Climbing in Catalunya: Wadi Rum

After a fleeting trip back to the UK for Christmas we then headed on to Jordan. 3 trains, 1 tube, 1 plane, 1 bus, and 5 taxi rides later we arrived in Wadi Rum village!

The first few days we spent just exploring and climbing within walking distance of the village.

The mosque from which the 4.45am wake-up call came every morning!

Rum village seen from 'Inferno'.

'Inferno' on the Jebel Rum East face towers.

The halfway ledge on 'Inferno'.

The stunning continuous crack line of 'Lionheart'.

Final ab, just before an afternoon shower arrived - the only day of rain on the trip.

Abu Aina bedouin camps.

Lone tree in Rum.

Jebel Rum East Face from the campsite.

After a few days in the village getting used to the sometimes suspect sandstone, we ventured out for our first proper excursion into the desert and away from the squalid village. We decided to walk round to the other side of the Jebel Um Ishrin massif, to attempt 'Jihad/La Guerre Sainte' - a huge multipitch sport route on N Nassrani which seems to be fast becoming a world classic of its type. It turned out to be only 1h30 of fairly flat walking through stunning scenery to get to the base of the route, so not really worth getting a jeep round unless you want to do it the same day.

"La Guerre Sainte" topo.

Me dumping the gear at the base of the route ready for an early start the next day - big wall!

Convenience camping.

Evening light over the desert.

7am 1st Jan 2012 - nice way to start the new year on 'La Guerre Sainte'!
The wall was mostly sound rock, and the climbing excellent on big sandstone 'tufas', sidepulls and flakes, but it took a bit of faith sometimes to yard on the holds.

Pitch 5 (F7b) - the first hard one on the route. Excellent crimpy climbing on thin iron plate edges!

Pitch 7 (F6c) - dubbed the "Climb or go home" pitch. Very well named! 6 bolts/threads in ~45m of climbing, most of which were clumped together at the start and end of the pitch giving one HUGE runout in the middle.

The view looking out from high up on the wall!
The route is certainly deserving of its reputation, for the length, positions and quality of climbing and in my opinion the only thing preventing it from surpassing 'Fiesta de los Biceps' as the best multipitch sport route in the world was the rock quality....and the fact that it felt a long way from being a true sport route!!!

On the way back down. The ab descent was pretty time consuming as it was blowing a gale so we had to coil the ropes and unfurl on each ab to prevent them tangling and snagging on the minefield of crisps and flakes. Because of this we opted to just go to the end of the 'proper' climbing at the top of the headwall and not the summit. A shame, but with the short days and long descent we were pushing it to get down before dark.

Rope faff on the descent!

Safely down and watching the sunrise next day from camp 2.

Luxury accomodation in Rum!

On the way into Rakabat canyon to explore.

Maze of canyons and corridors through the mountain.

Big place!

Spanish guy on pitch 1 of the classic 'Beauty'.

Obviously wasn't a hard worker! (note shotgun cartridge)

Nabataean ruined temple below Jebel Rum ~ First Century BC

Our second excursion was to Barrah Canyon, but this time with a jeep.

On the way to Barrah canyon

First day we did the route 'Rumeurs de la pluie' up the striking open book corner to the left of Merlin's Wand, which had some fun 3D climbing up the 'offwidth' (which you don't actually offwidth).

Next day I was keen to get to a summit, so we went up the route 'Ocean Slabs' on Jebel Barrah E summit.

'Merlin's wand' - THE classic route of the area.

On 'Merlin's Wand' - Surprisingly worth the hype and only 3hrs up and down. Pretty cold in the shade though.

Last camels in Rum...next stop Petra!

After an amazing time in Wadi Rum, we had the obligatory stop in Petra on our way back up north to the airport. Two days of history lessons. Normally I'm not too bothered by things like this, but you can't help being blown away by the scale of this place and the vision to carve whole houses, temples, tombs and monuments out of solid rock. Not to mention the amount of work involved.