’s first episcopal city, plus hermit cells, chapels and crumbling stairways, still stand around the mountain today.

2. JEBEL KATHERINA Egypt’s highest peak. Legend has it angels carried the body of St Katherine here after the Romans killed her in Alexandria. The exact whereabouts of her bones remained unknown until one day in the 9th century when, claiming all had been revealed in a God-given dream, a local monk wandered up the mountain and found them on this summit (the lower of the mountain’s two high points and the second highest point in Egypt 2637m). Ever since then, this peak has been hallowed ground. There’s a small chapel on top but the bones of St Katherine are now in the Monastery of St Katherine.

3. JEBEL TAHUNA A little peak in Wadi Feiran, local legend has it Jebel Tahuna is the spot where Moses watched the Battle of Rephidim, raising his magic staff to spur the Israelites on to victory. A 1500 year oratory crowns the summit, with a near-perfectly preserved water cistern dug into its foundations. Small chapels, whose walls, columns and altars are all still visible, stand by the path up the mountain. Hermit cells are dug into banks along its lower slopes and the higher hillsides are scattered with ancient Christian tombs. Travellers have been climbing this peak for centuries, and you should too. As much as the history, it’s worth it for the beautiful views you get over Wadi Feiran – one of the Sinai’s biggest, most beautiful wadis – and of Jebel Serbal, towering up like a castle.

4. JEBEL MONEJA A lot of tourists climb this, making the mistake of thinking it’s Mount Sinai. Actually, it’s just a smaller, sister peak, half way up. It’s also called Jethro’s Mountain, after Jethro, the Biblical figure, whose daughter is supposed to have married Moses. Monks say God spoke to Moses here, beckoning him further up the mountain, and it’s another of the Sinai’s holiest spots. With a chapel on top, this is a brilliant peak with what is – in my opinion – the best view of the Monastery of St Katherine in the Sinai; the classic viewpoint from which artists sketched it, huddling below Mount Sinai, for centuries.

5. JEBEL EL AHMAR Sometimes also known as Jebel Moneja – like the peak above – this is a little-known summit in the northern foothills of Jebel Serbal. It isn’t as dramatic-looking as the other peaks here, but all the same, this was one of the Sinai’s holiest summits for a long time. Early explorers recorded it having a special place for the local Bedouin of Wadi Feiran. They’d make pilgrimage trips to a shrine on the top, tying rags, beads, camel reigns and other offerings to the stones. That’s stopped today, but I’ve still heard people talk about it in the past. If you go you’ll have a spectacular view over Wadi Feiran, with its big palm grove; and one of the best views of Jebel Serbal. You can also visit the tomb of Sheikh Shebib, a holy saint of the Gararsha tribe, at the foot of the peak.

December 24, 2014

The Ghoul’s Cave: Merry Xmas

Kahf el Ghoula – The Ghoul’s Cave – is a dark, foreboding cavern in the side of Jebel Rabba. It looks like a black eye on the mountain, peering down on the wadi below. Legend has it a ghoula – an evil witch type creature – used to live here. She’d spy out travellers in the wadi. Then she’d capture them; and eat them, leaving a pile of bones. Bedouin mothers still tell young children stories about the ghoula to stop them wandering into the mountains alone. Anyway, it’s a beautiful, atmospheric cave, and we went to celebrate Christmas there this year; it feels sheltered, faraway and mysterious, deep in the mountainside. Definitely a hideout fit for a ghoul, if ever I saw one…

Getting there is easy – its about half an hour’s walk from St Katherine.

You just need to walk out of town through Wadi el Arbain. About 10 minutes along a ravine runs up into the mountains on the right hand side: this is Wadi Abu Heiman and Kahf el Ghoula is on the right side of this ravine, about a 15-20 minute climb.

There’s a spring in the cave, where water seeps out of the mountainside; green maidenhair ferns grow around it. They call it Ein el Ghoula – Spring of the Ghoul – and you can still drink its cold, fresh water today.

Look out for the small, cubby-hole type cave near the main one. It’s a person-sized cave where people say the ghoula would keep her victims before she ate them; a sort of larder to keep them fresh. You can climb up to to have a look, but it’s a little bit tricky.

Anyway, there aren’t many caves in the Sinai so whenever you find one – especially one this big – it’s worth a look. Merry Christmas from the Sinai!

December 23, 2014

Wadi Sig: the Sinai jungle

The Sinai is a desert – every part of it. Most parts get less than 50mm rain a year. Some parts, less than 13mm. It’s a trans-continental sweep of sandy plains and harsh, rocky highlands. Not every part of it though. In some places, the Sinai gets green. It gets overgrown. Walk some wadis and it it feels like you’ve left the desert and entered the jungle. These wadis of the Sinai – the jungle wadis – are absolutely amazing: an environmental oddity you find only on the west side of the peninsula. On the high mountain side. The wetter side, where steep, impervious mountainsides channel all the water direct into the bottom of the wadis. The east side is totally different. The west of the Sinai is where desert meets jungle. There are a few great jungle wadis.

