(lighthearted guitar music plays) - [Mark] My name is Mark Jenkins.

I'm from Laramie, Wyoming.

I'm a writer and I've spent the last 40 years climbing around the world.

I'd done an expedition back in the spring, cold Alpine climbing.

And I did an expedition to Alaska in the summer, cold Alpine climbing.

So I was thinking, this is the last thing I need is another cold expedition.

I wanted to climb someplace warm that had rock climbing, big walls, and unclimbed rocks.

At the same time, I was thinking about who could I do this expedition with?

And probably only in Wyoming, could you get on the phone and call three guys and tell them we're leaving in a week.

We'll be gone for a month.

You need $2,000 cash in your pocket.

And everything we're gonna do is completely unclimbed and unexplored.

And I got three Wyoming guys to say yes on the phone immediately.

And within a week, we are on a plane to Cairo.

- Funding for this program is made possible in part by the members of the Wyoming PBS foundation.

Thank you for your support.

(upbeat folk music plays) (upbeat folk music continues) (upbeat folk music continues) (upbeat folk music slowly fades) - [Micah] My name is Micah Rush.

I'm from Casper, Wyoming.

I'm a full-time firefighter, a mountain guide, and I run a rescue business.

As well as a full-time dad and husband.

I'd never even heard of climbing in Egypt.

I think when Mark called, he didn't have to do much convincing.

It snowed a couple feet in Casper and all he had to say was warm weather and granite climbing, and I was like fired up to go.

I've always said, do we climb to travel or travel to climb?

I've always loved going and seeing different cultures and meeting different people.

(folk music continues to play in the background) - [Kyle] My name's Kyle Elmquist.

I'm from Lander, Wyoming and I work for the Wyoming Outdoor Council and conservation and land stewardship.

Mark kind of got a hold of me outta the blue and asked me if I wanted to go on an adventure to the Sinai.

I was really excited to go somewhere, that's still wild and off the map.

It was kind of crazy how fast the trip came together.

We all just put our trust in Mark and jumped off the deep end.

- [Mark] And I could've asked for a better team.

Everybody's brought a skillset to this expedition.

We've got Kyle Elmquist, who's a hardcore sport climber.

- [Kyle] The rock climbing around Lander is mainly sport climbing, which means that the bolts are already placed in the rock, which generally means it's a little lower risk and the focus is more on sheer athleticism and difficulty.

- [Mark] Right now, we've got Micah rush.

Who's kind of an all-rounder, you know, can, can lead five 13 trad route, same thing on sport, also Alpine climbing.

He's a fully certified international guide.

- [Micah] In Casper, we climb at Fremont Canyon.

Fremont Canyon has mixture of sport climbs and traditional climbs, which makes for really well rounded climbers.

(upbeat folk music continues) - [Mark] I'm kind of the old guy of, of the crew, lots of trips.

So I feel pretty comfortable going into remote places and going with a smile and, and a good nature and things seem to work out.

If you grow up in Laramie, you end up climbing in Vedauwoo, which is only 15 miles away.

Vedauwoo is kind of special for its wide cracks.

It's too big for your hands, too big for your fists but you can't get your entire body into it.

So it's called an off width and Vedauwoo is known for off widths.

It's kind of a specialty, one that I happen to love.

I know with this team, we're prepared to climb any wall we encounter because each team member has a specific skill set.

(folk music slowly ends) - [Micah] Landing in Cairo is kind of what I thought it would be just this 21 million people stacked on top of each other, hustle and bustle.

(horn beeping) There's, you know, tons of smog and just a city life (horn beeps) that none of us Wyoming boys are really used to.

(man speaking in foreign language) (man speaking in foreign language) (crowd cheering) (man speaking in foreign language fades) - [Micah] Cairo's amazing city and it was really cool to see the, the pyramid, so much history there but I don't think we could get outta there fast enough.

(man speaking in foreign language) (man speaking in foreign language) (car beeping) (man speaking in foreign language fades) - [Mark] But our goal was to get down in the Southern Sinai, took a six or seven hour mini bus ride down to St. Catherine's.

