Page 37 - 2018 AMA Winter

HOT ROCK HOTTER ROCK - CLIMBING IN JORDAN
By Al Mason
It’s not every day you get asked to travel to the Jordanian desert to teach rock climbing
Iwas a desert virgin and wasn’t sure what to expect. I assumed 40 degrees of heat by day and snow by night coupled
with scorpions and snakes trying to get the better of me. In the end I was only right about the heat. In a manner akin to TE Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia), I found that the solitude and scale of the Wadi Rum desert was awe inspiring:
“They were unbroken walls of rock, but were sectionally, in crags like gigantic buildings, along the two sides of their street. Deep alleys, fifty feet across, divided the crags, whose plans were smoothed by the weather into huge apses and bays, and enriched with surface fretting and fracture, like design. Caverns high up on the precipice were round like windows: others near the foot gaped like doors. Dark stains ran down the shadowed front for hundreds of feet, like accidents of use. The cliffs were striated vertically, in their granular rock; whose main order stood on two hundred feet of broken stone deeper in colour and harder in texture. This plinth did not, like the sandstone, hang in folds like cloth; but chipped itself into loose courses of scree, horizontal as the footing of a wall.
TE Lawrence, First Impressions of The Wadi Rum, Jordan, in Seven Pillars of Wisdom.
Despite these impressive surroundings, it soon became clear that TE Lawrence was not a climber else he would have used words like esoteric and chossy. As many will know from guidebook descrip- tions, that means not great rock. If you
could choose your preferred rock type, my guess is that sandstone would be way down the list, and I’d imagine anyone who has climbed in Spain would agree that dry limestone might be a strong contender for first place. So, armed with guidebook in hand, a team of 11 instructors and I set out to find suitable venues for groups to have a go at rock climbing in a safe, controlled environment, in incredible surroundings.
Whilst there is a Cicerone Press guidebook, it generally offers a feast of 6c-8c trad routes, usually all mega multi pitch suffer fests on friable rock. After agreeing that this guidebook wouldn’t help much we called on the expertise of the British Mountain Guides’ Jordan Liaison Officer Steve Long to advise us by email. Steve was very helpful and sent us photos of some excellent bolted venues. The only problem was these didn’t come with any location information whatsoever. Two days later, and after a lot of desert driving, we finally found two suitable bolted cliffs on excellent rock, one aptly named M’Zaygeh or The Landslide, as we found out later.
Armed with these two ideal venues that would enable a 1:6 bottom roping set up, we went on to have an excellent time, challenging the 90, 3 PARA soldiers to controlled exposure to risk, which we successfully achieved. The slabby nature of the routes assured that brain and skill were more important than brawn, and this ensured all the guys were stretched both physically and mentally. The team also managed to conduct an RSF for a few
of the more competent members of the group, by running a bespoke course for them. As required by the RSF syllabus, they even managed to find a climbing wall in Jordan, which was owned by the Jordanian military and was fortunately close to the camp 3 PARA were staying at.
In summary, Jordanian desert climbing is an acquired taste, but offers a spectacular environment in which to participate in vertical pleasure. Add to this the fabulous sites of Petra, touring the Wadi Rum, and The Red and Dead Seas, Jordan has a lot to offer. For further information on climbing check out the Cicerone Guide to the Wadi Rum and also ukclimbing.com and bedouinguides.com i
FACTS
UNIT: 3 PARA
ACTIVITY: ROCK CLIMBING
LOCATION: JORDAN – SPECIFICALLY WADI RUM
EXPED DATES: 28 FEB - 9 MAR 18 DEPLOYED PERSONNEL: 90
NUMBER OF ROUTES CLIMBED:
TWO BOLTED 30M VENUES. 8 ROUTES PER VENUE
ARMY MOUNTAINEER / 37