Because it’s there.
- George Mallory.
“We came. We saw. We kicked its ass.”
- Dr. Peter Venkman
We had to get up early again on Sunday to head out of Africa. It was time to head to Asia, the Sinai Peninsula and Mt. Sinai. It would take an eight-hour bus ride and a trip under the Suez Canal, but it will be an experience I will never forget.
The bus ride itself was fairly uneventful. It was eight hours through desert. Lots of desert. Crossing under the Suez Canal was simple enough and once that was completed, we were in Asia. For a while, we drove down the west coast of the Sinai Peninsula, parallel to the Red Sea, which made for some pretty seaside views. Other than that, the bus ride gave me an excellent opportunity to become reacquainted with my iPod.
We stayed at a crappy resort hotel in St. Catherine, which also is the name of the monastery that sits in front of the entrance to Mt. Sinai. I guess saying “stayed” there is a little premature. As soon as we got to the resort, we had time to drop our bags and head to Mt. Sinai.
We weren’t going to see Mt. Sinai. We were going to climb Mt. Sinai. Well, six of us were anyway. With little sleep, little food and immediately following an eight-hour bus ride, six of us were going to climb this 2200 meter mountain in the winter. That lasted about ten minutes and then we were down to five. The one who fell off was a 70-year old in fairly poor shape and we couldn’t see making much of an attempt to begin with. The remaining five of us, however, kept hope alive.
In hearing about the trek up the mountain, I was led slightly astray. I was told that there is a path leading most of the way up the mountain and then 750 steps to the top. I was told that the steps could be difficult, but that if I made it up to them, I could feel some sense of accomplishment and see a great sunset. The “path” however was an obstacle course of steps and large stones and small stones and dust storms and camel poop and, since this is a mountain climb, completely uphill. In parts of the “path,” the walk wasn’t so bad, but other areas of the path were tremendously steep. Since my legs are much better than my lungs, I generally took the lead and got several meters ahead of the rest of the group and would then wait until the group caught up with me in an attempt to catch my breath.
The five of us continued up this path, about 1700 meters up the mountain and then we reached the “steps.” Again, “steps” was applying a very generous definition to the term. Actually, they were large stones of varying sizes and shapes that ascended very rapidly, zig-zagging up the top of the mountain at a very steep pace. On top of this, the temperature had gotten down to about 30 degrees Fahrenheit and the wind was gusting over 50 miles per hour. It would have been a miserable time to walk around the block in this weather and I was trying to climb up this steep mountain. But the other four of my group kept going and, since I was the youngest of the group, I kept going with them.
About halfway up the 750 “step” finale of the trip, we lost one more of the five. A sixty-year old woman named Carol had come up over 90% of the mountain before she finally gave up, but the rest of us marched on. I think Moses was like 350-years old or something like that when he ascended the mountain to get the Ten Commandments. I couldn’t let Moses show me up. We kept going.
And then, tragedy almost struck. About twenty-five steps from the top, within view of the summit, a gust of wind caught my coat and took me with it. I ended up off of my feet and landing a few steps below where I started and landed on my right hand and right knee. I think I broke my right pinkie finger (I’m still not sure; it’ll be a few days before I’m in a town in which I can get it x-rayed) and I couldn’t put any weight on my right knee. Still, I was determined. I got up, hopped over to a rock wall to block off the wind, and tested my knee to see if I could “walk it off.” I could see the summit, and at this point, I was going to reach the top if I had to hop up the last 100 meters.
After taking about twenty steps in place, I determined that my knee wasn’t hurt too badly. I decided I could walk up the steps. As for my mangled hand, the cold and the wind had completely numbed it, so there was not much pain, although I knew that there would be plenty of it once I thawed out. I decided that I was in good enough shape for the final ascent. The rest of the group was close behind me and we kept going.
From this point forward, I did not waste any time or energy. I did not look up; only down at where I was placing my feet. I did not rest. I did not even pause. I went up the rest of the steps quickly and positively and reached the summit in about three minutes. On top, in the cold and the wind and the pain, I felt a sense of accomplishment that I have very rarely felt. The final three members of my group made it to the summit and we all celebrated together with pictures and pride. As I attempted to photograph a married couple who were members of my group, another burst of wind grabbed me and threw me down again. This time, I landed on my more fleshy parts and there was no additional injury. More importantly, I managed to fall without damaging their camera, with which I was trying to take the photograph.
After about fifteen minutes at the top of the mountain, it was time for the second part of the trip – climbing down. We retraced our steps, but we were in a race against time. It was sunset and coming down the steps in the dark would be pretty dangerous. Obviously, we made better speed going downhill than we did going uphill and we were fortunate enough to reach the bottom of the steps just before dark and having to use our flashlights. Once we were out of sunlight, we maneuvered through the confusing path in the dark. It wasn’t easy, but again, it was much less troublesome because were heading downhill. In all, it took us around 2 ½ hours to reach the top and another 1 ½ hours to reach the bottom. There, we were met by our Egypt travel guide and taken back to our hotel for a well-deserved, if horrible, dinner.
That’s all there was to it. Yesterday morning, I had never even come close to attempting to climb a mountain. Today, I can say that I’ve climbed to the summit of one of the most famous mountains in history. A few hundred people do it every day, but that doesn’t take away from my sense of accomplishment. For now, this is the high point of my trip to the Middle East. So far.
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