A Wild Country Article



In attempt to soften the blow of the long dark wintry nights back here in the UK last November, I decided to head to Jordan. The huge sandstone walls, rising straight from the desert floor, was an area that I’d wanted to visit for a number of years. Made famous by the legendary Lawrence of Arabia, Britain’s Tony Howard spearheaded the climbing development in the area - now regarded as one of the premiere adventure destinations of world climbing. The climbing, coupled with the utterly fantastic weather certainly didn’t disappoint.

Whilst primarily a trad climbers paradise, particularly those with a penchant for adventurous routes, the arrival of bolts in the area was welcomed by some, but not without controversy. My main focus was to “get back into trad”, but upon seeing some of the partially or fully bolted classic lines in the area I was compelled to squeeze a few bolt clipping forays into the trip.

Whilst the climbing is often of a serious nature, there remains an air of convenience when climbing in Wadi Rum. More akin to alpine climbing than UK cragging, Wadi Rum offers some long and memorable outings, of all grades, but without the arduous approaches, slogging up long steep hills so often associated with alpine climbs.

Whilst I am always keen to keep half an eye out for potential new routing possibilities, when I first visit an area with many established routes, my main focus is to repeat the classic lines. After all these routes have been done because they are the most obvious, and often tackle the best lines the area has to offer. With the first routes climbed back in 1984 development has stop-started from then until present and the area now has a vast array of routes of all styles and grades.

After a couple of days familiarising ourselves with the climbing style, which is often of a slightly crumbly nature, repeating delightful classic shorter routes such as Inferno (E2 5c) and The Beauty (E2 5b, 5 pitches) we decided to go for our first big route of the trip – Inshallah Factor. Climbed in 1986 with points of aid, then later freed in 1989 Inshallah was the first line to breech the imposing East Face of Jebel Rum – the jewel in Wadi Rum’s climbing crown, rising straight from the desert floor almost directly above the small village of Rum.

With a few bolts belays, and only one (extremely dubious) in-situ peg the route is protected entirely by natural pro and takes the most obvious line of weakness, weaving through unlikely looking territory. I am not normally one for getting up early, but with a 2 hour descent, and darkness falling by 5pm we opted for an early one - walking to the base of the route in the dark in order to begin climbing as soon as it was light enough to see, at 6am.

The first few pitches passed without problem, landing us at the base of the crux pitch by around 9:30 am. By this time the sun was well and truly up and had been beating down on the face for long enough to give it the frictional properties of the inside of a greasy chip pan. The completely chalk-less technical groove, protected by a series of R.P.’s placed in a shallow friable crack, was more engrossing than had it been a single pitch from the ground, climbed in normal temperatures. But 35+ degrees Celsius was not a temperature I would consider “normal” for climbing in…

Pleased with our swift progress, and loving the climbing and our position we forged on, topping out the 16 pitch route by 1pm - earlier than we had anticipated, but relieved, as it left us with plenty of time to negotiate the extremely complex descent through the Eye of Allah and down the impressive Bedouin climb “Hammad’s Route”. Hearing of countless tales of climbers getting lost, and even plenty of benightments on the descent we were pleased to have no such problems and found ourselves enjoying a well deserved ice cold beer at the rest house by 3 o-clock. Immediately we began enthusiastically plotting our next adventure. But after a rest day…

With the stupendously impressive Petra, one of the great “Wonders of the World” merely an hour’s bus ride away, and the sea-side town of Aquaba, situated on the coast of the Red Sea, also just an hour away, rest day activities are a significant bonus of a trip to Wadi Rum.

As well as a visit to Petra, no trip to Wadi Rum would be complete without a night out in Barrah Canyon, eating a typical Bedouin meal cooked on the embers of the camp fire, sipping copious amounts of comically sweet mint tea, before sleeping out under the impressively dense blanket of stars.