And for me, the best of all – the best wadi in the Sinai – is Wadi Sig. I reckon this is the King of the Sinai’s wadis.

It’s the emerald gem; the buried, secret jewel of the peninsula.

There’s hardly any writing about it. I clocked it the first time on a high peak called Jebel el Reeh about a year ago. Far below there was a big wadi that cut down – deep, deep down – as it ran down to the sea.

It’s overgrown with vegetation for long stretches. And vegetation on a bigger scale than what you find in other wadis. There are giant horsemint bushes higher than your waist and thickets of bamboo where you can’t see where you’re going. Where you have to push your way through. There are places with running water, pools and small waterfalls. And there are huge canyons: long, narrow parts where the sides tower vertically. There’s history too: look carefully on the sides of the wadi and you’ll see little dwellings built into the cliffs. It’s a wadi that has everything. And there’s no let up – it never eases off.

All these riches aren’t won easily though – Wadi Sig is a tough walk.

And it’s made tougher by the fact it takes you irreversibly deep; it commits you to a remote, multi-day expedition you can’t get out of easily. And one where you have to carry all your stuff except water. Camels can’t come this way. There are no paths. It’s mostly stony river bed terrain. There’s plenty of boulder hopping. Plus bits of scrambling. There are a lot of routefinding puzzles too. We got stuck at one point, jumping down into a black abyss, with a shower of vegetation falling on our heads, before escaping through a bamboo thicket (only to discover a much more sensible way around the other side). Black piping is tied on some rocks so you can abseil in places; but you never go down more than a few metres.

Wadi Sig isn’t technically tricky – it’s just long. And tough. A stamina thing.

If walking a wadi was a boxing match, Wadi Sig would be the equivalent of going the distance; of doing the full 12 rounds. We did it in a day, starting at 6am, finishing about 5pm, just before sunset; and going fast all the way. Ideally, it’d be better done in two days. The best plan would be to hike in from St Katherine on the first day – which takes about five hours – and then camp in the wadi. Then to continue to the end over the second day. It ends at a junction with Wadi Khareeta. After this, it becomes known as Wadi Mirr. It’s the same wadi – just with a different name – and it runs down to the Plain of Qa.

The easiest option is to just walk out of Wadi Mirr. It takes about a day to the end of the wadi, where you can find a jeep at a small Bedouin village. The downside of this is the jeep can cost a lot – probably at least LE500 to El Tur considering you won’t have much bargaining power. The other options are 1. to walk out through Wadi Khareeta, which takes you back to St Katherine in 2-3 days 2. to go through Wadi Zeregeiyah, which goes to Jebel Umm Shomer over 1-2 days, after which it’s another day’s walk back to St Katherine. You can also go to a place called Baghabugh, near Jebel Madsus, and then back to St Katherine over 2-3 days. Or you can go over the high pass of Naqb Umm Seikha to Wadi Jibal and back to St Katherine in 2 days. Be warned – none of these routes are easy.

The easiest of all is the Baghabugh route. This is mostly a hike. All the other routes are off piste adventure routes. Naqb Umm Seikha is the way the postman used to take from El Tur to St Katherine in the 19th century. But it’s seriously steep and would be a monster with a heavy bag. Wadi Khareeta is also steep at the end. Wadi Zeregeiyah is like a mini Wadi Sig, with lots of scrambling; including bits that are more technical than Wadi Sig.

And perhaps that’s another great thing about Wadi Sig.

It commits you to a mission where getting out is as much of an adventure as getting in in the first place…

December 17, 2014

Jebel Rimhan: a sleeping giant

Jebel Rimhan was once a complete obsession of a mountain for me. It struck me the first time I saw it; more than any other peak in the Sinai. I was on my way to Jebel Umm Shomer and it was there in the dawn; its huge, twin peaks rising in the morning haze; each a perfect pyramid. Behind it, the Hejaz lined the horizon along the coast of Arabia. I saw it from a lot of other places after that. And wherever it appeared – from whatever angle – it looked just as beautiful; just as majestic. Jebel Rimhan is one of the Sinai’s biggest peaks at 2437m; but unlike other big peaks here – like Umm Shomer, Thebt and Serbal – it didn’t have an established route on it, which just added to the allure.

The first – and only – recorded ascent I know of was made nearly 100 years ago, by George W Murray, a highland Scot who worked on the British Survey of Egypt.

Talking about recorded anythings is always dubious in a place like Sinai, whose people were historically one of the spoken word, never putting anything on paper. But Murray had climbed mountains all over the Sinai, he knew the Bedouin well and – even then – reckoned the ‘maiden pikes of Rimhan, the Two Lances’ were unscaled; either in recorded or unrecorded terms.

Whatever the story, he didn’t go with a local Bedouin. He went with a Bedouin from the mountains of mainland Egypt – Ali Kheir – who found the way from scratch. Murray found it such a tough route to follow that – as a mark of gratitude and respect – he bought his guide the best cross-handled sword he could find when they got back to Cairo; a prized relic from the Battle of Omdurman.

Unfortunately, Murray didn’t record specifics of the route they did that day.

