Climbing in Oman

With a few hours left until the new year, we were preparing our dinner and sorting out the food. The mood was vibrant with us whistling cheerful tunes and sharing smiles. But then it hit us – we had neither forks, nor spoons, nor any other utensils to eat our gourmet meal. And it wouldn’t be so easy to get them now since we were bivying on a midway ledge up the Jebel Misht – perhaps the highest rock face in Arabia.

Oman has long been on the radar and we finally managed to get a trip there sorted. Saule joined me for five days, after which I had to do some work before Cyrill came for another ten. Five days is a short time, so as soon as we landed, Saule and I headed over to Jebel Misht to check out the face before crashing due to Christmas time exhaustion.

We opted for a beautiful direct route up the southeast face, called ‘Shukran’, which is Arabic for ‘Thank you’. Since we haven’t climbed anything with ropes since summer, we decided to take a scenic and fun approach, with a bivy midway to celebrate the new year. The mountain is huge, both vertically and horizontally, so when looking at it from afar it looks somewhat blank, but we knew there were ledges big enough for a little dance party so we were quite relaxed.

The climbing proved to be trickier than expected – everything was easy enough, but there were a few bits of loose rock and the routefinding was not too obvious. On one of the pitches I climbed and went down two different 60m variations, before finding the right way – third time was the charm!

The topo says ..

After reaching the bivy ledge and finishing our New Year’s Eve drinks, we could think much clearer and came up with a solution for the missing cutlery – see the picture below.

The next day saw us getting lost a few more times and climbing more of the interesting rock that Jebel Misht has to offer - sometimes solid, other times loose, but always very pretty because of all the fossils that form the mountain. As the second day wore on, we started remembering the ropework, got back into climbing shape and were soon sunbathing on the top. We walked down the north face as the sun was setting and hit the road just as it was getting dark. Since at first there were no cars on the road, it seemed that we may have to walk for five hours to reach our camp. Soon, however, we were picked up by a local teacher, who drove us all the way back. While we were mega happy that we got a lift, we were also a bit sorry for the guy, since we didn’t smell too fresh..

Crazy morning light

Making sure the car is ventilated during a short stop on the way back.

For the rest of the trip, we did one-day climbs up smaller formations. The east face of Jebel Misht hosts a beautiful wall with a series of towers, called the Organ Pipes. With Saule, we climbed a fun new route on the left-hand side of the wall, which we called ‘Camel in distress’. One of the pitches low down had fantastic climbing with bouldering style movements on underclings and sidepulls. Another pitch on the second part of the wall had a great handcrack for hero style jamming. At the same time, there were some serious squeezing pitches. On one of them, I even had to take off my bag and drag it up with a sling behind me.

With Cyrill, we climbed another new route on the Organ pipes, this time on the right-hand side. Beautiful climbing on solid rock was interrupted by a loose traverse, where we got unnerved and bailed on our first attempt. The second time we brought a hammer and put in a few pitons to protect the traverse, which gave access to a technical groove that even brought out a few grunts. The final part followed a ramp which turned out to be more mellow than expected and we were soon on our way back. This time, with more daylight in our hands, we decided to go down using a pass between Organ pipes and Jebel Namwash and then follow what was meant to be an easy way down to our tents. It was almost true, except that on one occasion we realized we were in a rocky section of a canyon with a tube-like formation and water running through it. After some hesitation in the dark, we committed to an abseil, but then kept the rope up for a while, until we were happy with the rest of the walk home.

Things got weird at night

And kept getting even weirder

The two new routes we climbed on the Organ Pipes - "Camel in Distress" on the left and "The Smell of Cheese" on the right.

Oman is vast and has so many cool aspects, with climbing being just one of them, so we tried to check out some of the other attractions. We visited some of the forts, went to the sea, made friends with camels and ate a bunch of tasty food.

While we were there, the long-reigning Sultan Qaboos passed away. With three days of national mourning among the people, the skies joined in as well – a crazy amount of rain fell causing huge floods all over the place and apparently even snow on some of the highest hills. We escaped to the Wahiba sand dunes which got only a minimal amount of precipitation and provided us a respite from the rain.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect to me has been the wadis – canyons, where you can hike, swim, dive and even climb. First, Saule told me that we are going to Wadi Shab and need to get there really early. I was not too enthusiastic, and even mumbled something about rather going sport climbing. Nevertheless, we went and it surpassed all my expectations: it was a whole package – we took a boat, hiked in between beautiful rocks, had to wade in the water and had a few jumps from rocks on the way. At the end of the wadi, we had to do a little dive to reach spectacular caves, with a cascade providing an additional ambiance as well as massage opportunities. It almost felt spooky when there were just the two of us there and I was glad to see another couple dive into the cave, where we had a little banter and then turned around.

There is something to be said about being surprised – I had read or heard nothing about this wadi, so when I got to experience it, I had a massive grin all day and still smile when I remember the experience. In this day and age, it is so easy to watch a bunch of youtube videos and then the actual experience is somewhat tamed. It can be hard though, so it is good to have a companion, who can surprise you!

Thanks Ivan & Sabina for the pic!

Oh, and get up early! On the way back from the caves, we saw hundreds of people coming up and the magic was quickly gone. We parked our car in a deserted location in the morning, but when we were back, it was packed like a carpark of Walmart. Minus the order, so we had quite a bit of struggle to wiggle our way out of there.

After visiting Wadi Damm with Cyrill, we were ready to switch to canyoneering. Fortunately, we had some inspiration: before the trip, Saule bought a geology book about Oman and while flicking through it, I almost dropped my jaw after noticing something that looked like the black canyon, which was called Wadi al Ala. It took us a few days to find a good way down to access the walls. What came out though, was almost magic – a secret passage of downclimbing, with a few short abseils took us down to the bottom of the canyon. When we did it the second time, we got down in 30 minutes. Almost a sport climbing approach.

Drop-in point

The climbing down in the canyon, however, was anything but sport climbing. While I was gazing at some structures that made me think of Roraima, Cyrill spotted a really cool line, which promised some good climbing, a sting in the tail and just-enough uncertainty to make us want to check it out.

Cyrill showing our line. About 2/3 of the route are visible.

"Once upon a time in a wadi" as seen from the observation point.

The first pitch looked easy but turned out to be quite tricky. A few of the sections reminded me of Wenden, but on rock that was considerably less solid. I was extra happy to be toproping it when a huge part of the arete I was holding with my left hand peeled off. After an easy pitch, we reached the defining feature of the climb – a right-angle dihedral with a handcrack in the corner. The climbing was enjoyable and we dispatched the dihedral in a few fun pitches to reach a base of a rather big roof – a feature which worried us before the climb. Fortunately, another secret passage let us go through and a few pitches later we were sunbathing on the rim of the wadi. A bit of downclimbing and three rope-stretching abseils brought us down to the base, just in time to have one last swim in the Wadi!

Top of the climbing, with a bit more scrambling left to reach the top of the canyon.

The abseils worked out perfectly.

The trip has been a blast, thanks to everyone who helped to make it happen! Special thanks go to Larry, whose camping gear we got to use for the whole trip, which made it so much more enjoyable!  If you go to Oman, make sure to check out his climbing guidebooks. For up-to-date information, have a look at the facebook group 'Climbing in Oman' and there is a small, but vibrant and very friendly climbers' community, mainly based in Muscat. One last thank you to the excellent fresh juice providers at Hamla!



We will be back!