Saudi Arabia – Jabal Ferwa

Jabal Ferwa (3,001.8 ± 0.7 m)

Highest mountain in Saudi Arabia

Eric and Matthew Gilbertson

August 18, 2018

Aug 17 – arrive in Abha, hike up Jabal Sawda (N 18.266717°, E 42.368264°)
Aug 18 – hike up Jabal Ferwa (N 17.928547°, E 43.265528°)
Aug 19 – Drive to Tanomah, climb possible first ascent up north ridge of Jabal Mana (5.4), return to Abha
Aug 20 – flight back to US

Until 2018, it was widely believed that Jabal Sawda was the tallest mountain in Saudi Arabia. However, after taking measurements on both peaks with an accurate GPS unit in August, we can now report with confidence that Jabal Ferwa is the true highpoint, and is about 3 meters taller than Jabal Sawda. (Jump to the GPS Data Processing section at the bottom of this page)

Other than our measurements, almost all existing publicly-availably sources give different elevations for Jabal Sawda, and it appears that until now it has never actually been surveyed carefully enough to definitively say whether it is the highest point in the country.

According to SRTM data (satellite-based elevation measurements), Jabal Sawda lies between the 2980m and 3000m height contours. However, there is one (and only one) other peak in Saudi Arabia, Jabal Ferwa, commonly considered the second highest mountain, which also lies between the 2980m and 3000m contours on SRTM data. SRTM elevations have errors up to 16m (source: https://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/srtm/statistics.html), thus SRTM data alone is not accurate enough to determine which of these two peaks is the highest.

I discovered, doing some background research, that several land-based topographic surveys have been conducted in

Saudi Arabia over the past few decades, and the results are publicly available, for a small fee, on mapstor.com. The Soviets conducted a survey in 1978 and measured Jabal Sawda to have an elevation of 3032m and Jabal Ferwa to have an elevation of 3091m.

The US military also conducted a survey, the j06-c (date unclear), and measured Jabal Sawda to be 3015m tall and Jabal Ferwa to be 3020m tall. These were the only publicly-available surveys that measured both peaks.

The UK military joint operations graphic from 1986 measured Jabal Sawda to have an elevation of 3015m, but did not measure Jabal Ferwa. The US Military NE38 (date unclear) measured Jabal Sawda at 2910m, but also did not measure Jabal Ferwa.

It appeared, from all the data I could find, that no source definitively measured Jabal Sawda as taller, while several sources measured Jabal Ferwa as taller, and one source (SRTM) measured them as equal height within the margin of error of the measurement.

This data calls into question whether Jabal Sawda is the true highest point in Saudi Arabia. Matthew and I learned

through a GIS specialist friend, that there now exist survey-grade GPS units which can theoretically measure elevation to 10cm accuracy, if brought to the summit of the mountain and the data is carefully post-processed with data from a nearby base station. If we could just acquire one of these units and bring it to each summit, we thought, we could definitively determine which mountain is the true highpoint of Saudi Arabia.

Unfortunately, Saudi Arabia is one of the most difficult countries in the world for a US citizen to visit for the purpose of climbing a mountain. Saudi Arabia does not issue tourist visas, though there is talk of this changing soon with the vision 2030 initiative. Currently the only way for a US citizen to visit Saudi Arabia is to get a business visa, a government visit visa, or a visa to make a religious pilgrimage for Haj.

The ways I’m aware of to get a business visa are if your employer does business with Saudi Arabia and sponsors you, or you move to Saudi Arabia for the purpose of working. For instance, I know one American who got a visa to teach English as a second language in Saudi Arabia.

To make a pilgrimage for Haj requires converting to Islam, getting a letter from your local Imam certifying this, and then an application process. It’s unclear to me if this would also allow you to travel over to climb a mountain while there or not.

These options wouldn’t really work for Matthew and me, so we were planning to wait and hope Saudi Arabia eventually started issuing tourist visas sometime in the future. However, we were very fortunate to have a Saudi friend we met through the MIT Outing Club, named Majed Alnaji, who is the Director of Operations for the brand new Saudi Climbing Federation (climbing.sa).