After repeating the super classics of Merlin’s Wand (E1 5b, 5 pitches), Star of Abu Judaidah (E2 5b, 7 pitches), Les Rumeurs De La Pluie (E2 5c, 3 pitches) and the less traveled, run-out and technical Neige Dans Le Desert (E5 5c/6a, 7 pitches) my appetite for a return trip to Barrah Canyon had been sufficiently whetted. But next time I had my eyes on a possible new route, tackling the massive blank slab immediately left of the classic corner crack of Star of Abu Judaidah.


Having done no new routing, and barely any tricky on-sights since Angel Falls almost three years ago it felt like quite an undertaking just setting off on what I fully expected to be a very serious line. How would my mind and body cope with the stresses of on-sight new routing? Crumbly rock, minimal gear placements, and the scorching hot sun merely a few hours away, I had plenty to keep my mind occupied. In order to gain direct and independent access to “my slab” I had spotted a bottomless crack, some 20m above the deck. With some very patient belaying from Anne, and plenty of words with myself I finally managed to commit to the sequence I hoped would lead me to the crack, and presumably some solid gear placements.

With the benefit of hindsight the moves were only English 6a and the gear, that was a couple of metres below my feet, might even have held (although my only other “test” of gear at Wadi Rum had ended in a mini disaster as I had been trying to aid climb a peg scar with the view to attempting to make the first free ascent, when one of my rp’s ripped from the crumbly rock, hurtling me head first down the cliff), but the sequence felt like I was committing to more than just those particular moves. I knew that if I went for it now there was no going back, I was committed to go for the top…

Having successfully on-sighted the first pitch I left Anne at a thankfully decent belay before questing out into the middle of the vast slab. I have rarely had such a feeling whilst climbing, of elation and fear combined, and for such a lengthy period. For almost the entire day I remained petrified, yet in my element at the same time, thriving on the experience.

The second belay was “one of those belays”, containing numerous pieces of particularly dubious gear ‘balanced’ in thin, friable placements, where body-weight and positioning were the single-most important piece of protection. Upon arriving at my belay, a rather disturbed looking Anne (who felt that second pitch was somewhere in the region of E5 5b) gingerly took her belay position as I set off for my next pitch. I knew there was another sloping sandy ‘ledge’ some 30m above me, so I was optimistic that I’d find a belay of at least a similar quality there.

With harder moves, again devoid of decent runner placements, being forced to pull hard on tiny edges, each move, half expecting any one (or more) point of contact to suddenly shatter under my tentatively shifting weight, I finally gained the sanctuary of my next ledge. To my horror, it was seamless, without even a single place in which to balance even the poorest of runners from which to form the basis of a belay. Plus the ledgewas way too slopey to use the ‘body wedge’ belay method. So there was only one thing for it – I had to push on.

By now the desert sun was beating down leaving me gasping for water, clawing desperately at the sides of my now empty chalk bag. I smeared, high stepped and teetered my way higher and higher up the vast slab.

The higher up the slab I inched the more the realization began to hit me. My rope drag was increasing with every move, and I wasn’t making significant enough progress up the foreshortened slab towards the sanctuary of the belay at the top of the 5th pitch of Star of Abujudaidah. With an 80m, or more likely a 90m rope, I might have been in with a fighting chance to reach the belay – but mine were only 60m. Short of asking Anne to start climbing, in order for me to gain more height, I was stumped - I knew that was simply not an option. I lent against the steep slab, gently drumming my bleeding finger tips against the rock, contemplating my position, some 15m above a ludicrously poor runner, with only another two equally dubious runners in the whole rope length I knew I was in a spot of bother. From my position, down climbing was simply not an option, and I’d already discovered that my upwards progress was now at an end, as were my sideways options…

After some confused and concerned yelling, and over an hour of baking in the afternoon sun, stood on a couple of smears with two tiny flakes for my hands, I was finally rescued by “Team Desert Adventure Rescue”. My good friends, Alex and Tony, had been climbing the neighbouring classic Star of Abujudaidah and, from a bolt belay high on their route, were able to conduct a convoluted pendulum rescue – it was my lucky day!