I spent years asking around, trying to find someone who knew the way. There were plenty of folks who reckoned they knew it; but none of them were ever available. I gave it the first go in winter of 2012 with a Bedouin guide called Auda; an ageing talkaholic in white plimsolls and a baggy coat down to his knees. I’d walked with him before – to Jebel Umm Shomer – and found it totally exhausting. Not the walk. All the talking. I like silence in the mountains. I don’t like to talk; or even think through language.

I just like to exist. To see stuff. To feel things.

Auda was the enemy of silence itself. When he couldn’t think of anything to say, he’d just whoop, or scream. He’d be a challenge on a par with the mountain itself but if he knew the way – and he said he did – it was a fair price to pay.

Half way up he stopped on a high promontory, leant back in a limbo like pose and bellowed up at the sky – with a celebratory edge – ‘MAFEESH TAREEEEEEEEEEG! Which was to say, no way. He was right too. A huge ravine sliced the mountain in half. Getting down into it wasn’t the only problem. We’d have to climb out the other side onto the summit section; a mass of smooth, bulging granite, towering up hundreds of metres. The whole thing looked frightening. Cracks, cuts and black lines ran through the crags, like scars on an ancient face. Jebel Rimhan was like a giant’s head, sleeping and ready to wake.

Auda didn’t seem bothered. He just stood there, bellowing.

Walking back that day felt like a failure; I kept turning round, wanting to go back. Looking at the mountain; thinking we should have tried the last crags. That we should’ve been bolder or braver. Or found another way. That we should have gambled. That we should have just done it without thinking. For weeks afterwards – when I went back to downtown Cairo – I saw Jebel Rimhan when I closed my eyes; like its twin peaks had been photographically exposed on my retina. They appeared in the darkness, like a silhouette; the specks and phosphenes floating over them.

It was a year before I got another chance to do it; going back in 2013. And the second time was even more of an unmitigated failure than the first, ending when I thought my guide was having a heart attack after the first pass.

He wasn’t – hamduleleh – but something wasn’t right. So we bailed.

On the way back we met a local Bedouin who said he’d been up. He was an elderly guy called Salem who set a princely sum for guiding me, which I paid only to avoid having to break the news of another failure back in town.

We made a dawn raid, shooting straight for the summit on a dragon’s back type ridge. The Sinai doesn’t have many ridges; not like the glaciated ranges of Europe, with their knife edge arêtes and cirques. Occasionally, a geological quirk creates one in the landscape though; and most of the time, they’re gems. This was one of the best; bristling with high fins of rock you had to weave between all the way along. About half way up the ridge, the summit suddenly appeared. I got a sudden burst of hope, thinking we’d do it; third time lucky. Further up though, Salem sat down on a rock and got his binoculars out; an ominous sign.

We could see an impenetrable looking thimble of crags at the end.

We went up to look. Sure enough though; they were too high, too tricky and serious for a pair of scramblers – looking for a scrambler’s route up – like us. We’d got higher than ever. Just below the top. We weren’t there; but it wasn’t totally wasted. Getting this far showed us the peak we’d been centering on – the northerly one of the twin peaks – wasn’t actually the highest.

As it transpired, Salem didn’t know the way up Jebel Rimhan. He’d said he did, gambling and hoping it’d unfold as we got up.

And all that talk is a big part of Jebel Rimhan for me. Down in the towns; in the tents, by the fires, where everything’s comortable and everybody can just talk without ever showing anything for it, people know the way. Everyone’s an expert. Press them on the specifics though – especially when you’ve been on the mountain – and you’ll see it’s all totally empty. It mirrors the way mountain knowledge is getting moth eaten across the Sinai too. Bedouin knowledge – hard won by earlier generations – is gradually being forgotten. And knowledge of the mountain tops is the worst hit; it’s been the first to go of everything on the peninsula.

It’s partly because the Bedouin inhabit a new, modern world in which mountain knowledge is irrelevant. They don’t need it any more. Especially nothing about the high mountain tops. Why would they? Wadis are still highways in the mountains; so they still get talked about. They’re still better known.

In some ways, the empty, feigned knowledge about Jebel Rimhan is sad to me.

As much as it’s a charade born from bravado, I think it’s born from a feeling they should know the mountains better. Especially in front of an outsider; I think it’s born of a feeling that something precious has been lost. And that they’re the generation that lost it; that they’re responsible the knowledge that set them aside from anybody else; the knowledge that made them Bedouin – rather than anything else – is waning. And it’s waning on their watch.

Anyway, after that third time, I gave up on people who said they knew the way.

I went back again in summer 2014 with a guy called Salem Abu Ramadan; the fittest Bedouin I know; and one of the best climbers and routefinders. We began early, heading for the higher peak; the one we’d spotted from the last attempt. I didn’t have high hopes; it looked even harder than the other. I was just there because I couldn’t rest easy until I’d tried everything I could on Jebel Rimhan.

We spent the morning creeping round the mountain like a pair of assassins trying to get into a forbidden castle. We started up a ravine that ended in a cul de sac. After that, we tried smaller gully with a rojom – a trail marking stone – in it. It was the first rojom I’d seen on Jebel Rimhan. A a sure sign someone had been here before. Maybe it was an old route marker. We followed it, then found a line of them that ended below a high, sheer wall we couldn’t pass.