(folk music plays in the background) - [Narrator] The Sinai peninsula joins Africa and Asia, and is named after Mount Sinai, where Moses found the 10 Commandments.

Because of its unique location, it has a long history of conflict and foreign occupation.

But in spite of this, Sinai became a major tourist destination, due to its natural beauty, world class diving, and deep religious history.

(folk music continues) - [Mark] If you just want to do climbing, that's all you're interested in, and you want to do trad, you never have to leave Wyoming.

You could spend your entire life in the wind rivers, and cloud peak, the whole thing.

But we came here specifically to experience this culture.

I was really looking for a place where we could do some unclimbed walls, and was looking at Africa cuz I've been spent a lot of time in Africa over the years.

And I know that there are big rock walls that are kind of unknown.

So I started searching doing homework.

And after a few weeks of work, I found these walls here in Southern Sinai.

And I make the distinction between Southern Sinai and Northern Sinai, cuz Northern Sinai is where there's been a lot of political strife and there've been more terrorist attacks and Southern Sinai it's been largely safe.

I mean, tourists are coming to St Catherine's.

These are just your average Germans who fly down here to hike to the top of Mount Sinai.

Doing more homework, I ran into a climber named Dave Lucas.

Called him in London and said, I'm thinking about going there.

He said, it's a fantastic place to go.

And he basically just opened up and shared everything he knew.

Then he sent me all the routes he'd done.

He's, he's eventually going to put together a guidebook but he said, it's all granite, much of its good granite which psyched me up being a trad climber.

And he really encouraged me to go.

- [Micah] After getting out of this city of Cairo, you could tell all of us, when we arrived at St. Catherine's were super fired up to go climbing.

And so that night we sort of took off and like ran up this hill to go check out the climbing.

Cause none of us could wait to climb.

(upbeat folk music) (upbeat folk music fades) - [Micah] We arrived in St. Catherine's yesterday and started to check out some of the local climbing.

Super cool area, it's like these massive granite domes.

And we were reading sort of the descriptions, of some of the area and we found these two routes we're about to get on.

One's this overhanging off width it sounds unprotected, but Mark's psyched to look at it.

And then there's another one that sounds like tight fingers.

It sounds really good to work on.

(folk music plays) Jabal Batah is this area, it's super cool landscape though.

There's rocks everywhere, you see in St. Catherine's and it's like, what do you want to climb?

(high energy rock music) (high energy rock music continues) (high energy rock music continues) (high energy rock music continues) (music pauses) (high energy rock music intensifies) (high energy rock music fades) - [Mark] What I love about trad climbing is so you can just walk up to any cliff.

A cliff that perhaps no one has even ever touched, and assuming there are cracks, whether your rack your rope and a pack on your back, you can climb it.

(high energy rock music continues) - [Micah] As far as that goes, that was pretty sick.

- [Mark] (laughs) As far as that we did pretty good, so far.

- [Micah] I mean, besides dirty climbing, you know.

- (Mark laughs) - [Mark] Dirty!

It was clean, man.

- [Micah] No, it's more like just dirty climbing and we don't really want talk about it or do it.

(Mark laughs) That's what I mean by dirty.

That was amazing.

- [Kyle] Yeah.

- [Micah] That was really like the best rock we've had.

(high energy rock music) (high energy rock music continues) - [Kyle] My background is mostly in sport climbing.

I've done a fair bit of trad, but not like Mark and Micah.

I haven't been pioneering walls and playing it off new stuff.

Like they're pretty seasoned at this stuff, whereas it's kind of new for me.

(high energy rock music) (high energy rock music continues) (high energy rock music intensifies) (high energy rock music fades) - [Micah] So going on an expedition like this there's always a question mark, if we're gonna find good rock or not?

After the first day of climbing on Jabal Bata, we knew right away that Sinai had a ton of potential.

(high energy rock music stops) (long pause) - [Mark] It's a 3:30 in the morning, 3:30 AM.

And we're about to go off on a hike to climb Mount Mousa, which is also called Mount Sinai.

It's where Moses received the 10 Commandments.

