
Spots / Asia
Dead Sea, Jordan — A warm, sculpted sandstone gorge above the Dead Sea — an exhilarating river scramble with no technical rappels.
Photo: YousefTOmar · CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons
Wadi Mujib drops toward the lowest point on Earth, and its Siq Trail is one of the world's most accessible introductions to moving through a canyon. Warm water rushes between glowing red sandstone walls, and the route upstream is a joyful scramble against the current — no rappels, just water, rock and the pull of the river.
The Siq Trail begins at the Mujib Biosphere Reserve gate near the Dead Sea highway — there is essentially no walk-in, you enter at the river mouth.
Unusually, the Siq Trail goes upstream: you scramble and swim against a warm current, hauling on fixed ropes where the water pushes hardest, to reach a waterfall before returning. It is exhilarating and accessible, though the current is stronger than it looks.