As Umm Yasser reeled off her household chores — collect wood, cook, make bread, shepherd goats — she stopped to say why she decided to also lead trail hikes through the mountains of Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.

“Normally, a woman’s role is to take care of the household, family and children,” Umm Yasser, a Bedouin member of the Hamada tribe, said recently. “Hiking is the first time I earned an income.”

Umm Yasser, whose name means “mother of Yasser” and per tradition is known by her son’s name, this year became the first woman to sign on as a guide on the Bedouin-led hiking initiative along the Sinai Trail, until recently Egypt’s only long-distance hiking route. It’s run by eight tribes in the region.

She tested traditional gender norms among Bedouin of the peninsula — who have a long history of escorting travelers and pilgrims through the Sinai — when she led her first group of hikers in April at age 47.

Autumn brings the start of another hiking season, which generally runs through spring, and head trail guides can make roughly the equivalent of $40 per day showing tourists how to navigate the area.

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Seen from above, Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula is a dun-colored triangle of desert, a vast wedge that splits Asia from Africa.

Move in closer, and the desert resolves into a landscape of high peaks and sandy valleys, dunes and rocky peaks.
Tracing a route across that terrain is the Sinai Trail, Egypt’s first long-distance hiking path, which was established in 2015 and winds roughly 143 miles from the Gulf of Aqaba into the mountainous interior.

This past November, 17 men and women undertook a 14-day thru-hike of the Sinai Trail, the first crossing of the full length of the trail. Led by male members of three Bedouin tribes and an Italian organizer, the group was as varied as the topography, a convivial assortment of novice hikers and fit backpackers, mainland Egyptians and foreigners.

They started near the Red Sea community of Beer Sweir, climbing the Sinai’s coastal mountains with hazy views of Saudi Arabia at their backs. After two weeks of hiking, their travel reward was a frosty 6 a.m. sunrise from the slopes of Mount Katherine, the highest mountain in Egypt.

The Sinai Trail crosses the territories of three Bedouin tribes – the Tarabin, the Muzeina and the Jebeleya – pastoral nomads whose lives have traditionally been shaped by the search for rain-fed grazing land and other desert resources, and who have guided Sinai travelers for generations.

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The 220km-long Sinai Trail, or Darb Sina, is part of a Middle East-wide hiking network voted the number one new trail in the world by National Geographic. It’s neither the longest nor the hardest of the world’s long-distance routes, but hiking a landscape steeped in history, guided by Bedouin whose lives are intertwined with the same land, is definitely one of the most rewarding.

These days life is hard for the Bedouin of Sinai. Generations past had led pilgrims through the mountains to the ancient monastery of St Katherine, or beyond to the holy city of Mecca. More recently desert knowledge translated to guiding tourists. But the Arab Spring, revolution, coup d’état, insurgency and airliner bombing has curtailed tourism in Sinai. “This trail creates work in a difficult time,” says trail guide Mussalem. “But not just any work…”

“We are worried a little bit about our culture. The young Bedouin, they don’t know much,” said another guide, Nassr. “We want to keep travelling, living the simple life. We want to keep our tribes, our families together. Training new guides means there will be others to carry on.” The Egyptian government has had no hand in supporting the project; the trail is a collective endeavour of three Bedouin tribes, and has been championed by local volunteers and an NGO.

The route usually takes 12 days, ending on the summit of Egypt’s highest mountain, Jebel Katarina.

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