According to Potter and Wellington, the Hijaz mountain range runs the entire length of Arabia in an approximate north-south direction paralleling the coast of the Red Sea and just a few miles to the east of the Red Sea. In traveling “south-southeast,” Lehi’s party had two choices in making their way southward towards the place which they called “Shazer” (1 Nephi 16:13) and beyond: (1) They could either cross through the heart of the Hijaz mountains and continue on the Frankincense trail which followed along the east side of the mountains; or (2) They could travel down the coastal shoreline of the Red Sea on the west side of the mountains. Obviously they could not travel directly along the mountain chain because they would have been traversing one thousand miles of jagged peaks from six to ten thousand feet in height.
The Hiltons have suggested that the family traveled to the western side of the Hijaz range, down the Red Sea shoreline (see illustration below). In 1 Nephi 16:14, Nephi informs the reader that from the place called Shazer “they did go forth again in the wilderness, following the same direction, keeping in the most fertile parts of the wilderness, which were in the borders near the Red Sea. Adherents to the Hiltons’ theory interpret the word ”borders" in 1 Nephi 16:14 to mean the shoreline plain, which is called the Tihama
Potter and Wellington disagree with the Hiltons’ proposed shoreline manner of travel for a number of reasons. Some of the main reasons are listed below:
(1) The first and most notable of these is that there is no evidence that a trail existed down the shore of the Red Sea until well after Lehi’s time. Crossing Arabia was a very difficult process. Such long journeys in the desert would have required logistical support, or in essence dependable and maintained wells, fodder for animals, and provisions. A review of the official maps of the pre-Islamic trade routes in Arabia exhibited at the National Museum of Bahrain and the Antiquities Museums of Saudi Arabia at Najran and Damman show a network of trading routes through Arabia--yet none are located along the shoreline of the Red Sea. Virtually all of the texts, printed in English, that deal with the pre-Islamic trade routes show the Frankincense trail inland and no trail along the coastline. For a short distance in the south of Arabia a branch of the incense route traveled along the coast but then joined up again with the Frankincense trail. However, it was fifteen hundred years after the time of Lehi before a trail existed along the Red Sea coast, with its infrastructure of supply stations and wells, from Palestine to the Hadramawt in southern Arabia.
(2) Nephi noted that they traveled in “the most fertile parts.” The entire northern two thirds of the Red Sea coastal plain is barren wasteland. The Saudi Arabian Ministry of Agriculture has tested the soils along the Red sea plain and determined that they are “non-arable soil due to the high salinity.”
(3) A journey along the coast would provide terrain that is the direct opposite to what Nephi describes. Nephi states that they traveled first in the most fertile parts of the wilderness, then in the more fertile parts. He also says that on the last part of the journey south, at Nahom, the family was suffering from starvation. Yet a look at a map showing areas of cultivation on the west of Arabia shows that the coastal route is just the opposite of that. There are no areas of cultivation on the first part of the trip, then they increase in number by the time one reaches Jeddah, and on the final southerly stretch on the Tihama plain they are plentiful.
(4) Nephi’s text states that they turned east only after Nahom (1 Nephi 17:1). The Hiltons propose that Lehi’s family used the Shar ascent to go from the shoreline up into the mountains, turning east after al-Qunfidhah to pass through Abha and Khumis Mushayt, before coming to Nahm. This route runs east for 75 miles from Ash Shi‘b to Ash Sh’ar, 400 miles before reaching Nahm. The western side of the mountains in southern Saudi Arabia is the most fertile portion of all of Saudi Arabia with terraced cultivation on the mountains and fields on the Tihama. Since the area supported a larger population anciently than it does today this was probably also the case in Lehi’s time. Yet by the time they reached Nahom the family was starving (1 Nephi 16:35).
[George Potter and Richard Wellington, Discovering the Lehi-Nephi Trail, Unpublished Manuscript, July, 2000, pp. 83-84]
1 Nephi 16:14 We did go forth … keeping in the most fertile parts of the wildereness, which were in the borders near the Red Sea (Hilton & Potter Theories Compared) [[Illustration] The Frankincense Trails. This map shows the Hilton’s proposed route along the shore of the Red Sea as opposed to the more eastern route on the eastern side of the Hijaz mountains. [Lynn and Hope Hilton, In Search of Lehi’s Trail, p. 22-23]