Jebel Hafeet

Jebel Hafeet rises steeply out of the plain south of Al Ain to about 1240 metres, a bare limestone ridge that carries a road of eleven kilometres and sixty bends to a car park near the top. Around its lower slopes stand hundreds of beehive tombs of the late fourth and early third millennium BC, so numerous that the period is named the Hafit period after them; the Jebel Hafit Desert Park and the North Tombs are inscribed components of the UNESCO listing of the cultural sites of Al Ain.

What you actually see

• The Hafit tombs - beehive graves of the fourth and third millennia BC, inscribed by UNESCO.
• The summit road - eleven kilometres and sixty bends up the ridge.
• The plain view - Al Ain, the oases and the Omani border country from the top.
• The limestone geology - marine rock pushed up into a bare ridge above the sand.

When to go

October to April; summer heat on the exposed rock is severe. Sunset from the summit is the popular time and the car park fills. Winter mornings after rain are clearest.

Honest expectations

The summit car park is the end of the public road and the actual top is a restricted area. There is little shade anywhere on the mountain. The tombs are scattered and mostly unmarked without a guide.

Nearby

Green Mubazzarah is at the foot, and Al Ain is north.