We were running out of options. The last chance we had was a ravine that we’d avoided in the morning because a huge boulder was wedged half way up, blocking it. But we gave it a go: there was nothing else.

Getting round the block turned out easy. Big views soon unlocked over the landscape as we got higher and the towering crags soon began to taper off. At the end of the ravine we scrambled onto a ridge.

We looked left, and there it was. The summit. No big crags. No big obstacles.

The ridge – flanked by massive drops – ran up to it. We followed it along – crossing a few wobbly boulders, one of which groaned like it was about to plunge off – to reach the top. It felt lik hallowed ground. Finally, after all the years, we were there. We could see the other peak – the object of our three failures – and behind it Jebel Umm Shomer. The Sinai unfolded all around, looking beautiful. Where it ended, the summits of Africa stood up across the sea; with the mountains of Arabia on the other. It was one of the most spectacular sights I’d seen in the Sinai; almost as beautiful as the twin peaks of Jebel Rimhan itself. As much as it felt good to be on the top, part of me felt sad the story was over. That there wouldn’t be another mountain like it.

Not such an epic, forgotten and mysterious a peak as Jebel Rimhan.

The best thing about doing it wasn’t getting there. It was finding a good way up. A way anybody could do. It was winning back that lost knowledge about one of the Sinai’s biggest, most beautiful peaks. Jebel Rimhan is a sleeping giant of a peak; I hope this route we did might begin to make it wake because this is a mountain that deserves a place alongside the Sinai’s other great summits.

If you want to try the mountain, I can guarantee this guy knows the way, as we went together. Salem Abu Ramadan: 0101-497-6289.

November 28, 2014

Sinai: staying safe in winter

Winter can be an amazing time in the Sinai, especially around the town of St Katherine. This is the highest part of Egypt; the so-called High Mountain Region – The Roof of Egypt – about 1500m higher than the rest of the country. And it has the most extreme climate to boot. Snow falls most years. Sometimes, in such epic quantities it’s transformed into a realm of glistening white peaks, more like the Alps than the desert. It’s my favourite time. But it’s the most challenging time too. One that calls for a different skill set. It’s a time when you enter a world found nowhere else in Egypt, which can be deceptively dangerous. Suddenly, it’s easy to find yourself in an alien environment, where it’s hard to think the best way out of new problems.

Here are ten tips to enjoying a safe winter season in the Sinai.

1. WARM, WATERPROOF CLOTHES – this seems obvious, right? Going to the mountains in winter, you’d think everyone would take warm, waterproof clothes. But it’s amazing how many people don’t. How many think that because it’s warm in Cairo or Dahab it’ll be similar – or a few degrees colder – in St Katherine. Let’s get it straight: the mountains of the Sinai are bloody cold. On top of Jebel Katherina – a quarter the height of Mount Everest at 2642m – it can drop to minus 14 degrees. And the wind can make it feel colder too. The key to staying warm is wearing multiple layers. Wear a tight, skin-hugging base layer – e.g. thermal leggings and a vest. Over that, a T-shirt, a pullover and a jacket. If they’re not warm enough, wear more layers. If they’re too hot, take some off. Pack everything in plastic bags, so it stays dry in rain. Above all, take a waterproof layer; when your clothes get wet, you lose heat five times faster. Hypothermia sets in fast. I take a good, Gore-Tex jacket and a spare plastic pocket poncho.

2. FOOTWEAR – it’s near-impossible to buy specialist walking boots in Egypt, let alone specialist winter boots. The next best thing are high, army style leather boots. If you’re walking in snow, it’s important to stop it going down the tops of your boots. Army boots are pretty good at this, as they strap tight around your legs, higher up than other boots. Gaiters are another option: these are basically ankle covers you strap around the tops of your boots. If you don’t have them, you can improvise with plastic bags and duck tape. That’s exactly what I did last winter, in deep snow on Jebel Katherina.

3. ESSENTIAL KIT – You need extra stuff, and a bigger pack in winter. Along with spare clothes, carry a whistle. You can blow this to attract help. A torch can be useful too. I’ve experimented with laser pens – like the ones in Midan Tahrir – and they’re great. Never go to the mountains without a mobile phone. Reception is patchy; sometimes non-existent, even on high peaks like Jebel Katherina. But there are still places with a signal. I take a small, basic Nokia phone – not a smart phone – as they’re tougher, with a better battery life. Always take matches/ a few lighters. Even in the snow, there’s dry wood in caves, under boulders etc. Take a survival bag too: this is a tough, plastic bag, about the size of a sleeping bag. A shield between you and the wind, rain and snow. Waterproofs sometimes leak. They get ripped etc. Survival bags give that last-ditch security. If you can’t find one, buy a strip of lightweight plastic sheeting. If you’re camping, you need a winter sleeping bag and a tent: otherwise, stay in gardens, with stone huts.

