Mt. Sinai – I did it so you don’t have too….

Sunrise from the top of Mt. Sinai

Mt. Sinai or Mt. Moses as some people call it, is said to be where Moses received the Ten Commandments from God according to Jewish, Christian and Islamic traditions. A mountain called Mt. Sinai is mentioned in the Book of Exodus, Quran and Torah although I don’t believe anyone is really sure if the present day Mt. Sinai is the same Mt. Sinai referred to in the books I just mentioned.  Since climbing up the mountain I’ve read many articles indicating the current Mt. Sinai is not the sacred mountain, which was a bit disappointing.  In any case, the current Mt. Sinai is approximately 2200 meters/7500 feet high and sits very close to St. Catherine’s Monastery on the Sinai peninsula of Egypt. Most tourists to Mt. Sinai are visiting from the Red Sea resort towns of Dahab, Sharm-El-Sheikh or Taba; all of which are quite a drive from the mountain.

Many people flock to Sinai on a daily basis to climb to the top of Sinai and watch the sunrise or sunset.  There are two routes to take up or down, the first being a wide camel trail of about seven kilometers leading to a staircase of 750 stairs which gets you to the summit. I call this way Camel Crap Alley as there are many-many camels which can be hired to take you most of the way up the mountain, and these many camels crap everywhere. The second, more grueling way is a set of 3750 stairs, called the Stairs of Repentance, that lead you from St. Catherine’s Monastery to the summit.  I took Camel Crap Alley on the way up although I’d recommend the Stairs of Penitence for anyone with good knees and a good torch/flashlight, it seemed much more peaceful and obviously less messy.

 While at the top many people can be heard singing religious songs or just sitting quiet and taking in the view. At the top of the mountain is a small Greek Orthodox Church and a small mosque, none of which are open to visitors. Also at the top you can get a glimpse of the one million cigarette butts (Just an estimate as I didn’t have time to count) on the ground and 40,000 broken bottles (again an estimate, not a fact) spread throughout the summit.

One of the views from the top of Mt. Sinai

I, along with the rest of our group, was picked up at our hotel in Dahab at midnight for the two hour drive to St. Catherine’s. Pamela elected to stay back at the hotel and enjoy a night of sleep, in retrospect this was a great decision. Along the road to Mt. Sinai you’ll stop at a couple machine gun guarded military checkpoints where your driver must produce a pass allowing us to visit the area.  Upon reaching the trailhead at 2:00am it’s time to get ready for the seven kilometer uphill walk. We had a Bedouin guide with us to point us in the right direction although you really don’t need this as everyone is going in the right direction, don’t get a guide just follow the line.

A couple enjoying sunrise over Sinai

Walking along Camel Crap Alley in the cold I saw the funniest things which kept me entertained. Many-many people were definitely not dressed for a 14 k hike in the freezing cold, I saw people who looked like they were ready for the shopping mall, high-heeled shoes, sandals, shorts, fancy fur jackets etc…. I’m not sure what these people were thinking but it’s a wonder they made it up and down, of course many people don’t have torches/flashlights so they’re stuck buying a piece of junk light at the bottom of the mountain for ten times the price. Here’s a tip, if you come to Sinai, wear layers of clothes to stay warm, wear at least tennis/jogger type shoes and bring a good flashlight. It’s the middle of the night and you’re on a trail for goodness sake. I saw one guy in shorts and a long sleeve t-shirt, he had what appeared to be a hotel towel wrapped around him to keep warm. Very interesting…

I must have missed these in the hiking shoes section of SportMart

Straight from the shopping mall to the mountain. I love it!

Along the way we made a couple stops at teahouses/coffee shops along the trail. We made it to the summit staircase at 4:30am where we proceeded to wait in coffee shop owned by our Bedouin guides “cousin” where our guide tried to push the need for us to rent blankets. Thankfully I brought the right clothes so I didn’t need to spend a ton on the blanket. We then set off up the summit staircase, there were so many people going up, and down, these stairs that it took forever to climb the 750 stairs. Albeit many of the people in front of us were wearing “mall shoes” so they couldn’t go that fast on uneven slippery stairs set into the rock. In order to keep in contact with our Bedouin guide (he had gone ahead to flirt with a girl) he would yell the word flower and we were supposed to yell the word banana back to him so he can make sure we weren’t lost while he tried to pickup this girl. I wasn’t a fan of yelling banana but it was kind of amusing for a few minutes.  From then on I referred to our guide as Flower, I still don’t know his name.

One of the many tea/coffee houses along the trail.

Our trekking crew

We reached the top at 5:40am where our guide proceeded to take us to his “secret spot” which did turn out to be a pretty good place to watch the 6:10am sunrise. The sunrise was pretty good, I guess if you’ve never seen a sunrise it would totally blow you away and would be worth the effort.  I personally didn’t find it great enough to justify losing a night of sleep and dealing with people who should have been at the shopping mall vs on the mountain. Don’t get me wrong, I love hiking and would be up for many-many overnight treks just because, just not with the huge amount of people on this particular trail.

One of the many camels along the path

The sun was up and photos were taken, now it was time to make the descent back down the mountain. Unfortunately we were stuck in the same line going back down the stairs. Mall shoes were in full effect while people tried to get photos in the most inopportune places, all holding up the line going down. On a positive note the arrival of the sun warmed the place up and we could take off a couple layers of clothes. At the end of the descent it was actually very warm for a late fall day, I can only imagine how hot it’d be during the winter.

Yeah, the sun's up. Can we leave now?

Gridlock going down the mountain.

Okay, that was my experience at Mt. Sinai. I did it so you don’t have too, unless you want to that is. Just be prepared for many-many people, lots of camel crap and many people trying to sell you things along the way. In our case Pamela proved to be the wise-one and stayed at the hotel in bed.

All the pics from the Mt. Sinai trek and our time in Dahab, Egypt can be found here:https://picasaweb.google.com/117257906652666550268/DahabAndMtSinaiEgypt?authuser=0&feat=directlink

Cheers for Now –

Pamela and Dave