Coloured Canyon
A sandstone gorge streaked ochre and violet, a metre wide in places.
Duration
5 hrs – 7 hrs
Difficulty
●●●○○
Best time
Arrive around midday, for the light
Open
Every day
Entry price
To confirm
The Coloured Canyon is a sandstone defile cut by episodic floods in the Sinai desert, inland. It runs about eight hundred metres and narrows in places to under a metre, between thirty-metre walls.
The colours come from metal oxides in the rock: ochre, red, violet, and darker bands where manganese has been deposited. The light changes everything: at midday it drops straight into the cleft and lights the walls; the rest of the time the canyon is in shadow.
Getting there
Ninety kilometres north-west of Dahab, near Nuweiba. Desert track by four-wheel drive: escorted trips only.
What the price covers
reached by 4x4 with a Bedouin guide; the price includes transport
Rules on site
The interior of Sinai requires permits and passes through checkpoints: go with a registered operator, never alone. A flash flood can fill the canyon in minutes — never go in stormy weather, even distant.
