Photo : Florian Prischl — CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons
Sinai · Saint Catherine, Sinai
Mount Sinai
Two ways up: the camel path, long and gentle, or the staircase the monks cut in the rock.
The summit where tradition places the giving of the Tablets stands over Saint Catherine's Monastery, and two paths climb to it from the walls. The camel path winds a long way round the massif at an even gradient, and part of it can be ridden; the staircase, cut step by step into the granite, goes straight up and is murder on the legs. The two meet in a hollow marked by a cypress, from which a last flight of steps leads to a chapel and a small mosque sharing the top. Along the way, stone shelters run by Jebeleya Bedouin sell tea and hire out blankets.
The extra bit
Go up the camel path in the dark and come down the staircase once it is light: the steps are uneven and are not a job for a head torch.
Know before you go
It is cold and windy at the top, even in summer, and you wait for dawn sitting down. Jacket, torch, water: the shelters on the path open and close as they please, and take cash only. The camel does not go to the summit — everyone walks the last flight of steps. Access to the area has been suspended more than once in recent years. A Bedouin guide usually goes with the night climb: ask your hotel whether that is required or simply the custom, and have them confirm the day before that the climb is going ahead; ask them, or your driver, about road and checkpoint conditions in Sinai before you set off.
