Duration
3 hours
Group size
Up to 10
Language
English, Arabic
We meet at the top of Dana village at 5.00am, before the light comes over the Sharah mountains, and walk the old terraces out towards the Rummana escarpment. It is three hours of slow walking with a great deal of standing still. In spring you have a decent chance of the Syrian serin — Dana is one of the very few places on earth it breeds — plus sand partridge scuttling under the juniper, Tristram's starling working the cliffs, and Sinai rosefinch if the morning is kind. We carry a spotting scope and enough binoculars for the whole group, so you do not need your own. Two honest things. Birds do not take bookings: we can promise you the habitat and the hour, not the species list, and by mid-July the interesting ones have gone quiet before 7.30am. Second, Dana village sits at 1,200 metres and it is genuinely cold before sunrise — 4C in February is normal, and someone turns up in shorts almost every week. Bring a fleece and a hat. The walking itself is easy. Gentle gradients, no scrambling, back at the village by 8.30 for breakfast.
We are eleven guides from Qadisiyah, the village above Dana, and most of us learned these trails herding goats long before the reserve had a name. Dana Trail Collective walks. No jeep tours, no camel photo stops. We take you down Wadi Dana to Feynan, through the water in Wadi Ghuweir, and out along the Rummana escarpment at first light when the Syrian serin is actually singing. Fees are split evenly across the collective and the Feynan drivers are paid properly. We will also tell you honestly when a route is beyond your fitness, because Dana sits at 1,200 metres and Feynan is close to sea level, and the mountain does not negotiate.
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