Egypt Sinai

SINAI
Sharm el Sheikh and other resorts offer opportunities for snorkelling, diving and hanging out in the sun, whilst in the heart of Sinai, St Catherine offers excellent trekking and climbing (though some the granite, as elsewhere in Egypt, tends to be exfoliating due to temperature extremes). 

On our first visit to Egypt, we arrived by boat on the Aswan Dam, from the Sudan and continued our journey down the Nile by felucca. Having seen the essential sights, our other visits have been on safari to the Western Desert and to climb and explore Sinai and the Red Sea Mountains, with assistance from the ETA (Egyptian Tourism Authority).

2005. John & Anna Arran climbed a new route on the NW Face of Jebel Safsafa, Holy Moses, 250m, E6/7 6b. See Alpine Journal 2004 for full details and check out http://www.thefreeclimber.com for a topo of some areas also check out Dave Lucas for info on this area and his website http://www.expeditionconsultancy.com.


Feb 05 Geoff Hornby reports on good “Yosemite quality” granite north east of St Catherine’s (Jebel Banat) area with new routes of 400m TD and TD sup. Contact geoffhornby@yahoo.co.uk Info will also be found in the new UK CLIMB magazine, Feb 05. Geoff also covers his traverse of Sinai and new routes there in the 2008 Alpine Journal. Other info on the area from www.israelalpine.org/sinai and some bouldering info


Nov 2007: Dave Lucas (see above) recently spent 8 weeks in Sinai climbing. Also see Hot Rock Bus. He was with Geoff Hornby on the 300km traverse through Sinai climbing a number of new rock routes and was able to fill in a lot of information on his map of the climbing potential in the high mountains of Sinai. He has now been authorised to guide by the Jebaliya bedouin and began a project, sponsored by the EU, to train trek leaders in the St Katherine’s Monastery area in both First Aid and Trek Leadership. He is collating information for a future guidebook (see below) and is also running his own trips.


2010 Martin Kocsis emailed to say, "The climbing covers everything from bouldering to multipitch routes, from Diff to E5. The rock is granite and the atmosphere is relaxed. We stay at St Katherines at the foot of Mt Sinai, from where we go into the desert for up to 10 days at a time. Local Bedouin guides look after us throughout.
A quick look at Mike Hutton’s gallery gives a brief flavour of the social scene, if not the climbing. There are more pictures on Dave Lucas’s site and the Israeli Alpine Club site (see above), which mainly details the climbing around St Katherine’s. The cost is difficult to say, but briefly it will be flights (about £300), camel and guide hire, transport and food. If you budget about £550 for two weeks all in, that seems to me to be accurate. For an extra week, probably another £80 to £100. Roughly, anyway."

2013  Sinai Trekking And Safari by Zoltan Matrahazi of Discover Sinai was published with contributions from Dave Lucas.  A Kindle version of the "Sinai trekking and safari" guide is now available on Amazon The complete route guide with GPS waypoints" covers all the important routes in the Sinai interior in 26 treks. Focusing on walking and camel safaris, the book also provides information about 4x4 safaris. It contains over 100 maps; notes on culture, history and nature; illustrations; a catalogue of places with descriptions, photos and maps; and a part with a comprehensive list of useful Arabic words and expressions for trekkers. The routes described in the guide can be viewed in Google Earth and Google Maps with photos. More information: sinaimaps. Also, there are a few more publications which could be relevant, especially the free "Discover Sinai: A guide to the natural, cultural and historical faces of South Sinai" publication and the "English-Arabic / Arabic-English dictionary" - see it here

2014 Desert Divers have produced their climbing and bouldering guide to the Sinai (the first climbing guide to Sinai, that's if you ignore the old handwritten and photocopied Israeli Alpine Club guide). You can email them for a pdf or go to their webpage. Lots of new info on Dave Lucas updated web pages He has now completed his Bedouin Guide Trek Leader training project and his Climbing Guide to South Sinai should be out in 2014.
Ben Hoffler's guide to Sinai, The Trekking Guide is out from www.trailblazer-guides.com, very well researched and essential for anyone visiting this little known area. Also, see Ben's excellent blog on Sinai with some great stories and very useful info.

2015 See Ben Hoffler's Sinai Trail Facebook page: Egypt's first long distance hiking trail and part of a Middle East-wide trail network voted the No 1 new trail in the world by National Geographic.
See Red Sea climbing Facebook page