The Monastery of St Katherine and Mount Sinai are among the most important and beautiful historic, religious, and natural sites in Sinai and Egypt as a whole. However, most visitors spend far too little time here and visit when the sites are at their most crowded. There are basically three options for climbing Mount Sinai:
- Mount Sinai sunrise – an overnight excursion with a night-time hike, sunrise shared with hundreds of other visitors, and a visit to the Monastery in the morning after a sleepless night.
- Mount Sinai sunset – a daytime hike, a peaceful sunset with few or no other people, and a night spent comfortably in bed.
- Hidden Mount Sinai – discovering the hidden treasures of the Mount Sinai–Ras Safsafa range on a full-day or overnight hike, enjoying a peaceful sunset and spending the night either back at your hotel or in a Bedouin garden.
Before or after your climb to Mount Sinai, a visit to the Monastery of St Katherine is a must. Built on the site of the Burning Bush and continuously inhabited since the 6th century, it is the oldest working monastery in the world.
Visiting the Monastery of St Katherine
The Monastery is open to visitors from 9:00 AM to 11:30 AM, Monday to Thursday and on Saturdays. It is closed on Fridays, Sundays, and Orthodox religious holidays.
You can visit the Monastery independently, but it is located a few kilometers outside the town center. If needed, we can arrange transport for you – just give us a call.
Mount Sinai Sunrise
Most people climb Mount Sinai (Jebel Musa) at night, setting out from the Monastery of St. Catherine around 2:00–3:00 a.m. The usual route follows the Camel Path to the summit, after which visitors descend the same way and visit the monastery. The hike can be done independently, but a Bedouin guide is required and can be arranged at the monastery. It is also possible to spend the night on the summit in fairly basic conditions. The cafeterias near the top generally allow visitors to stay free of charge as long as they rent blankets and/or make purchases. The noise and crowds at sunrise can be surprising, but spending the night on the mountain is a memorable experience.
Mount Sinai Sunset
You can also do the hike during the day, which is actually a much more peaceful experience, and the colors at sunset are even more beautiful. As with the sunrise hike, a Bedouin guide is required and can be arranged at the Monastery of St. Catherine 24 hours a day. You should begin the ascent about three hours before sunset. It is a good time to hike: cooler than midday in summer and still warm enough in winter. If you start descending shortly after the sun disappears behind the horizon—it’s still not proper sunset—you will have enough time to reach the monastery before darkness sets in.
Hidden Mount Sinai
Those who are not in a hurry can discover an amazing world just a few steps off the main tourist path. The interconnected hidden basins atop the range contain both intact and ruined chapels, hermit cells, and gardens, and lead to viewpoints perched above steep gullies overlooking different parts of the surrounding landscape. One of these offers a picture-perfect bird’s-eye view of the Monastery of St. Catherine. You can easily spend a full day exploring the range before climbing to the summit of Mount Sinai for a peaceful sunset. Afterward, you can either descend to town before darkness falls or spend the night in a Bedouin garden in a nearby valley and visit another monastery the following day.
This is one of our regular tours and one we highly recommend. It is actually easier than the direct summit climb, as the ascent is divided into three stages with flat sections and rest stops in between.
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