We should be there at sunrise and see the sunrise from the summit of Mount Sinai.

- [Micah] By the time we got up there, we were really surprised.

We found like 30 or 40 other tourists up there.

(folk music) (folk music continues) (folk music continues) (folk music starts to fade) - [Kyle] Their history and and culture is so deeply rooted here.

It's really cool to be able to witness the ancient nature of this place feels humbling to be able to come here and go on an adventure.

And meanwhile, like experience this really rich history that has shaped humanity for thousands of years.

(folk music continues) - [Narrator] At the base of Mount Sinai lies St. Catherine's monastery completed in 565 AD.

It is one of the oldest working Christian monasteries in the world and also contains the oldest library in the world.

Its location is where Moses saw the burning bush and purportedly a descendant of the original bush remains to this day.

- The burning bush it will be the one to the right side, the big one, not the little one.

(people talking) - [Narrator] Because Moses was a essential figure for Islam and Judaism, as well.

Pilgrims of many different faiths visit from all over the world.

(folk music continues) A Muslim mosque was added within the walls of the Christian monastery at 1100 AD, only further adding to the complex religious history here.

Its cultural and religious significance have earned it the designation of a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

(somber folk music continues) (somber folk music starts to fade) - [Micah] So after climbing a couple days around St Catherine's, we decided to head into the back entry and try to find some of these walls; we had looked at on Google Earth and had imagery of.

- [Mark] David said, there are three or four of these mountains that you should try to get out to see.

And the highest one, the most difficult one, and the longest wall was Mount Naja.

Mountain and Bedouin is Jabal, so Jabal Naja.

- [Micah] So we hired a local Bedouin guide and took off to find this wall Jabal Naja.

- [Mark] We got camels, which is kind of fantastic.

- [Kyle] We're about to ride a camel.

We've been looking forward to this for a long time.

- [Micah] I came all the way to Egypt.

I'm gonna ride a camel and it looks like it's gonna be super painful, way more painful, little worse just the way the saddles are set up.

But we'll find out.

(camel grunting) (camel continues grunting) - [Mark] You gotta have one hand out like this.

- [Micah] Yeah.

(laughs) (folk music) (folk music continues) - [Mark] This land is owned by Bedouins.

And to just go out on your own is a bit disrespectful.

So you hire a guide.

Not only is it essential for you but it's essential for them because these are people who when the tourist trade was much healthier, they had full-time jobs, guiding people on tracks.

And now that the, the tourism has dropped so much they really need the work.

Besides that, it's kind of fun.

How else are you going to get to know the culture?

- [Kyle] Camel, camping is awesome.

They can carry up to 600 pounds.

So they were carrying all of our stuff.

And we were just following behind with a lightweight pack and enjoying the hike.

(upbeat folk music continues) - [Micah] So we'd come through these little villages and we went up in this village where they offered us tea, which was really cool.

Basically these men, they come up and they have to get the water to the villages, so they come up every day.

It sounds like about an hour hike and they come up and they get the generators going or get the wells moving.

However they do to get the water to it.

(folk music plays in the background) And then they were just hanging out all day.

So it seems like they smoke and, and drink tea.

So we were offered both, which is pretty cool.

And the tea's amazing.

Yeah.

(somber folk music) (somber folk music continues) - [Mark] Now I was hiking with our guide today, and we were talking about the difference between Egyptians and the Bedouin.

And he said even going all the way back to Pharaonic times which is two to 3000 years ago, the Egyptians primarily lived on the Nile and the Bedouin's were the ones who lived out in the desert.

So the Egyptians are city people and the Bedouin's are mountain people or desert people, or both.

The Bedouin's up until probably the last 50 years were nomads.

And they'd go up in the mountains with their sheep and goats and camels in the springtime and spend the summer in the mountains, in this region because it's much cooler.

And then they'd come down in the winter when it's cold.

(folk music continues) Most of them have gardens.

If you look at this out here, you're gonna think that it's all desert.

But in fact, there are little gardens everywhere we've gone.