4. EAT WELL – You burn a lot of energy in winter, just to stay warm. Take plenty of high energy food – chocolate, sweets, halawa etc – so you can keep yourself properly heated. A thermos flask with a hot drink can be a good idea too.

5. WEATHER – Egypt doesn’t generate specialist mountain forecasts like many Western countries, where hiking is common. Nation-wide TV forecasts give a general idea of how it’ll be. Check out YR too: it uses weather data from the St Katherine airport, a few kilos outside town (this weather station is around 1000m lower than the highest tops of the nearby mountains – so remember the weather you will experience higher will be significantly more severe). Don’t just rely on forecasts though. Watch the weather; the sky; the clouds. The weather – despite what some say – does not change in the click of a finger. It gives warning signs. It can change fast, but rarely so fast you won’t have time to find shelter, an escape route, a safer place etc. If it looks threatening, don’t hang about. Make a plan. The fastest I have seen the weather turn in the Sinai is about 40 minutes: from clear skies, to thickening clouds, to snow. See a video I took of a Sinai snowstorm last winter HERE.

6. USE A BEDOUIN GUIDE – Use a good, experienced Bedouin guide. I’ve heard it said that ALL Bedouin know the mountains. Without a doubt, the Bedouin know the Sinai better than anybody in the world. But not all of them; there are still Bedouin who’ve grown up in towns, and who know virtually nothing beyond Jebel Musa. In winter, that’s not good enough. You need a guide you can trust. One who knows the way, day or night. Who knows the escape routes. The nearest shelters. One who watches the weather, who sees the subtle, early warning signs. One who’ll stay with you, however tough it gets. You can get guides from two official organisers in St Katherine: Sheikh Musa and Faraj Mahmoud. Sheikh Musa operates a rotation system. I don’t like it because I never know who I’m going to get. I get my guides from Faraj Mahmoud: in my opinion, his guides are the best available in the mountains. Call him on 0109-473-2417.

7. KNOW YOUR LIMITS – Stay well within the limits of your mountain experience in winter. And the experience of people in your group. Never do something the weakest member isn’t comfortable with. Be flexible and never be afraid to turn back from a mountain. I’ve climbed a lot of mountains in the Sinai and I’ve turned back from plenty too. It can feel hard at times – like a failure – but that’s only a short term feeling. Think about a mountain as a long term project. It’s not going anywhere; you can come back and do it again.

8. WHAT’S YOUR PLAN? – In winter, always – always – have a proper plan. Know the exact route – from one wadi to the next- and the schedule you will do it on. Plan escape routes. Or easier alternatives, if you need them. Know places you can shelter, like gardens or caves. It’s not enough for your guide to know this alone: you need to know it too. And you must tell someone reliable in addition, like the owner of the Bedouin camp who organises your hike. If you don’t come back on schedule, they can help start a search on your planned route, ASAP.

9. ALL FOR ONE, ONE FOR ALL – Always look out for your companions. When something happens to one of us in a group, it happens to all of us. Look out for your guide as well: things happen to them too. Do the same with the other folks you meet: stop, chat and keep a mental note as – in an emergency – you might be the last sources of intelligence about them. And they might be the last source of intelligence about you. And please – PLEASE, PLEASE – always leave shelters in a good condition, for the next folks. When I climbed Jebel Katherina after the snow last winter, I was the first on top: and the last person had left the window wide open, so it was full of snow. And totally useless for sleeping. Please also leave dry wood in shelters plus matches, candles and any food you can spare.

10. ACCEPT THE RISKS – Mountains are hazardous, especially in winter. The Sinai has no specialist, trained mountain rescue team, ready to go in an emergency. When you go to the mountains in winter, you HAVE to accept that. We go to the mountains for fun. Rescuers come for something else. They put their own lives in danger to try and save ours. Always remember: before it is anybody’s responsibility to rescue you; it is YOUR responsibility to go prepared.

I KNOW PREPARING FOR HIKING IN EGYPT ISN’T EASY – LET ALONE WINTER HIKING. I’VE TRIED TO TALK ABOUT GEAR THAT IS READILY AVAILABLE IN EGYPT IN THIS POST. TRY ALFA MARKET IN ZAMALEK AND THE CARREFOUR IN MAADI. IF YOU NEED ANY MORE ADVICE ON HOW TO IMPROVISE WITH OTHER GEAR, CONTACT ME. AND PLEASE SHARE THIS BLOG POST TO HELP US SPREAD THE WORD ABOUT STAYING SAFE THIS WINTER!

