Mount Sinai & St.Catherine Monastery: Night Climb and Sunrise Tour with Historic Monastery Visit

Journey into the evening with Mount Sinai Tours and ascend the mountain under the stars to witness the sunrise from the peak of Moses’ Mountain. Following this, descend to explore one of the world’s most ancient Christian monasteries, St. Catherine.

Duration: 15 hours
Cancellation: 24 hours
Highlights
  • Mount Sinai - Memphis tours representative will pick you up from your hotel in Sharm El Sheikh at 10:30 pm by a modern air-conditioned vehicle to drive to St.Catheine, takes about 3 hours driving. Start climbing the Moses Mountain begins at 2:00 am and coming down at 7:00 am. Then proceed to visit St. Catherine Monastery which is considered one of…
What's Included
  • Pick up services from your hotel in Sharm and return
  • All transfers by an air-conditioned vehicle
  • Bottled water and soft drink on board the vehicle
  • Entrance fees to St. Catherine National Park /All services charges and taxes
  • Bedouin guide during climbing up the mountain
What's Not Included
  • Any extras not mentioned in the program
  • Optional activities /Personal expenses /Tipping
Location
Mount Sinai
Cancellation Policy

For a full refund, cancel at least 24 hours before the scheduled departure time.

Customer Ratings
4.8
(46 Ratings)
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1 star
Relax09413691032
Mar 4, 2026
Great hike - We had a great hike ab to mousas mountain it was 7 km all the way ab Or guide Mohammed he was good Bedouin guide and he was all the with us Very beautiful landscape from the the top If you visit the place for you
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Ed_s
Jan 4, 2026
A wonderful experience - Sallam is a seasoned professional who us clearly well known and respected by the Bedouin at the Mountain. He has an incredible knowledge of the area and is fluent in English and German. He arranged a guide for us, who was very experienced and thoughtful. A small group is better, if you can afford it because if there is a problem with someone then the impact is limited to your group. It’s not an easy walk and you need a certain degree of resilience more than fitness. There are plenty of opportunities to eat on the route and support the tribesmen economically. Take plenty if cash for tipping.
Review provided by Viator
Brian_f
Dec 30, 2025
Top, 5 Sterme - It was a wonderful and eventful experience! Top organized, German speaking guide! Always happy to recommend
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917viniciuso
Dec 24, 2025
Sinai experience - Unreal experience! The tour is amazing, although is very tiring and demanding. But if you do at your own pace you will reach the summit eventually. There are some tea houses on the way up so its possible to rest as well. The tour guide Amr was very polite and share with us his knowledge about history and took a good care of us. Highly recommended that you book with them!
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Albertocarlos_r
Nov 14, 2025
Exhausting but wonderful activity - This activity is strenuous, but very worthwhile. For part of the climb to Mount Sinai I needed a camel. The views from above the mountain at sunrise are wonderful. The monastery of Santa Catalina is very nice. I could see there the burning bush of the theophany to Moses. The staff was very attentive.
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Deborah
Apr 26, 2025
Definitely a bucket list trip - This was a ‘private tour’. Meaning it was just us with the guide and driver in a van coming and going and at the monastery. They also set us up with a Bedouin guide that was just us and the guide up the mountain. I had read another review where someone said ‘Ride the camel’. So glad we did. $25 each. A little over 2 miles of uphill rocky switchbacks to start the climb. And of course it is super dark. Had people trying to hire camels part way up after they decided they wouldn’t be able to walk it very well. The 750 ‘stairs’ to the top are stairs in the sense that it is stones and boulders fashioned into stairs. Not consistent in size or steepness. A cold front was coming through the night we went. VERY windy, which made it that much colder. I really wished I had some long socks that would cover my ankles, which is the one thing they didn’t sell anywhere along the way. Saw several other people that wished the same. Other than that it wasn’t unbearably cold until you got to the very top, which wouldn’t have been terrible had it not been for the wind. They rent you blankets at the last coffee shop before the top. Very much worth the few dollars. The coffee and hot chocolate were also very good. The sunrise and the view are phenomenal. You can understand why this was the place God gave Moses the 10 Commandments. With all the cold, lack of sleep and sore legs, it was very much worth the trip. Definitely a bucket list item.
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C6665tyjamest
Dec 10, 2024
Highlight of my 12-day tour of Egypt! - The trip was absolutely fantastic! The guides, Hanafy and Eid, were amazing. I did a great hike and the views were exceptional. It wasn’t a hard climb - did it in less than 2.5 hours - but it was a very long day/night so you’ll need the next day to recover. Highly recommend this. It was my highlight of Egypt!
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Sean_b
Nov 11, 2024
Great experience - The hike to Mt. Sinai and tour of St. Catherine Monastery was incredible. Taking a private tour was well worth it. We were picked up from our hotel on time and had a very comfortable ride. We were able to hike at our own pace and without headlamps (our choice) which made the hike extra enjoyable. Both our hiking guide and our monastery guide were very knowledgeable and interesting to speak with. Our hiking guide was also very skilled at taking night pictures, so we have a nice album to take home.
Review provided by Viator
Rdelanoy
Nov 7, 2024