We've seen little gardens in these ravines that are watered with wells, where they grow figs, dates, apricots, peaches pears, tomatoes, cucumbers, very rich abundance.

(folk music continues) (upbeat folk music continues) - [Micah] With literally rock everywhere around the Sinai, not all of it's great, a lot of it's crumbly.

So walking through this drainage, we look up and see this massive wall.

And we knew he had found some good rock.

(calm folk music) - [Mark] You know, it's probably 1500 feet tall, something like that.

Cuz these pitches are starting here and going to eight or nine pitches.

Let's see the main event is the one that he, he tried and didn't finish and that's this.

We believe it'll go, either we can cut right or maybe go up to that corner and go up that way.

- [Mark] Oh, the main event is kind of the main line.

Isn't it?

- [Micah] It is.

- [Mark] And when you look, if you just look up at the face and go, okay, what's the - [Micah] Yeah, that's it.

- [Mark] What's the obvious line up the middle.

- [Kyle] Yeah.

- [Mark] That's it?

- [Micah] It is.

- [Mark] Right.

- [Micah] We're gonna get some goods here.

(laughs) (man laughing) - [Mark] We're really only probably eight miles as the crow flies Northwest of St. Catherine's.

We're not that far away.

We're a one day walk with camels.

Okay.

So we're not that far out but it feels like we're out there.

(folk music) And the camel drivers are also our cooks.

So we have a cook named Salem.

He's our guide, our cook, our interpreter, general facto Tom.

He does everything.

And then his helper is Rajab, he's 16.

- [Micah] And we saddled up the camel today, which Rajab's been awesome.

He's a 16 year old kid.

Who's sort of been like the apprentice guide.

He doesn't like getting up early but I don't think any 16 year old kid does.

It's cool to see him work.

(folk music continues) Yeah.

I think there's huge similarities between the Wyoming Cowboys and the Bedouin mountain life.

They use their camels like horses as pack animals and get super deep into the mountains.

- [Mark] We have conversations every night with Salem, he speaks enough English for us to try to get to know, what it's like to be a Bedouin in the 21st century.

- [Salem] Me, Salem Ramadan from Santa Catherine.

My family and my, my wife they have a three boy.

Old one Dasem, second one Kara, small one Nuesem.

- [Mark] The Bedouin's themselves.

Well, first of all, they're outdoor people, still.

Humans all used to be outdoor people.

Now most of them are indoor people and they're obviously happy when they're in the mountains.

You listen to Rajab, he's out collecting wood and he's singing to himself.

And then one of the first things Salem said to me as we were walking through the first Wadi.

He said, "Mountains are so lovely.

I love the mountains."

And, and we do too.

Those, that's the kind of people we are we're from Wyoming.

So I, I think we fit pretty well, together.

- [Micah] I feel more at home here, sort of off the beaten path on the Sinai than I did in Cairo.

Which in our hotel room, it was, I feel way more comfortable here.

I feel like I can breathe and I have space.

We all feel like, yeah this is where we belong with the Bedouin in the mountains.

I thought I'd be roughing it more on this expedition.

But having the camels was pretty crazy.

These camels can carry up to 600 pounds and we called it camel camping.

It's like car camping.

That was really nice.

- [Kyle] It's really cool how they make their bread.

(fire crackling) He just puts flour, salt, some water and then kneads it all up and cooks it right there on a pan, right over the fire.

It's ready to go.

(fire crackling) (folk music plays) - [Mark] The Bedouins here are not engaged in terrorism, whatsoever.

The terrorism that's happening is mostly from what they call dash.

So it's foreigners coming and causing problems here.

The Bedouins aren't involved in that at all.

Well, they don't even make a distinction within Islam.

What they are.

They don't claim to be Sufi or Shia or Sunni.

They say, no, we're just Muslims.

In fact, when they had a conversation with our guide about this, he said, you know it's really not that hard to be a decent person.

That's all you expect in the Bedouin culture is to be a good person.

(fire crackling) (folk music starts to fade) (long pause) (crunching sounds from walking) - [Micah] And so the first day we went after this, this sort of king line that we had heard about it splits right up the center of the wall and the rock looks amazing.