November 25, 2014

Guidebook: highly commended

Quick post to say Sinai: The Trekking Guide – my guidebook to the Sinai – was HIGHLY COMMENDED at the recent awards ceremony of the Outdoor Writers and Photogaphers Guild (OWPG) in the UK. Getting the guidebook out in the first place – with Egypt’s 2011 revolution, the 2013 revolution that followed, and the media’s coverage of the Sinai in recent years – was a big challenge. The book still faces big challenges today, with government warnings about the region and more ongoing bad press for the area. Working in the Sinai has been hard for all of us connected to it in recent years – especially those of us in the hiking field – so it’s great the OWPG have recognised the book and – through it – the Sinai region and its Bedouin communities. A big thanks to them, to all the folks behind the book – including the Trailblazer team – and to the Bedouin of the Sinai, especially Faraj Mahmoud, whose knowledge of the Sinai forms such a big part of the book itself. Here’s what the OWPG judges said about the book in their comments:

‘I’D NEVER CONSIDERED THIS PLACE AS A TREKKING DESTINATION, BUT THE BOOK IS SO WELL WRITTEN, I WAS LEFT FEELING THE ONLY THING I NEEDED WAS THE CASH FOR THE AIR FARE. IT IS A SPLENDID INTRODUCTION TO A LITTLE-KNOWN SLICE OF BACK-COUNTRY THAT CLEARLY DESERVES MORE ATTENTION AND A WIDER AUDIENCE. THE AUTHOR HAS UNDERTAKEN A VAST AMOUNT OF RESEARCH AND CLEARLY KNOWS THE AREA WELL. HIS LOVE AND ENTHUSIASM FOR THE PLACE COMES OUT IN HIS WRITING AND THE HAND-DRAWN MAPS INCORPORATING THE AUTHOR’S PERSONAL OBSERVATIONS ARE CHARMING‘ – JUDGES COMMENTS, UK OWPG AWARDS, 2014.

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 28, 2014

The blog: how it all began

THIS ARTICLE FIRST APPEARED IN EGYPTIAN STREETS. Check out their website HERE and like their Facebook page HERE!

When it comes to mountains and the Middle East, a few countries might spring to mind. There’s Yemen, with its pretty mountain villages and the highest peak of the Arabian peninsula; Oman too, home to the mighty Al Hajar range. In the wider Arab world, there’s Morocco, with the high, snowy peaks of the Atlas. Egypt has mountains too – lots of them – but it’s not famous for them in the same way other countries are. Few outsiders see Egypt as a mountain country. And mountains aren’t really part of the image Egyptians project about their country to the world either; they’re not woven into the national identity like the Nile, or even the sweeping deserts along its banks. Mount Sinai might be famous; but it’s a single peak. Beyond this and perhaps a couple of other iconic summits the mountains of Egypt are little-known; much less actually visited.

The mountains of mainland Egypt are amazing; on the Libyan side of the Nile, there’s Jebel Uweinat; on the other, the Red Sea Mountains.

But perhaps the most amazing of all are those of the Sinai.

The Sinai is Egypt’s great mountain land; a rugged wilderness where peaks tower up to gaze over the Red Sea to Africa and Asia. Egypt’s highest mountains are found here. But it’s not the height alone that makes them special. They’re some of the world’s most fabled mountains; the setting for ancient Biblical legends that are still told today. And there’s the history too; relics from the times of the Pharaohs – and even more distant eras – are still scattered by old paths.

I took my first hike in the Sinai over six years ago now.

Like most would-be hikers, I started out on a familiar path; doing the best known peaks at the beginning. I did Mount Sinai first – the most written about, talked about, and easily the most-climbed peak anywhere on the peninsula – and then Jebel Katherina, whose main claim to fame is being Egypt’s highest mountain. After that, I moved on to the sort of peaks that aren’t very well-known outside the Sinai – but which are still well-trodden within it – like Jebel Abbas Pasha, which has an unfinished Ottoman palace on top, and Jebel Umm Shomer, Egypt’s second highest mountain. After those, I began moving further out to the more rarely visited areas, seeking out the most little-trodden peaks.

Whether you walk a famous or a lesser-known peak, the Sinai’s rarely easy.

Good paths are hard to come by. There are virtually no signposts. Nor easy, end-of-the-day conveniences. The infrastructure for hiking tourism just hasn’t been widely built up. Good maps are pretty much non-existent. And whilst it’s good for some areas in the Sinai, Google Earth doesn’t cut it for navigating intricate mountain routes. As much as anything, there’s a dearth of information – good written information – about many parts of the Sinai’s mountains.

Sometimes, you can delve back into the travelogues of European explorers.

They might be old, but they’re usually still useful. These explorers walked more widely than any contemporary author; and a lot of the time their records are the only ones available for parts of the Sinai.

Amongst these early explorers was Jean Louis Burckhardt, who won immortal fame for unveiling Petra to the West. He travelled through the Sinai in 1816, walking widely and climbing a few iconic mountains.

There was Edward Henry Palmer too; a Cambridge professor who wrote a remarkable travelogue featuring many little-known parts of the Sinai.

And George Murray; a highland Scot and born mountain man who climbed some of the Sinai’s hardest peaks; and others across Egypt.

Of course though, these explorers didn’t go everywhere. Or record everything.

For large areas of the Sinai, there are still no written records. No modern ones; or older ones. Walking in these areas – in the most little documented parts of the Sinai – is a process that beings simply by asking questions. Specifically, by asking questions of the local Bedouin. The Bedouin arrived in the Sinai from the Arabian Peninsula centuries ago and walked the mountains widely from the start, looking for water, food, grazing and other essentials they needed to survive. They built up a huge bank of knowledge about its mountains through the ages. They were the Sinai explorers par excellence and their knowledge is still the only source of information available about a lot of the peninsula. When European explorers came to the Sinai they only ever explored it through the Bedouin, even if the Bedouin didn’t feature much in their written accounts. They had Bedouin guides; and they recorded Bedouin knowledge.

