Sinai
I had my back turned to the path and was busy spotting my friend on the boulder problem that had caught our attention for the last hour. There was a tap on my shoulder. I turned around and was shocked to have a very weather worn face showing a toothless grin a couple of inches from my own face. “Ohhh I would love to learn to climb” The man whispered at me. I pulled my head back to get a picture that was not obstructed by the man’s head. I noticed that in his hand was a rope linking a chain of eight camels together.
“I
would love to learn how to ride a camel.” I replied. The man’s
eyes lit up and he beckoned me to his house. Over a cup of tea we struck a
deal that he would guide my friends and I on camels for a week from the sides
of Mount Sinai back to Dahab on the Red Sea coast, exploring lost canyons
and hidden peaks for unclimbed walls. In exchange he would get to do some
climbing. Below is an extract from the diary of one of the people on this
mini adventure:
“We had trekked in from Jebel Musa (St Katherine's monastery) for the last five days climbing whenever the rock showed its ‘face’. My camel and I have reached an all new high in our relationship; his biting has been replaced by drooling on me. He seems happy with this crazy Englishman on his back and does 80% of what he is told to do.
We
had stopped for the night as, although it was almost dark the shadows showing
the canyon walls had gathered in around us. The only remaining sky that could
be seen was only a central strip above our heads. The moon was ‘taking
off’ using this strip of sky as its ‘runway’ and its light
illuminated the great walls on either side of us. We went to sleep with great
anticipation for what the next day would bring.
The sun burst through the mesh of my tent and washed over my face. I crawled from the tent to the fire where my morning hit of caffeine was being brewed to obscene strengths and the bread was baking within the fire’s embers. The sounds of Morning Prayer were eerily echoing around the canyon walls.
 |
 |
 |
The breakfast of fresh fruit and bread had been washed down with the coffee and all was packed for an assault on the wall just 100m from the sandy hollow where we had slept. I spied a crack that appeared continuous for about 100m. Didn’t look too bad so I took up a couple of willing friends and I began to thrutch my way up what was rapidly becoming a flared protection-less grimace.
I
eventually completed the first pitch complete at around E3 5c. My two, now
less cooperative, friends had joined me on the belay. I began up the second
pitch, which was impeccable climbing involving high quality face and crack
climbing. It finished at the end of the line at an astonishing finger crack,
giving the new route ‘Camel Song’ (E4 5c, 6a). So named due to
the gurgling coming from the sex crazed camels throats below.
The others had abseiled off and I was left at the top, alone, looking out on a view that until that moment no one had ever looked on before, at the top of a climb that no one had ever climbed. I left my Camelot 4 in place and abseiled off to join other climbing teams who had been just as successful.
We left a few days later atop of our camels and searched for new ‘pastures’ rocky and dry to carry on the epic adventure.”
By Dave Lucas
