One of the great mountain ranges of the Middle East, the Hejaz are a chain of towering peaks that form part of a bigger upland stretching the length of Arabia's Red Sea coast, from Aqaba in the north to Yemen in the south. It was in these mountains the story of Islam began nearly 1500 years ago and the holy towns of Medina and Mecca stand in their heartlands today. Once one of the grand old provinces of Arabia, the Hejaz remains a region with a firm sense of its own identity and it represents the historic homeland of Bedouin tribes who settled everywhere from Lebanon, Syria and Palestine to Egypt and the Atlantic coasts of North Africa, carrying their culture, faith and language to shape the Middle East into the region it is today. Whilst Wadi Rum represents the northernmost fringes of an area called the Hisma - a vast desert of towering sandstone massifs and sweeping red dunes - the granite hills on Wadi Rum's western margins are, geologically, a part of the Hejaz. This is an area of open grey hillsides, ridges and granite crags, crisscrossed with black and maroon dykes, representing some of the most varied scenery on the trail. Its high elevation gives it spectacular panoramas over the sandstone massifs of Wadi Rum to the east; to the west, the jagged peaks of the Hejaz line the horizon. The 'Wild West' of the Wadi Rum Trail, this area is seldom-visited and has a quiet, serene feeling throughout. Hikers will enter this region after moving out of Wadi Saabit on the seventh day. The true hills of the Hejaz are reached around Jebel Abu Baytherana, usually mid-way through the eighth day. Jebel Rum's magnificent sandstone heights come into clear view from here, representing the final challenge for hikers and it is to their traverse the last two days of the trail are devoted.