Ascent of Mount Sinai

There are two principal routes to the summit. The longer and shallower route, Siket El Bashait, takes about 2.5 hours on foot, though camels can be used. The steeper, more direct route (Siket Sayidna Musa) is up the 3,750 "steps of penitence" in the ravine behind the monastery.

Summit

The summit of the mountain has a mosque that is still prayed in by Muslims today, and a Greek Orthodox chapel, constructed in 1934 on the ruins of a 16th century church, that is not open to the public. The chapel supposedly encloses the rock from which God made the Tablets of the Law. At the summit also is "Moses' cave", where Moses waited to receive the Ten Commandments.