Jebel Shams & Wadi Ghul (Grand Canyon of Arabia)

Soaring to an elevation of 3,009 meters (9,872 feet) in the Al Hajar range, Jebel Shams (Mountain of the Sun) is the highest peak in the Sultanate of Oman and the second highest in the Arabian Peninsula. It earns its name by being the first point in the country to greet the dawn sun. However, the mountain’s crowning glory is Wadi Ghul, an awe-inspiring geological chasm plunging vertically for over 1,000 meters, rightly celebrated as the Grand Canyon of Arabia. The panoramic plateau offers breathtaking trails, most famously the 'Balcony Walk' (W6), a cliff-clinging pathway engineered into a limestone ledge hundreds of meters above the canyon floor. The path leads adventurers through prehistoric limestone formations, past wild olive trees, to the abandoned hamlet of As Sab, where ancient stone houses and terraced gardens cling miraculously to the cliff face. At night, the dry crisp atmosphere makes Jebel Shams one of the premier dark-sky astrophotography destinations in the Middle East.