With so many international borders still closed, we once again reached for our rolodex of climbing destinations and flipped through to the “winter escape” section; and there was Egypt, practically at the top. The search for a local Sinai fixer was pretty quick since the recent drivers of route development in the area have been the British and the Russians; and among those it was only Misha who was living there full time. We pinged him with the usual request – streamline the local logistics for us but let us climb by ourselves – and he was game.
We outlined an itinerary, purchased airline tickets, and started looking around for places that would reliably allow us to do a Covid PCR test – a requirement for entering Egypt – within 3 days of departure. This last piece was not trivial as most places in the U.S. offered no guarantees and were subject to the fluctuating local caseloads. We opted to hedge our bets by getting the testing done at a few places: two mail-in companies and two local clinics. Unbeknownst to us, one of the local places had a fast turnaround option and we got the results in the email before we could drive home from the clinic. Thankfully there were no positives among the ones that came back later.
We outlined an itinerary, purchased airline tickets, and started looking around for places that would reliably allow us to do a Covid PCR test – a requirement for entering Egypt – within 3 days of departure. This last piece was not trivial as most places in the U.S. offered no guarantees and were subject to the fluctuating local caseloads. We opted to hedge our bets by getting the testing done at a few places: two mail-in companies and two local clinics. Unbeknownst to us, one of the local places had a fast turnaround option and we got the results in the email before we could drive home from the clinic. Thankfully there were no positives among the ones that came back later.
We set off on our journey to Cairo at midday on a Saturday and arrived in the middle of the night on Sunday. A quick night in a Cairo airport hotel was followed by a morning hop to Sharm El-Sheikh where Misha was waiting for us. From there we drove two hours – passing numerous police and military checkpoints – to the village of St. Catherine, which is just south of the center of the Sinai Peninsula. There we would stay in a place called Fox Camp for five nights. The place was certainly not busy but there were a handful of other visitors (Europeans) and even a few climbers (all of them Ukrainian).
St. Catherine
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The village of St. Catherine sits at 1500 meters (almost 5,000 feet) above sea level and is surrounded by some odd-looking granitic mountains. With their huecos, dissolution pockets, and a deep brown-reddish color, I could’ve sworn the formations were made of sandstone.
St. Catherine is famous for its Coptic Christian monastery dating back to the 6th century and is chockful of locations to tickle-pink all those fans of the Old Testament. During our five days, we had chilly but dry weather – not a guarantee in a place that gets winter snowfall semi-regularly – and were quite happy to have brought along our sleeping bags. We climbed four mid-sized routes (4-9 pitches in length), all untainted trad, with the highlight being a climb called Papa Giovanni, with its scenic hand traverse variation. After the climb, we hiked off the backside and stayed in a Bedouin village. Spending a night in a remote Bedouin settlement in the mountains was a pretty special experience - especially with our host, Mr. Ramadan, entertaining us with some singing as well as playing a homemade instrument. |
Papa Giovanni
Leading the hand traverse on a variation of “Papa Giovanni” route on Jebel Safsafa.
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Penthouse
Jethro Tull
Leading the crux chimney pitch on “Jethro Tull.”
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From St. Catherine, we drove back to the coastal town of Dahab for a bit of a break. We spent a day being bored at the beach while drinking mediocre Egyptian beer and then headed into the Sinai desert where we spent another day hiking around and soaking in the dramatic sand-dune scenery.
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Jebel Milehis
That evening we drove to the base of a sandstone mesa called Jebel Milehis and set up a camp with a Bedouin family who would do the cooking for us. Over the next two days, we climbed two routes on the mesa: a nice, fully bolted 5-pitch line called The Black Pearl as well as a 6-pitch trad line called Crack The Skye; great positions in both cases and some very good crack climbing on the latter.
Black Pearl
The sandstone quality was a little better than the high-end stuff in Arches and perhaps comparable to Sedona.
The climbing was enjoyable, but it was the camp time with Misha and our kind Bedouin hosts that was the highlight. We loved the freshly baked Bedouin bread for breakfasts and Misha’s fruit punch, made with an Egyptian rum (complete with a plastic bottle packaging), for suppers.
The climbing was enjoyable, but it was the camp time with Misha and our kind Bedouin hosts that was the highlight. We loved the freshly baked Bedouin bread for breakfasts and Misha’s fruit punch, made with an Egyptian rum (complete with a plastic bottle packaging), for suppers.
Crack the Skye
Shirley on the aesthetic pitch 4 of “Crack The Skye.”
We flew back to Cairo and spent the last two days of the trip taking in the sights - a day visiting the various pyramids in the area and a day seeing the highlights of Old Cairo. The Great Pyramids of Giza were certainly breathtaking, and the relative lack of tourists did not take away from the experience. Cairo turned out to be a colorful and a lively city and we enjoyed our day there as well.