Highly Recommended! - What a fabulous tour! We thoroughly enjoyed our trip with Memphis Tours to Saint Catherine and climbing Mount Sinai. Our driver and guide in our minibus we’re both excellent. Our guide gave us some history as we drove along, but most of the drive was time that we had to relax and sleep. The trip up to St. Catherine took about three hours. There was about a 30 minute wait just outside of Sharm el-Sheikh, at the first police check point. We went through about 4 to 5 other checkpoints, but did not have any waiting time at any of those. We stopped about halfway there at a nice convenient store called Take 5, with very nice clean bathrooms and a large assortment of food and drinks. It was a good chance to get outside and walk around and relax before continuing on. Credit cards and electric payments were accepted. Just a few minutes before our destinations, we pulled off at a site that had a number of icons that are found in Saint Catherine’s monastery. We got a great history lesson on what they all mean and information about Saint Catherine herself. It was very interesting! Then there was an opportunity to purchase different replica variants of the icons. Again, credit cards and electronic payment were accepted. We also were able to see a small replica/model of what is inside of the monastery walls to orient us before we got there later in the day. That information was very helpful because we were already oriented to where everything was when we saw it later in the day. There was also a bathroom available at this stop, but have cash on hand to tip. After we pulled into the parking lot for St. Catherine’s Monastery and the hike to Mount Sinai, we got off the bus and there’s about a quarter mile walk down to where the monastery is and the hike begins. This is where we met our Bedouin guide that would take us up the mountain. Our guide was excellent, very personable and interesting with a lot of knowledge. He even carried my wife’s backpack up the mountain for her and watched our stuff when we wanted to put things down to take photos. The hike up the mountain starts off slowly on the camel road, and then the elevation starts to increase. Note: the old Path of Repentance, with 3,750 steps to the summit is closed. There are a number of loose rocks and a very dusty soil along the camel road. There are several tea shops and rest places along the way, so you can take as much time as you want to get up the mountain, keeping in mind that your goal may be to view the sunrise or sunset from the summit. We did the tour that starts the climb at 2AM, reaching the summit by 6AM for sunrise, on the date we went. There is a part before the 750 steps that gets steeper. Then the stairs - I had not been able to find any other reviews that specifically explained details regarding the stairs. The are blocks of stone. All different sizes and depths, and heights. The stairs are not all in “one flight” per se - it’s not just one long column of stairs. The stairs twist and turn up the mountain. There are places to stand to the side to allows others to pass or to take a photo. Although there are drop-offs on the side, there aren’t any that are a really long drop - nothing more than say 10’ or so. The summit is fairly small and can get quite crowded. There are several different terraces to stand on, enabling you to get photos of any direction. There is a small chapel which is usually closed but was open for a few minutes while we were there. There are some boulders you can climb to get that classic “I’m on a rock looking over the beautiful remote landscape“ photo. My wife used walking sticks which were extremely helpful for her (a 56 year old, fairly active woman). The hike to the summit took us about 3h20m, with the descent taking about 2h15m. Some of the time on the stairs we were in a line and just waiting for it to move, but it was a nice break. We started up at 2AM and started heading down around 6:15AM. Our tour was on November 6th and sunrise was around 6AM. I would recommend being extra careful and slow going down as it is the easiest time to slip and injure yourself. Some of the terrain can be slippery because of the small gravel. Our Bedouin guide, Eid, was excellent and spoke several languages, including English and Russian! Very personable and extremely helpful. We couldn’t have asked for a better guide. He was full of interesting information and answered all of my various and wide-ranging questions. We really had a nice conversation with him along the way. After we got off the mountain, Eid handed us back off to our original guide from Memphis Tours, Halim, to visit St. Catherine’s monastery. Halim was very interesting and told us a lot of history and explained what we were seeing along the way. There is a place to rest and get a snack and tea and sit in the shade, and then we also saw Moses’s well, the outside of the area that contains the burning bush, and we were able to see its branches. We also quickly peaked in the church and saw some of the icons there. Plan to have tip money again here at the monastery in order to use the bathroom. After that you can opt to take a taxi back to your bus or walk the quarter mile back to where you were originally dropped off to start. We arrived back to our hotel in Sharm el-Sheikh around 12:45PM, slightly later than expected. You should plan to bring tip money for your Bedouin guide, as well as the Memphis Tours guide and the minibus driver. Excellent experience! I would highly recommend Memphis Tours and the Mt. Saini and St. Catherine tour.
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Akisha99
Dec 25, 2025
The mountain, the nature, the sunrise beautiful. The organization: Disaster - We booked a hike with sunrise on the mountain and visit of the monastery. The tour was with pick up from the hotel in Dahab, guided tour up the mountain and back and entrance to the monastery. The organizer was "Dahab Safari Day Tours". We were picked up from the hotel in the evening with a bus around 10pm. The journey took quite a long time. We first approached several other hotels to pick up guests. Arriving at the mountain we were assigned to a mountain guide. First you have to queue at some kind of checkpoint and the passports are checked. Then we were driven up the mountain at an insane pace. On the way are always small shops where you could rest. But you can only rest where the respective mountain guide wants it. Probably at the stores of his family/friends. Again and again you are also offered to ride the first piece on a camel (50 dollars). On the last section, which is steepest and consists of 750 steps, young people offer their help to hikers who have come out of the puff. They mutter something out of 15 if they're allowed to carry the bag. It is assumed that there are 15 Egyptian pounds. Once on top, they want dollars! When you are up, it is still a good 2 hours before sunrise and it is dark and freezing. One wonders why one was actually so driven on the way. The descent is then a little easier. Once downstairs, I wanted to visit the monastery and go to the toilet first. There was no water there. Neither for flushing the toilet, nor for washing hands. For this I bought overpriced drinking water from the shop. There was supposedly no more time to visit the monastery. You could only briefly for 5min in the courtyard. But then you were allowed to wait another half an hour at the bus until the departure. Conclusion: The mountains and the sunrise were beautiful. I would do it again. But then maybe with a private mountain guide at my pace. The tourist nap through the resident Bedouins is really bad. something should be done about it.
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From $69
up to 15 guests
1 - Adult
Cancellation: Free cancellation up to 24 hours before the start of your experience (local time).