Back in February I emailed the MITOC mountaineering list looking for partners to climb some highpoints in Lebanon and Egypt, and Majed invited us to come climb some mountains in Saudi Arabia. This was a golden opportunity we couldn’t pass up. It took a bit of paperwork, but we eventually got government visit visas to travel to Saudi Arabia in mid August. The plan was to meet up with other Saudi hikers and climbers, and hike up Jabal Sawda and Jabal Ferwa, as well as help scout out some rock climbing locations in the area for the Saudi Climbing Federation.

Matthew and I wanted to be certain to definitively determine which peak was the true highpoint of Saudi Arabia, so we decided to rent a GPS capable of 10cm accuracy. Matthew found a New Jersey-based company called Waypoint Technology Group that rented a variety of survey-grade GPS units, including the Trimble Geo 7x, one of the best portable units available. Waypoint was generous enough to give us a discounted rate because they were interested in our project. The plan was to bring the GPS to each peak, record the data, then post-process that data back in the US.

We would be in Saudi Arabia Aug 17-20, which actually worked out well in hindsight. It was a Friday-Sunday, and Friday-Saturday is the weekend in Saudi Arabia, and the following week was the Eid holiday for many people. So that meant other hikers were able to join us more easily.

I was in Africa climbing mountains for the previous few weeks, and flew from Uganda to Abha, Saudi Arabia,

arriving on the morning of August 17. Matthew had been in Europe bagging country highpoints, then Kuwait, and arrived in Abha the night of August 16.

I easily made it through customs in Abha, without getting asked a single question, but then they wanted to fully inspect my bag. The thing they were most interested in appeared to be a packed up rain jacket, but they let me keep it and apologized for the delay.

Outside the airport I met Majed, and we got in an Uber (or the Saudi equivalent of an Uber) to drive over to the

hotel. Because it was the start of the Eid holiday, all the rental cars

were booked in Abha and the roads were packed. Abha is in southwestern Saudi Arabia at a high elevation, above 8,000ft. This makes it the coolest area of the country, and thus a popular vacation destination in the heat of August. Abha is also one of the wettest areas of Saudi Arabia, with regular storms coming in off the Red Sea. In fact, it rained briefly every day we were there.

We made it to the Shafa Abha hotel and caught the tail end of the buffet breakfast. Matthew was there, along with other hikers Roua, Batool, Ryan, Iyad, and Hatan. The other hikers had flown in from Jeddah and Riyadh, and it was everyone’s first time in Abha. They said Abha looked very different than other parts of Saudi, because there was so much vegetation. It sounds like Riyadh is very much in the desert, while Abha gets enough rain that there’s a lot more plant growth.

We loaded up extra food for lunch, then got into two cars and started driving toward Jabal Sawda. It’s actually possible to drive to within a 5 minute walk of the summit, but we wanted to get a good hike out of the day. Majed discovered a trail that starts down in the valley to the west of Jabal Sawda and ascends all the way to near the summit. A local guide went with us to show us the way and help us get permission from the people living at the base.

We drove past the summit area, then descended down a windy road to the west of the summit. We turned off the main road near Al Masam and ascended a smaller road to its end at a farm on the west ridge of Jabal Sawda. Majed had earlier talked to the farmer, and he’d given us permission to hike through his land to access the trail.

After packing up our bags with water, food, and rainjackets we started hiking up. We hiked through the farmer’s

backyard, past a very angry dog, and then picked up an old trail winding through the shrub growth. The guide showed us some prickly-pear cacti that had sweet-tasting fruit, and another edible bush that didn’t taste very good. He said the trail had been around for several hundred years, as a transit route up to the Abha area.

As we ascended clouds began rolling in and we could see rain showers in the distance. It sprinkled on us on and off, and was actually quite chilly in the 50s F. We all brought rain jackets, though, so had no problem. I was astounded to be in such comfortable conditions in Saudi Arabia in August, when I had expected extreme heat and dry weather.

Along the hike we passed several interesting cliffs that Majed kept note of as future potential climbing destinations.