Having never before placed a bolt in my life, I realised that in this instance, in this location, a single bolt in order to secure a belay would have been the only option of returning and finishing the route. With several promises of borrowing a drill and a bolt I was hugely disappointed that neither offer materialised, and my route remains unfinished.

Whilst my new routing activities were kept to a minimum, and had not entirely been a success, I was still pleased to have experienced such a terrifying excursions up at least one virgin face in Wadi Rum. Individually all three pitches were perhaps only E5/6, but collectively the whole experience, under the circumstances, felt significantly more demanding than your average E5 back home.


After a much needed brief jaunt down to the port of Aquaba to eat some tasty foods and get some fantastic snorkeling done in the Red Sea, it was back to Rum for the final three days, and back to climbing with Ben.

First off was Raid With A Camel, a partially bolted line, up the East Face of Jebel Rum, next to Inshallah Factor. Another dawn start soon brought us to the crux few pitches of F6c+/7a offering technical crimpy moves up solid faces; a welcome change from the loose and easy “extreme ledge shuffling” we’d mainly been doing up to now. Feeling well and truly in the swing of things we made short work of the 500m route, once again making it back down in time for a cold beer in the setting sun.

As Ben had hurt his foot on the descent he needed a rest day, so I agreed to help out the local Bedouin guides (they had double booked themselves) and take a 50 year old Polish guy up The Beauty. Having already climbed it earlier in the trip it was a pleasure to return. Knowing that I had helped out the local people added great satisfaction to a fun day out, although it hadn’t felt entirely restful…

Early starts are not normally my preferred method of climbing, but needs must - for the third long day in a row, our final route of the trip was, rather fittingly, both the hardest and the best of the trip. Le Guerre Sainte was opened by a team of strong climbers, including the French superstar and ex-World Cup winner Arnaud Petit. The 500m sport route is mainly well protected, with one slightly run-out pitch (F6c), just to test the faint hearted. The rock is mainly solid, although retains a look of a dubious nature for the most part. With every pitch weighing in at least F6b, the 5th pitch (F7a+) and the top three pitches up the final headwall were some of the best I have done on a multi-pitch climb. With intense cramp setting in after pitch 7, due to lack of rest days, dehydration and general exhaustion, I began to doubt my chances for on-sighting the whole route. Especially as I’d heard how difficult two of the final three F7b pitches were to on sight - and that was from a Swiss climber who had previously on-sighted F8a.

Setting off up the first F7b pitch, a series of powerful boulder problems linking good holds in an otherwise blank sheet of white sandstone, after every move I had to concentrate hard just to unfurl each hand from the previous hold, attempting to block out the pain the cramp was now causing my battered arms. By this time Ben’s body had all but given up and he was resigned to “belay duties”, leaving me with no option but to press on with the hardest of the three crux pitches. After committing to a series of slaps, biceps screaming with pain, feet pasted on vertical smears I knew that this last hard move had to be the crux- so I lunged for the pocket, only to find, to my monumental disappointment that it was in fact a disgustingly poor sloper. In a blur I somehow pushed on, years of past experience taking over, to somehow slump over the final hideous mantelshelf to the sanctuary of the sloping belay ledge. These felt more like Buoux F7b’s than Gorge Du Tarn F7b’s… Fortunately the final pitch passed with less incident, and the deed had been done. Whilst I’ve on-sighted countless routes graded harder than F7b in the past, under the circumstances, combined with my relative lack of climbing fitness at the time, it felt like my best personal achievement in climbing for some time.

Now all that was left was a few cold beers whilst recounting the beef of the day, catching up on the tales of friends we had made in Rum, and a chance to experience one more night of guaranteed shooting star sightings, before beginning the grim journey back to dank and dreary Sheffield.