Mount Sinai

PeaksSouth Sinai,Egypt

The Egyptian peak three faiths trace the Ten Commandments to, climbed through the night for dawn, with the oldest working Christian monastery at its foot.

September·Quiet month

Jun–Sep

Everything stays open: the midnight climb and the monastery's morning hours run as ever. But the valley passes 32°C by day and the bare granite holds the heat. Climb in the cool dark and shelter from the noon sun.

Year-round The granite pilgrimage peak and Saint Catherine's Monastery are here year-round; climb in the dark for the dawn, and spring and autumn spare the desert heat.

Mount Sinai is the desert peak that three faiths trace to a single moment: the giving of the Ten Commandments to Moses. Known to the Bedouin as Jabal Musa, Moses' Mountain, it rises 2,285 metres from the granite core of Egypt's Sinai Peninsula. Taller summits stand nearby, and several other peaks have been claimed as the biblical Sinai, but this is the one venerated since Byzantine times and by far the most climbed. At its foot stands Saint Catherine's Monastery, built between 548 and 565 on the order of Emperor Justinian, around the spot revered as the Burning Bush. It is the oldest continuously inhabited Christian monastery on Earth, a UNESCO World Heritage Site guarding one of the world's greatest collections of early icons and manuscripts. Around it the alkaline granite shifts from pink to copper as the sun crosses the sky. The climb is made in the dark. Most travellers set out after midnight, either up the 3,750 Steps of Repentance cut into the ravine by a single monk, or along the gentler camel path where Jabaliya Bedouin lead the way by lantern. The lights string up the slope, and the two routes meet for a final steep flight to the summit, where a small chapel and a working mosque share the peak. You wait there on cold stone until the sun breaks over the surrounding ranges and washes them gold, then rose, while the valleys stay in shadow below. That dawn pilgrimage goes on, but the basin beneath is changing fast. Egypt's sweeping Great Transfiguration project has been raising visitor centres and walkways across the once-quiet valley, and a 2025 court ruling placing the monastery's land under state ownership has drawn concern from UNESCO and church leaders.

Worth knowing

Good to know

Set out around midnight — the climb runs roughly three hours, and the final 750 stone steps past Elijah's Basin are the steep, slow stretch just before the summit and the dawn.
The summit is bitterly cold before sunrise, even in summer — pack a warm layer, gloves and water, because the desert heat of the valley disappears entirely at 2,285 metres.
Hundreds gather at the top for sunrise — press on a little faster to claim a rock above the chapel, or descend by the quieter Steps of Repentance to trade the crowd for the view.
Spring and autumn are the kindest months — summer sun scorches the bare granite by midday, while winter nights on the summit fall below freezing and can leave ice on the upper steps.
You cannot start the climb on your own — a licensed Bedouin guide is required on both routes, and you register at the Saint Catherine checkpoint before setting off into the dark.

Things to do

1
Catch first light from Jabal Musa's peak
After the long climb in darkness, settle onto the granite beside the summit chapel and wait in the cold. As the sun clears the horizon it floods the surrounding peaks gold, then rose, while the valleys below stay in shadow.
2
Climb in the dark by steps or by camel path
Most people climb in the dark, by one of two routes. The steeper is a stone stairway of 3,750 steps that a single monk is said to have cut into the ravine behind the monastery — punishing but direct. The gentler is the winding camel path, where Jabaliya Bedouin lead the animals up by lantern light; the two meet at Elijah's Basin for the last steep flight to the top.
3
Seek out the shared chapel and mosque on the summit
Once you reach the top, circle the small rocky crown to find a Greek Orthodox chapel, rebuilt in 1934 and usually kept locked, standing shoulder to shoulder with a mosque still used for prayer. Walk the few steps between them and you have crossed from one faith to another on a single peak of granite.
4
Walk the fortress walls of Saint Catherine's
At the mountain's foot, wander beneath the sixth-century granite ramparts of Saint Catherine's Monastery, raised by Justinian and never breached. Cypress and olive trees shade the courtyard around the chapel built over the site revered as the Burning Bush.

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Nearby

131 km