After about 4.5 miles we reached the crest of the ridge near Jabal Sawda, and were enveloped in heavy fog. We intersected a road, and our two drivers came to meet us and give us juice and food. Some of the team drove to a restaurant, but Matthew, I, Majed, and Ryan drove up for 5 minutes to the end of the road near the summit of Jabal Sawda.

The summit has a radio tower of some sort on top, which is fenced in. However, the true highpoint is one of several large boulders that are outside the fence and easily accessible. The boulders have interesting petroglyphs carved in them, some in the shapes of animals, spirals and circles.

We found the highest boulder on the north side, and placed the Trimble Geo 7x on the top. After several minutes of collecting data it stabilized at a preliminary measurement of 3007m +/- 0.3m elevation, subject to post processing of course. We measured the height of all potential boulders and got a similar measurement, within the accuracy of the GPS unit.

This was a different elevation than any of the surveys I’d found, but was within the error bounds of SRTM data and was thus believable. We would have to wait until we measured the height of Jabal Ferwa the next day and processed the data to be certain of the true highpoint, though.

After taking plenty of pictures and taking sufficient measurements we loaded back into the car and met the rest of the team at a restaurant in Abha. There we had an excellent traditional Saudi dinner and toured a museum in the area.

We spent the night back at the hotel in Abha, and headed out the next morning toward Jabal Ferwa. This time Majed was able to find a rental vehicle, and we packed all eight hikers into a big SUV. We drove southeast, passing through Ohod Rafeedah and Sarat Aubedah on route 15, then turning west on route 162 until we reached a pulloff on the southeast ridge of Jabal Ferwa.

Jabal Ferwa is only about 80 km line of sight from Jabal Sawda, but the geography and vegetation are completely different. While Jabal Sawda is basically a highpoint along the edge of a long plateau, Jabal Ferwa is a rounded mountain nestled in the middle of slightly shorter mountains. Jabal Sawda is covered with trees, bushes, and other vegetation, while Jabal Ferwa just has sparse grass and a few bushes. Jabal Sawda is in a much wetter area, and got rain every day we were in Saudi Arabia, while Jabal Ferwa is more in the desert, and the weather was completely sunny there during our entire hike.

As we were unloading the car a man in truck pulled over, curious what this group of people was doing in the desert on the side of the road. Majed and Iyad talked to him, and it turned out he was the owner of the herd of goats we saw walking down the hill nearby. He was very friendly, and insisted on slaughtering a goat for us to eat, because we were visitors in the area.

“He says: ‘I swear to god, you are my guests, and I insist on slaughtering a goat for you,’ ” Iyad loosely translated for us.

“What would we do with the slaughtered goat?” we asked Iyad. “Would he cook it for us?”

“No, that part would be up to you, I think,” Iyad replied to us.

Majed and Iyad thanked him but politely declined, and he got back in his truck to tend to the goats.

After packing up our GPS, food and water, we started our hike. There were no trails, but the terrain was open enough that we could just travel cross country. We followed the southeast ridge, scrambling over rocks in a few places, and gained the top of a broad plateau. The highest point was on the northern end of the plateau, and as we crossed we passed a goat herder with a herd of a hundred goats or so.

Across the plateau we soon reached the highest ground, capped with a few boulders and a small cairn, probably put

there by the goat herders. Matthew placed the GPS unit on the highest permanent rock (not the cairn), while I took out a sight level to survey the surrounding peaks. One peak directly to the southeast looked like it was a similar height, but I measured it to be at least 50m shorter than Jabal Ferwa. I measured all other visible peaks around to be significantly shorter than Jabal Ferwa.

After letting the GPS unit take a sufficient amount of data, we saw a reading of 3009m +/- 0.3m. This seemed to indicate that Jabal Ferwa was 2m taller than Jabal Sawda. We knew this measurement was subject to post-processing correction, but it appeared very likely that Jabal Ferwa was the actual highpoint of Saudi Arabia, while Jabal Sawda was the second highest point.