But Bedouin knowledge isn’t what it once was. Lifestyles have changed.

Today, many Bedouin have left the mountains for new towns and villages on their fringes. Knowledge about the mountains – once central to survival – is largely irrelevant now. And because it’s not used, a lot of it’s being forgotten.

You can see clear gaps in the knowledge of younger Bedouin already.

It’s the older Bedouin who know the Sinai best. But even then, tracking down the ones who know the ways up the hardest, most little-trodden peaks is a challenge. Sometimes, it can be simpler to just re-discover the routes from scratch.

This dearth of good written information about the little-known peaks of the Sinai is a hindrance to anybody wanting to do them. And to the development of hiking generally. I still experience it today. And it’s something I’ve tried to address through several projects. Earlier this year, I finished a trekking guidebook to the Sinai, published in the UK. It gives the best, most classic walks in the peninsula and the practical information needed to organise them.

More lately I created the website Go Tell It on the Mountain.

This is a project with a more specific mountain focus. And one which aims to start a grassroots documentation process. To begin a simple list of peaks – from the most famous to the most little-known – that will grow into a bigger bank of information that can be used to go deeper and discover more.

But it’s not just about showing what mountains are in the Sinai.

It records a more personal journey that I hope might help change perceptions about the peninsula. Over the last few years there has been a near constant stream of bad news from the Sinai; most of it from the North. But all too often North Sinai has been conflated with South Sinai; the peninsula portrayed as an undivided, unvariegated whole. Sinai is just Sinai. In reality the two areas have big geographical and social divides and South Sinai – which is where the mountains are – has been largely peaceful. Along with the bad press, Western governments have issued travel warnings for South Sinai, which have only reinforced perceptions of it as a place of danger. And even when warnings have been lifted for South Sinai resorts like Sharm they have remained in place for the mountains. The official message has been clear for years – don’t go.

It’s a state of affairs that has undermined the tourism upon which many local communities have grown to depend. Many are seriously struggling.

This website is about creating a counter-narrative to the bad news.

It’s about putting an alternative voice out there and showing a more real, everyday side to the mountains. It’s about telling stories that show these mountains are home to an ancient Arab culture built on honour and hospitality to travellers. And that these traditions still hold strong today. Ultimately, it’s about showing that you can travel safely here – even in the most little-visited parts of South Sinai’s mountains – despite what they say.

My biggest hope is that tourism will return; and not just to those parts of the Sinai that had it before. But to the most little-trodden mountain areas.

The Bedouin have always supplemented traditional livelihoods by guiding travellers in their lands; from traders to pilgrims and early explorers. Mountain tourism like hiking – which has proved so successful in other Arab countries – would be a sort of modern re-incarnation of that, creating a type of work that plays to natural Bedouin strengths in a way the Sinai’s glitzy beach resorts never could. It wouldn’t just open up a new treasure trove of beautiful mountains for the world; it would drive local development. And it’d put down a financial incentive for the preservation of Bedouin knowledge about the mountains. Knowledge it took centuries to build up and which – once lost – could never be re-created the same again. Knowledge that shouldn’t just be seen as part of Bedouin cultural heritage; but as part of humanity’s heritage at large.

My plans for the future are to carry on hiking in the Sinai. There are still new mountains I want to do. And old ones I want to try new ways. And I’d encourage anybody who’s in two minds about going to the Sinai to visit too.

The mountains of the Sinai and amazing and safe to visit in the South. If you don’t want to go alone, small hiking groups have been active for years. New ones are springing up too, run by Egyptians and foreigners. I’ve seen more hikers in the mountains this year than any previous one too. It’s all grounds for hope; a sign things might be going in the right way. Once people start walking more in these mountains; going deeper and bringing their stories back it’ll become clear that Egypt isn’t just the equal of Arab neighbours like Yemen, Oman and Morocco when it comes to mountains. But that it’s the equal of anywhere in the world. And perhaps then – when the epic potential of these mountains becomes clear – it’ll be the base for more change and development.

THIS ARTICLE FIRST APPEARED IN EGYPTIAN STREETS. Check out their website HERE and like their Facebook page HERE!

September 22, 2014

Jebel Thebt: a Sinai giant

Jebel Thebt is one of Sinai’s biggest peaks. Compared with the other big mountains though, it doesn’t get hiked much. That’s partly because it’s so isolated and hard to get to. Wherever you start, it’s a long walk in. You can knock the first few kilos off with a jeep but even then there’s a day’s walk to the mountain afterwards. As much as the isolation, its popularity was limited by the fact it wasn’t mixed up with the Biblical legend that made other mountains so famous. It never really got visited, talked-about, or put down on the map by early explorers. Not like other peaks did. Anyway, I hope more hikers start doing this one day. Because it’s a big, brooding giant of a peak that deserves better; one of the Sinai’s classic adventures, with some of its most stunning views.

