This Emirati Hiker Leads Strangers Into UAE's Hidden Caves for Free

Most weekends, Ahmed Al Mansouri could be doing what everyone else is doing: sleeping in, seeing friends, maybe recovering from the week. Instead, the Ras Al Khaimah-based technical assistant spends his days off taking strangers into caves, up fossil-covered mountains and towards hidden springs. He doesn’t charge them a dirham.

Al Mansouri founded his hiking group, Adventure with Nature, in 2021 to get more people into the UAE’s landscapes, many of which remain unfamiliar even to those who live here. Since then, he estimates the group has completed close to 200 trips, usually running one hike a weekend from around September 15th until the end of February, with some seasons stretching into spring. There are now more than 500 regular members, most of them foreigners who signed up through Instagram, with participants from Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Morocco, France, Spain, Iran, Turkey, Russia, the Philippines and beyond.

His relationship with the mountains, however, began long before Adventure with Nature. His father, a former soldier and diver, took the family into the hills almost every Friday when Al Mansouri was growing up, teaching him how to read the rocks, climb to a summit and navigate the landscape.

“I learned about the different kinds of mountains and how to breathe properly. He showed me which plants you cook with and which ones you build houses with, and he told me all about the snakes.” That knowledge now shapes the routes Al Mansouri plots through some of the UAE’s less familiar terrain.

There are peaks scattered with fossilised seashells, mountain valleys carrying year-round streams through Fujairah and Ras Al Khaimah, and caves like Shamal, which opens into two chambers inhabited by bats. His own hardest route is a circular climb on Jebel Jais, starting at the base and passing a freshwater spring and abandoned houses, farms and graves before reaching a hidden oasis. The descent takes hikers down the far side, past waterfalls that have to be climbed without ropes.

"I love how varied the mountains here are. The different rocks, the colours, the terrain, and the springs, some of them running all year," he tells SceneTraveller.

Several days before each hike, Al Mansouri prepares the route, grading it by distance, duration and fitness level, from easy outings suitable for children and older hikers to intermediate, difficult and expert climbs. A difficult 13-kilometre trek might have just 10 participants, while an easier route can attract 40 or more. Newcomers are often taken on a trial route first, while retired armed-forces member and trainer Captain Hussein Ahmed Abdullah screens participants for fitness, with Physician Dr Hussein Al Awadi also advising the group.

Everyone is expected to arrive prepared. "I ask every participant for their Emirates ID and their health insurance," he says. Anti-slip footwear, a backpack, suitable sportswear, sufficient food and water, sugar and a first-aid kit are mandatory. He also checks the weather every morning and changes routes when conditions demand it. "We discourage walking in the wadi tracks when there is rain, even light rain," he adds.

That caution comes from experience. The mountains are rougher than they can look, and Al Mansouri has seen injuries caused by carelessness, mistakes and inexperience. If he is unwell or too tired to lead, the hike is postponed or handed to one of his deputies, Captain Hussein, Captain Fayrouz Al Qadi or his brother Walid.

The point, however, has never been simply getting people to the top. Al Mansouri’s hikers are encouraged to observe the landscape without disturbing it, from its plants and wildlife to the geology beneath their feet. "The leader has to teach people about the environment around them and the plants, and to avoid harming any plant, animal, reptile or even insect," he says. "You take pictures and videos, but you shouldn’t touch wildlife."

Some of the flowers hikers encounter, including difla, or oleander, and ushar, are poisonous, while venomous snakes are also part of the ecosystem. For Al Mansouri, knowing what lives on the mountain is the first step to knowing how to leave it alone. “Protecting the environment is a duty,” he says.

That respect for the landscape has grown into Plant, Preserve and Explore, an annual clean-up and planting campaign he runs with Abu Dhabi institution Finance House, led by Mohammed Qubaisi. Combining litter collection and tree planting with lessons in mountain trekking, the programme moves between emirates, with its next stop expected to be Hatta in February 2027. For Al Mansouri, it is another way of doing what he has been doing since Adventure with Nature began: getting people out into the landscape, and leaving them with a little more reason to care about it.