We hiked back down to the car, and this time another man in a truck stopped by to talk, curious what we were doing. He was also friendly, and offered us some water. We told him we were trying to climb the tallest peak in Saudi Arabia, and he said the tallest peak was actually Jaw’an, a mountain just a few miles to the east.

This was pretty surprising to hear. SRTM data did not show anything close to the height of Jabal Ferwa anywhere nearby, except the peak to the southeast that I measured to be at least 50m shorter. The man said we could follow him and he’d take us to the peak. However, by the time we loaded up the car he was gone.

I’m not sure which peak he was referring to. Topographic maps refer to the whole region around Jabal Ferwa as “Jaw’an”, but no specific peak is labeled as Jaw’an on a map. I’ve learned that, without a sight level and careful measurements taken from the summits of peaks, it’s nearly impossible to tell which of several peaks is taller just from looking up at them from a road. Sharp peaks tend to look taller, and closer peaks also look taller. I can say confidently that, based on my measurements, no peak visible from the summit of Jabal Ferwa is taller than Jabal Ferwa. Given that SRTM data shows the only peak of a similar height to Jabal Ferwa in Saudi Arabia is Jabal Sawda, I’m pretty confident the man in the truck was incorrect in saying there was a taller peak nearby.

That evening we drove back to Abha and had another delicious traditional Saudi dinner of kabsa.

Most of our fellow hikers had to fly home the next morning, but Matthew and I had one more day in the kingdom. Majed wanted to scout out some potential climbing areas nearby for the Saudi Climbing Federation, and his friend Ibrahim flew in to join. On Sunday morning we all drove north of Abha to the town of Tanomah. Tanomah is known as the Yosemite of Saudi Arabia because it has some of the best rock climbing.

The town is about two hours north of Abha, and is surrounded by huge rock cliffs sticking out of the desert. We didn’t have any specific objective, but we saw one peak with a long rocky ridge leading almost to the summit, with rocky cliffs on the top. It looked like a fun mountaineering objective, with potentially a bit of technical climbing on the summit.

Majed and Ibrahim had brought climbing gear, but Matthew and I just had hiking gear. We decided to all scramble up as high as possible, and if the true summit required technical climbing then Majed and Ibrahim could climb and Matthew and I would either turn around, or improvise harnesses with webbing and ascend.

We parked at a restaurant on the edge of town, then walked through a farmer’s field and started the ascent. It was a

fun scramble up sandstone along the north ridge of the peak. As we got higher it became clear that there was no non-technical route to the true summit. We got to a point, though, that looked like only one rope-length of low-5^th class climbing would bring us to easier terrain that might reach the top.

Majed took the lead, and I belayed him using Ibrahim’s harness. Majed reached the top after about 50m of climbing. I then tied into a knot in the rope and trailed the rest. Ibrahim tied in with a webbing harness, and Matthew tied in on the end with a bowline. We all three simul-climbed up to Majed. The line was a pitch of low 5^th class, and we may be the first people to climb that route.

We definitely weren’t the first ones to summit, though. We soon scrambled up to the top and saw two stone structures that looked very old. We later learned that the structures were at least several centuries old.

Given the presence of those structures, we assumed there must be a non-technical route up the peak. The west side was a big cliff, and the north side, the side we climbed, was all technical. We decided to attempt to descend the south side, and it turned out this was a third class scramble.

As we descended we saw thunder storms approaching from the west, but luckily they never reached us. Eventually we reached the bottom of the peak and crossed some farm field back to the road. One of the farmers offered to give us a ride back in his truck, and we gladly accepted. He said the peak was named Jabal Man’a.

He dropped us off back at our car, and we soon loaded up and headed back to Abha. Matthew and I flew out of Abha late that night, and made it back to the states about 20 hours later.

GPS DATA PROCESSING

After consulting with Waypoint Technology Group (from whom we rented the GPS unit) and our friend who is a GIS specialist, we processed our GPS data using measurements from base stations in Kuwait and Addis Ababa. A GPS base station is a device that is placed at a known (and fixed) location that tracks the positions of GPS satellites with high accuracy. Usually, base station units are large, expensive devices that are run by organizations like universities or airports. Base station data can be used to improve the accuracy of GPS measurements taken with devices like the Trimble Geo 7X.