The Bedouin climbed Jebel Thebt ages ago. The first European ascent I know of was made by the Rev F.W Holland in 1867. I meant to do it in 2012 but ran out of time trying to find a way up a nearby peak called Jebel Rimhan.

I finally got round to it again in the depths of winter 2014, going with a chain-smoking Bedouin of the Jebeleya tribe, called Musa.

We walked in from St Katherine and slept the first night in Wadi Tarfa; an old travelling passage between the Monastery of St Katherine and El Tur. It was absolutely freezing and everything was white with frost in the morning – Musa included. He was in one of those flimsy-type sleeping bags you’d take to Glastonbury or T-in the Park or something; doubled up with his knees to his chest, not moving. Half-worried he’d frozen to death, I nudged him which made him suddenly sit bolt upright, like a jack in the box. He stared at me a few seconds, then the fire, then me again; all with the confused look of a man who’d totally forgotten where he actually went to sleep.

We’d both overslept by a couple of hours. Which meant getting to Jebel Thebt and back in the couple of days we had was going to be tough.

Normally, to get to Jebel Thebt, you’d keep walking down Wadi Tarfa. Musa had a shortcut in mind though, which was just as well; because we’d never have got there the normal way. Not before sunset, anyway. And the last thing I wanted was to be stuck out on a big peak I didn’t know in the cold depths of a Sinai winter (according to one early climber, a Bedouin guide got frostbite on a mountain near Jebel Thebt in 1898). We clambered out of Wadi Tarfa and went over low, rocky hills. Sure enough, Musa’s shortcut was spot on. Jebel Thebt soon appeared on the horizon. Still huge. STILL faraway. It’s that highest, most distant peak on the left in the picture above. We went down to a wadi – Wadi Thebt – and began a long uphill slog to the bottom of the mountain.

I’d be going alone now. Me and Musa had already agreed he’d sit the climb out.

Looking at it now though, I sort of wished I’d persuaded him to come. It still looked massive. And difficult. And there wasn’t much time left.

Getting up Jebel Thebt is a two-step process. You follow the last stretch of Wadi Thebt up to a high pass. Then you turn and make a beeline straight for the top. It sounds easy but it’s a bit tricky in a rush.

There are no good trails. It’s hard to see where you’re going. You start on one side of the wadi. But further on, big crags block it. You can cross to the other side, but there are huge scree slopes here. And not the sort of scree slopes whose bulges have been flattened out by hundreds of hikers’ feet. Or lined with nice neat trails. Precarious scree slopes that feel like they’re going to slide out from under your feet at any moment, sweeping you away in an avalanche of rubble. If these scree slopes have ONE redeeming feature though it’s that they’re where a few rojoms – trail-marking stones – appear on the mountain for the first time.

Rojoms mark the way in hard-to-navigate parts of the Sinai. And they give you that important psychological security of knowing you ARE on the right trail. If you’re ever in a tricky place like this in the Sinai and you know the exact route, DO build them. Obviously, if you don’t; don’t. The last thing anybody needs is to be led off on a meandering, dead-man’s trail in places like this.

Anyway, after this scree, you get to the pass, where there’s an old leopard trap.

Jebel Thebt towers up here as a big mass of shattered, intimidating crags. But the rojoms continue, marking a line all the way: it twists up gullies, crosses terraces and then finally weaves through the high cliffs to the summit. Up here there’s a metal barrel. The Bedouin say the British put it here long ago. Maybe as a trig point. And the view here is amazing. You see mountains you don’t see anywhere else in the Sinai. You can gaze over the sea to Jebel Gharib in mainland Egypt too. Then the other way, to Jebel Loz and the high ranges of the Hijaz.

I wanted to stay longer, but my clothes were wet with sweat, going so fast; after just a few minutes in the summit wind I was shivering in big violent shakes.

I went down as fast as I could, getting back just before dusk.

I met Musa coming the other way and we began walking out down Wadi Thebt again. Further along we found a Bedouin guy in a dwelling below a boulder and went inside, huddling around a fire and listening to the wind outside. Sleeping in boulder dwellings like this is one of the things I love about the Sinai; in other parts of the world you sleep in huts, hostels and lodges; or at least in a tent, with zips and plastic. Here, you sleep in the landscape itself.

There are different ways you can finish from Jebel Thebt. You can walk out to El Tur – through the amazing Wadi Isleh – in 1-2 days. You can go to Ein Kidd in 1-2 days too; a pretty oasis where you can continue to Sharm. Or you can go back to St Katherine. Distance-wise, they’re not that different. Me and Musa went back the St Katherine way. We were supposed to meet a pick-up for the last bit but it didn’t come. We started walking, hoping we’d meet it later. Darkness fell and just as we’d resigned ourselves to a long, overnight walk back two headlights appeared on a high, distant pass. We flashed our torches; they flashed back. For sure, it was our ride. Half an hour later we were in the back of a Toyota pick up, trundling back to St Katherine under the stars. The best thing about Jebel Thebt for me wasn’t the climb. It was that it put so many new mountains on my radar; ones that are still bleeping, which I still want to do.

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.