Al Hada Cable Car & Al Kar Village

The Al Hada telecabin runs 4.5 kilometres down the mountainside from the summit above Taif to Al Kar Tourist Village in the valley below. You hang above the switchbacks of the Al Hada road, watching cars work their way round hairpins that look absurd from above. It is about fifteen minutes each way.

The ride

Glass-sided cabins, six or eight to a car, running on a continuous loop. The descent is the good direction: you leave the summit with the whole valley opening out ahead and the road threading below. Coming back up, you face the mountain.

Anyone uneasy with heights should know it is a long, exposed span with a real drop underneath. It is a smooth ride, but it is not a low one.

Al Kar Tourist Village

The bottom station opens into a small resort: a toboggan run down a concrete track, a seasonal water park, playgrounds, cafes, a few small rides and viewpoints back up at the mountain. The toboggan is the one children ask for and is charged separately, at a modest amount per run.

An hour or two here, then ride back up, and you have used an afternoon well.

Tickets and timing

Round-trip tickets start from about SAR 100 for adults, with reduced children's entry. Peak-season pricing can be higher and the village activities are priced separately.

Go early. The queue is the thing that ruins this trip. On summer weekends, during school holidays and through Umrah season, the wait at the top station can run to an hour or more by mid-afternoon. First thing in the morning you walk straight on.

Two more warnings worth taking seriously. The cable car has closed for maintenance periods before, and it stops running in high winds — which do happen up there. Ask your driver or the hotel to confirm it is operating before you commit two hours of mountain road to it.

Getting there

Al Hada is on the road between Makkah and Taif, roughly an hour and a half from Makkah and twenty minutes from central Taif. The approach is the famous switchback road with around ninety bends. Spectacular, and hard on anyone prone to travel sickness — sit forward and keep a window open.

Weather

The summit sits high enough that it is often cloudy when Makkah is baking, and in winter it is properly cold. Fog can also close in and reduce the ride to a white ceiling, which is atmospheric but not what you came for. Mornings are generally clearer than afternoons.

Making a day of it

Most visitors come up from Makkah and do the cable car alongside the Taif Ziyarat, the rose farms in spring, or the Al Shafa viewpoints. Any two of those plus the cable car is a full and satisfying day out of the heat.