One of the main factors that contributes to degradation of the accuracy of GPS measurements is distortion of the satellite signals caused by the local ionospheric conditions – i.e., the flow of charged particles high in the atmosphere, in between the satellite and earth. The base station is able to calculate the ionospheric-induced distortion at its location, which can be used to correct GPS measurements taken nearby. The goal is to have base station data that were recorded during the same period of time that the GPS measurements were taken, and from approximately the same location (ideally < 100 km away), so that the ionosphere conditions were the same and ionospheric distortion can be corrected for.

Although there are several thousand base stations in the world for which we have data access (via Trimble’s Pathfinder Office software), unfortunately we could find no base stations on the entire Arabian Peninsula. The closest base stations we could find were a UNAVCO station in Kuwait (‘kuwt’) – 1200km away – and an IGS station in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (‘adis’) – 1300km away. While these distances are far from ideal, they are the best that we could do. Incidentally, we contacted the chair of the GIS department at a top Saudi University, and he also said he did not have access to any Saudi base stations. We hypothesize that there exist Saudi Aramco base stations positioned at some of the oil fields, but we have yet to find someone who can connect us to any data.

For each peak, Jabal Ferwa and Jabal Sawda, we took three sets of measurements, referred to as Ferwa1, Ferwa2, Ferwa3, for Jabal Ferwa, and Sawda1, Sawda2, and Sawda3 for Jabal Sawda as referenced in Figures 1-3. Two base stations were used for post-processing: kuwt (UNAVCO) and adis (IGS). All data were post-processed using Trimble Pathfinder Office (PFO). For ‘kuwt1,’ PFO automatically retrieved base station data; for ‘kuwt2’ and ‘adis,’ base station data were downloaded separately and imported into PFO.

Figure 1 shows the results from processing the data points. In this figure, the rectangle height equals two standard deviations (i.e., ±1σ, which encompasses a 68.2% confidence interval, assuming a normal distribution) and the vertical line height is four standard deviations (i.e., ±2σ, which encompasses 95.4% confidence interval). The center horizontal line is the mean elevation. Rectangle color refers to the post-processing method. The most data points were taken for Ferwa1 (581) and this is why we present data for Ferwa1. For Jabal Sawda, the most data points were taken for Sawda1 (835) and thus we present data for Sawda1.

Figure 1 shows that the measurements with the smallest errors for Ferwa1 and Sawda1 are those processed with kuwt1 base station data. Thus, we looked into these measurement in more detail. Figure 2 shows normalized histograms of the elevation measurements for Ferwa 1 and Sawda 1 data, assuming a normal distribution. These curves are based solely upon the measurement means and standard deviations from PFO post-processing.

For completeness, we also present in Figure 3 normalized histograms of the elevations measurements for waypoints Ferwa 1 and Sawda 1, based upon post-processing with three different methods: ‘kuwt1,’ kuwt2,’ and ‘adis’.

We found that, based on measurements Ferwa 1 and Sawda 1 using kuwt1 base station data, which gave the results with the smallest errors for each peak, Jabal Ferwa has an elevation of 3,001.8m with a standard deviation of 0.7m, and Jabal Sawda has an elevation of 2,998.7m with standard deviation of 0.6m.

Based on the PFO-quoted mean elevations and standard deviations and assuming a normal distribution, we calculated that the probability that Jabal Ferwa is taller than Jabal Sawda is 98.148%.

This is a high enough probability that we are comfortable recognizing Jabal Ferwa as the highpoint of Saudi Arabia.

For reference, here are the positions of the two peaks that we recorded: Jabal Sawda (N 18.266717°, E 42.368264°), Jabal Ferwa (N 17.928547°, E 43.265528°)

If you have access to base station data we could use from a location inside Saudi Arabia we would be happy to update our calculations on the elevations of these two peaks.

A technical document we wrote up documenting our methods: Saudi_Arabia_Report