RED SEA MOUNTAIN TRAIL

HOME
THE TRAIL
HIKING HUBS
PLANNING
ABOUT
CONTACT
More

Day 10

We're getting near the end of our virtual thru hike of the Red Sea Mountain Trail. Wadi by wadi, peak by peak, day by day, we've covered the whole 170km route. We've learned about the plants & how to use them; the animals & how to track them. We've seen prehistoric rock art, Roman towns & Egypt's first Christian chapels. We've read fortune, danger & direction in the stars & we've heard old Bedouin proverbs & legends. We've gone deeper than ever before. The Red Sea Mountain Trail is a physical thing for walking but it's also a space of heritage: something with intangible sides we hope can transcend the barriers of a global health crisis & help keep its lessons & spirit alive in a new world. The Bedouin of these deserts have adapted to survive for many centuries & that's what the trail will continue to do now. Big thanks to everybody who's followed & supported the hike & we hope we'll see you in these deserts for real soon!

Day 10 is the last day on the RSMT thru hike & the shortest at just 8km. The main objective is getting down the high mountainsides of Jebel Shayib: mainland Egypt's highest peak. The trail is highlighted dark blue, beginning at Jebel Shayib's summit & ending at Um Dalfa, where the hike began over 50 days ago.

Hikers wake on Jebel Shayib's 2187m summit as the sun rises over the waters of the Red Sea.

Jebel Shayib is one of Egypt's most beautiful viewpoints. On a clear day from the top you can gaze over the Red Sea to the highlands of the Sinai & sometimes even the jagged Hejaz ranges of Arabia. The other way you can look to the distant tablelands around the River Nile. This is the view south, looking along the coastal ranges of the Red Sea Mountains. These mountains continue hundreds of kilometres down Egypt's Red Sea coast into the Sudan & form the great natural barrier between the Red Sea & Nile.

A glimpse of the wide, sweeping spaces of the Plain of Monfia. This plain separates the eastern & western halves of the Red Sea Mountains. On the far left are the highlands of Jebel Gattar: one of the Middle East's most beautiful mountain massifs, traversed by the RSMT on day 6.

RSMT head guide Hassan & apprentice Omar descend the summit block of Jebel Shayib.

Gazing back to Jebel Shayib's summit, as clouds dot the morning sky. Jebel Shayib means 'Old Man' in Arabic & the name is said to come from the light coloured granite of its summit block: this is the head of the old man & it looks white in some lights, resembling his silvery hair.

One of the biggest, most beautiful & rarely seen animals in the Red Sea Mountains: the 'Nubian Ibex' or 'Bedan' as the Bedouin call it. The ibex is a wild mountain goat able to leap & bound over precipitous cliffs with a great agility, speed & control. Other kinds of ibex are found in Europe & Asia but Nubian Ibex are the only ones adapted to hot, arid deserts. This is a female, grazing at the end of spring. Males have bigger horns & bodies. Seeing an ibex this close doesn't happen much. Ibex are highly sensitive to the presence of humans & usually spot people long before people see them, escaping silently into the hills. Finding ibex relies on identifying tracks, droppings, nibbled plants & other signs, making very little noise & walking downwind of wherever they are.

Getting down Jebel Shayib involves traversing high, sweeping mountainsides. Omar, the young apprentice guide, is sitting ahead, leading the way.

Spectacular views open up over the wadis below. A legend of the Maaza has it a magical tree of light grows on Jebel Shayib's rugged crags. They say it's found only here & in the highlands of Lebanon & its leaves are said to have special healing properties, giving sight to people who are blind.

Steep, rugged & sometimes loose ravines must be carefully trodden all the way down the northern crags of Jebel Shayib. The wide open spaces of Wadi Abu Eren lie 1200 vertical metres below Jebel Shayib's summit & this is where hikers regroup with cameleers, who walked a different way around the mountain the previous day.

A pot of tea sits waiting on the fire at the meeting place in Wadi Abu Eren.

Head guide Mohammed is nearby, breaking wood for the fire. Throwing stones from high is how the Bedouin break oversized branches of wood.

The wood cracks after first impact. Mohammed will throw the stone on this spot until the branch is fully broken & he can take what he needs easily.

Mohammed gathers the camels as they graze on nearby bushes. Camels are the unsung heroes of the RSMT: the RSMT is a wilderness route without any resupply point & camels carry all the food, water & bags from beginning to end. Camels are the foundation on which the Bedouin built their nomadic desert civilisation. Over thousands of years they loaded tents & possessions onto camels & ventured deep into the solitudes of the desert. No other animal could carry such heavy loads in the sand & go the long periods needed without drinking to support their journeys. Camels have made the Bedouin who they are today & the Bedouin have a great respect for them: they respect their knowledge of the desert & its ways. Camels show a great sensitivity to the moods of their owners & loyalty towards them, sometimes risking their lives to save them. Some camels are said to grieve inconsolably when their owners go away for long periods or die.

The Bedouin have several different words for camels, which it's good to know. Camels begin their life as a 'hewar' or a new born calf. When camels grow bigger & until they reach about the age of 4 males are known as a 'gaood' & females a 'bakra'. When camels are fully grown the males are known as a 'jamal' & the females a 'naagah'.

Wadi Abu Eren, at the bottom of Jebel Shayib. It's about 4km from here to where the RSMT ends at the small Bedouin village of Um Dalfa.