(calm piano music) (metal rattling) (metal rattling) (Micah breathes heavily) (calm piano music continues) - [Micah] And only, the first two pitches are done and some of the best pitches anywhere.

They're really good pitches.

(calm piano music continues) (calm piano music continues) - [Kyle] Okay.

- [Micah] Nice dude.

- [Kyle] Thanks bro.

- [Micah] Yeah.

But then we found out pretty fast, why it hadn't gone any higher.

It's sort of like stopper, no gear, really hard climbing.

So we kind of got shut down there and and so the next day we went up for like a work mission.

(calm piano music continues) It starts off with like 40 or 50 feet of, you know this hands flight climbing and then you go into just a savage boulder problem.

(calm piano music continues) (heavy breathing) (wind blowing) - [Kyle] That's cool.

(exasperated sigh) (wind blowing) (scraping rock) - [Micah] It's pretty blank.

There's no way to protect it without putting in bolts.

So we're debating.

Do we put 'em in?

And if it goes free, we're still working.

It's super hard.

I mean, it just gets harder and harder and it turns out to be like 50 feet of really hard climbing.

(wind blowing) (tense music) - Come on Kyle, you got this.

Come on.

(tense music continues) (loud exhale) (Kyle grunts) - Come on.

(Kyle breathes heavily) (Kyle continues grunting) - [Kyle] There was something there though, like getting your back foot.

- Yeah.

- [Kyle] And then matching and palming and then foot and then get the other foot up.

(tense music continues) - [Micah] So we're really trying to push it to go.

We just don't know if it'll go, we've put in two days work on it and tomorrow will be another work day.

So we're going up to see if the upper pitches even go and if they go, then we can come down and work on what we think will be the hardest pitch on the route.

( short pause) - [Micah] So this is day seven of camel camping, at our little Oasis in the Sinai.

Just behind me is Jabal Naja.

We're putting up a new line, which is kind of like the king line.

And it's really impressive.

The rock is really good.

We've put a lot of work into it so far, put five days into it and it's required some cleaning, added a few bolts, figured out the pitches and how it goes.

And it's coming together to be like a spectacular line, really excited.

Tomorrow we're gonna try and put it together as a team and take it to the top.

- [Micah] Yeah.

We've all come to the conclusion that we're not gonna get hung up.

If we don't send the crux pitch on the route we did send the route on top rope.

We know it's possible, but we're not gonna get hung up.

Cuz it's our last day.

We want to have fun.

There's a lot of no unknowns above us that we wanna still send.

And yeah, we're just gonna enjoy this day.

(quavering voice) (quavering voice continues) (quavering voice gets louder) (upbeat folk music) (upbeat folk music continues) (quavering voice continues) (upbeat music continues) - [Micah] We're the top of pitch two.

The temps are really good.

Started at 4:00 AM this morning.

Yeah.

We're psyched we're at the bottom of the five 13 pitch.

It's feeling good today.

- [Kyle] It's cool to have the opportunity to contribute some of my skill set to this climb.

Essentially comes down to about five or six, extremely difficult moves.

(Kyle grunting) (exasperated exhale) (lighthearted folk music) - [Kyle] Then fortunately, the third pitch didn't go down which was a bummer, but it's all right.

You know, we didn't have a lot of time to figure out all the moves.

So it was a Hail Mary for sure.

But it was really fun.

There was some other really impressive pitches up high.

- [Mark] A 10 pitch line from bottom to top.

(quavering voice) That's pretty fantastic.

It'll certainly be one of the best lines in all of Sinai.

- [Kyle] Topping out was definitely the highlight.

(quavering voice) (intense folk musical buildup) (quavering voice continues) (intense folk music continues) - [Kyle] Climbing for me, it's something I've always loved to do purely for climbing itself.

But the other thing is that it takes you to just some of the most incredible places.

This trip was incredible in the climbing aspect but that was almost like secondary.

Climbing was a vehicle, in order to get to some place that is truly amazing.

(quavering voice fades) (upbeat folk music) (end credits)