Mount Sinai — Gebel Musa, 2,285 metres, the sunrise climb.

What you are looking at

Mount Sinai (Gebel Musa in Arabic, "Mount of Moses") is a 2,285-metre granite peak immediately behind St Catherine's Monastery in the geographic centre of the Sinai peninsula. The Christian and Islamic traditions identify it as the mountain on which God gave the Ten Commandments to Moses; the academic literature is divided on whether this identification is geographically correct or whether it represents the consolidation of a much older local sacred topography. Either way, it has been the principal pilgrimage destination of the Sinai interior since the Byzantine period and remains so today.

The climb itself is moderate by the standards of high-altitude trekking. Two routes go up. The camel path (Siket el-Bashait) is the gradual switchback route, gaining 700 vertical metres over 7 kilometres, comfortably hiked in 2.5 hours by anyone of reasonable fitness. The Steps of Repentance (Sikkit Sayidna Musa) is the direct route, 3,750 stone steps cut into the mountain by a monk from the monastery as a penitential act, gaining the same 700 vertical metres in 4 kilometres of much steeper ground; 1.5 to 2 hours for fit walkers, but harder. The two routes meet at a small plateau approximately 200 metres below the summit, from which the final climb to the chapel is a single staircase of 750 steps shared between both routes.

The summit holds a small Greek Orthodox chapel of the Holy Trinity (rebuilt 1934 on Byzantine foundations) and a small mosque adjacent to it. Both are non-functional in the sense that there are no regular services and no resident clergy; the chapel is opened on certain feast days and by special arrangement with the monastery. From the summit, the view at sunrise is east over the gulf of Aqaba and south over the granite massifs of South Sinai — on a clear winter morning the visibility extends approximately 80 kilometres.

On the ground

The climb is free; there is no ticket office and no fee for the mountain itself. The Bedouin guide on the camel path is the principal cost — at the last verification (10 June 2026), the standard rate was EGP 600 per group of up to four people, arranged at the back gate of the monastery. The guide carries water and a basic first-aid kit and stays with the group for the duration. The Steps of Repentance do not require a guide; a small number of climbers do both routes solo.

Departure timing for a sunrise climb: leave the back gate of the monastery between 02:30 and 03:00 in summer, 03:00 and 03:30 in winter (sunrise is later). Allow 2.5 hours up on the camel path; 1.5–2 on the steps. Arrive at the chapel platform 30 minutes before sunrise for the best light on the eastern ranges.

Kit list: warm jacket (the summit temperature drops to 5°C in summer, sub-zero in winter); torch (head-torch preferred, the path is unlit); 1.5 litres of water minimum; energy snack; closed-toe walking shoes (sandals are common but not advised on the Steps). The Bedouin tea stops on the camel path sell hot tea and basic biscuits at standard tourist prices.

Reading list

• Hobbs, J.J. Mount Sinai. University of Texas Press, 1995. The standard modern academic treatment of the mountain.
• Anderson, R. Following the Wadi: An Exodus Itinerary. Cambridge University Press, 2018. Contemporary critical re-reading of the Sinai identification.
• Abou-Saif, S. Bedouin Guide Network of South Sinai. Tih Press subscriber monograph, 2024. Operator-by-operator notes; subscriber access only.
• Tih Press field notebooks 2013–2026, "GM" tag.