وادي رم

19-26th February 2019 - Climbing trip to Wadi Rum, Jordan All text and pictures by Felix Larrieu

August 19^th, 2019

Guerre Sainte, ED 7b

Above our pay grade but it seemed to good not to try. An absolute classic, often described as a world-class route. Bolted in 2000 by a French team, it is a 450 m route with a 100 m headwall on the imposing East face of Jebel Nassrani North summit. Without too much expectation, we reached the middle of the headwall, at P10, a pitch and a half short of the summit when me falling off ended our attempt, both our bodies wrecked! We needed about 2 days rest to recover.

Approaching the headwall in the afternoon sun

Seb focussed on the technical face climbing

The outstanding 40 m corner crack on P5 of Lionheart

View on Wadi Um Ishrin taken from the East face of Jebel Nassrani North

Performing an “heroic” pose in front of Guerre Sainte - Photo by Seb Flynn

The Beauty, TD 6a

Our first route of the trip, it is a classic HVS/E1 hidden on the West face of Jebel Um Ejil. Four classic pitches lead to easy groud before the summit: the corner, the chimney, the slab (direct variation) and the offwidth., all on perfect rock. A great introduction!

Seb, running out halfway up the offwidth on P4 before being able to place a Dragon 5

The perfect corner on P1 running for 20 m

Lionheart, ED 6b

Another great classic to end the week. The 350 m route follows a direct crack line up the towers of Abu Aina. While the first 3 pitches are good, the last 4 are top class and justify the route reputation. (P3 is more 6c than 6b!)

Seb approaching the imposing Abu Aina towers

Wadi Rum: logistics

Access

Direct flights with EasyJet now run between London and Aqaba located on the Red Sea. Commute from Aqaba to Wadi Rum is easy and a taxi cost us 20 JOD for one way. A bus can be taken on the main road that links Amman to Aqaba but it only runs early in the morning and a lift to the main road is still required.

Accomodation

Bedouin camps are scattered across the desert and can cost 10 to 200 JOD per night. A Resthouse is located in the village. It is also possible to camp (our option) pretty much anywhere. Although most of the climbing is around the village, I strongly recommand sleeping in the desert as it is extremely quiet and has a nice sense of (relative) remotness. Nights at the village are noisy with dogs barking non-stop all night.

Food

We brought most of our food from the UK. There is a big Carrefour in Aqaba, useful to get 5L water bottles. Once in Rum, there are several food shops who sell crisps, snacks, bread, water and basic food. Petrol (Benzine) for stove can be purchased but is very dirty unless you get the “Saudi Arabia” one.

Transport

Bedouins drive their bashed-up Toyota Hilux all across the desert and pick-up/ drop-off can easily be arranged to any areas. I’m unsure about the price of a lift as we were part of a bigger group, but it is around 25 JOD one-way. Phone network is not very good in the desert, so make sure you arrange a pick-up!

Routes

Routes are still mainly trad mountain routes on often committing terrain. As with our local sandstone, the rock is at times very fragile with snappy flakes and gear can be sparse. Most of lower grade routes tend to have complex descents (one team had a forced bivvy on the summit!). Most of ‘direct’ lines have belay stations allowing for abseilling. The only guidebook is quite old and trad biaised but many modern routes (trad/sport) exist. Topo can usually be found online (e.g. Guerre Sainte, not in the guidebook) or via word of mouth. A new up to date guidebook would be great!

Gear

We mainly used cams from 0.3 to 3 (0.3 to 1 doubled) and a set of nuts (up to 7), offsets and few micros. We carried a few 120 cm slings and didn’t wish we had more. This felt about right for us. All routes we attempted were fairly straight so we climbed on a single all week, carrying a half for abseiling (wish we carried a tagline instead!).