A deep, shadowy wadi has to be descended on the way to Um Dalfa. Mohammed looks for the best way around a steep waterfall.

Mohammed gets a last selfie on the trip. Many Bedouin around the RSMT - especially those who live between the desert and towns & most RSMT guides - have social media accounts today.

We haven't seen any dangerous animals so far but here's one. The 'Burton's Carpet Viper' or 'hanash' as the Bedouin call it is one of the most aggressive & dangerous snakes with a powerful hemotoxic venom causing internal bleeds. It has a large, triangular head & thick, stocky body. Blocky patterns cover its back & the colour usually matches the surrounding landscape. These snakes are most active in hot summer months. Care is needed when moving around the bottom of trees & bushes, where they often hide for prey. Sometimes they hide in cracks of tree trunks. Survivors of viper attacks are often impaired for life, with bitten limbs becoming unusable. The Bedouin have a special kind of healer called a 'haawi' who helps save the lives of those attacked by poisonous animals, through a number of rituals. Snakes & several poisonous kinds of scorpion live around the RSMT but sightings are rare & common sense helps keep you safe.

Wide, sweeping wadis dotted with moringa & acacia trees soon open up & it's just a short half hour walk to the end of the trail.

Um Dalfa is home to a few families of the Maaza & stands at the foot of mountain springs. These springs nourish acacia trees, giving them a bigger, greener look than acacias in the deep desert. Acacias are one of the most widespread & useful trees. They give grazing for goats in the longest droughts. Sometimes the Bedouin eat the red gum that seeps out of their branches. Acacia branches are used as poles for Bedouin tents & the bark for tanning animal hides. The Bedouin live in a land of scarcity but know all its resources & how to use them. The Bedouin have always been self reliant & in the health crisis some are returning to a more traditional way of life, relying on themselves once again. For anybody who knows how to survive like the Bedouin, the desert is the safest place to be & the settled world can learn much from their example of living closely to the land, relying on themselves & embracing an unknown future.

A meal always awaits hikers at the end of any long trip on the RSMT & it's eaten the traditional Bedouin way; communally from a large dish.

Sheikh Merayi Abu Musallem is present to greet hikers at the end of the trail. He's the Sheikh of the Khushmaan clan of the Maaza tribe & one of the RSMT's co-founders. He took a leading role in the team that developed the trail & oversees its operations today. He is in his 50s & has several children, splitting his time between Hurghada & the mountains. Today he is spending more time in the mountains. He spent his childhood in the desert & knows it exceptionally well. His father was the Sheikh of the Khushmaan & before him, his grandfather too. Sheikh Merayi is well known for his knowledge of the tribe's history & traditions. His dream for the RSMT is that it opens up a new kind of tourism in Hurghada, creating jobs & opportunities in remote parts of the desert & showing the world the beauty of his fabled Khushmaan homeland & the traditions of the Bedouin who live within it today.

A quick but important thanks to the very special guides & guardians of the RSMT. First, to Hassan Abu Musallem, who worked in a small team for 5 years to develop the trail & who works as a head guide today. Hassan is one of the finest mountain men of the Maaza & we hope he'll be guiding on the trail long into the future.

Big thanks too to Musallem Mahmoud, the young Bedouin cameleer & apprentice & another rising star. Musallem helped in the team developeing the trail too, joining several expeditions into deep parts of the desert over 3 months.

Omar is another one of the brightest stars of the RSMT & a special thanks goes to him too. Ultimately it's younger Bedouin like Musallem & Omar who are the future of the RSMT: they'll carry what they've learned from older Bedouin & will become guardians of the trail in the decades ahead, passing it onto following generations.

Biggest thanks to Mohammed Muteer: Mohammed walked further than any Bedouin of the Maaza in creating the RSMT over 5 years, climbing high mountains, descending unknown gullies, crossing huge desert plains & shivering on mountain passes through cold winter nights. He is one of its founders & best-loved head guides today.

Jeeps are used to get to Hurghada, which takes about an hour. Entering the bustling streets of a modern city after the solitude of the desert feels like entering another world. In many ways, it is: cultural codes, ways of physical & mental survival & economic systems of exchange are far apart. As humans we began close to nature & lived a nomadic existence most of our history: when we leave the desert we return to an urban world that feels familiar on the surface, but for many hikers it is the desert where their soul has truly come to feel at home. The RSMT is about connecting us to this old, nomadic world again & underlining its value in contemporary times: it is a civilisation rich in traditional knowledge, skills & wisdom, much of which is critically endangered today.

'Only imagination can return what's past'. This proverb is usually spoken when somebody dies or something important is lost. Many of us have lost things during the last months: some of us our freedom, others our jobs; some of us our friends & family. This proverb reminds us of the inevitability of endings & at the same time the power we have to live vividly what has gone again. Over the last 50 days we've tried to share a little of the beauty of these mountains & the heritage of their people: we know a virtual hike isn't the same as a real one, but we hope you've at least seen & learned a few new things & that in your imagination you can feel a little closer to the mountains & their heritage. We'll be leaving the thru hike up so you can return & wander in your imagination whenever you want. Biggest thanks to everybody who's joined & supported this journey over the last weeks & months we hope to see you & walk these beautiful mountains together for real one day.

Out of gallery