[TR] Oman - French Pillar 2/28/2014

[fgw]

Trip: Oman - French Pillar

 

Date: 2/28/2014

 

Trip Report:

A weeklong trip to the beautiful Oman. Our goal was to climb the classic (1979) French Pillar route on the SE face of Jebel Misht - the El Cap of the Arabian Peninsula. A great line on some amazingly sharp, golden limestone! The remainder of the trip was spent on a sightseeing roadtrip through the country.

 

More pretty words and pictures on our site.

 

North slopes of Jebel Misht - the descent line:

 

S/SE faces of Jebel Misht:

 

The line of the French Pillar route, 900 meter and with climbing up to E3 5c...which in dollars means roughly 10c/d with a touch of spice.

 

And off we go - pitch 1. Fun crack climbing on a golden color limestone I've never seen before:

 

Excellent face climbing on pitch 2 (crux?) - three old bolts and otherwise some gear:

 

 

Middle section of the route is a scrambly ridge - 3rd class to 5.8. But scenic and quite exposed:

 

With 3 hrs. of daylight remaining decided to stop for a bivy on a great ledge with ample firewoord since more hard climbing and route finding cruxes lay above:

 

Plush bivy:

 

In the morning we tackled the rest of the headwall:

 

Which had a stout crack pitch:

 

...and even some wide:

 

Made the summit in about 4 hrs that morning - you instantly go from the verticalness of the SE face to the table top flatness of the summit plateau:

 

 

The looong descent involves scrambling down 1000 meters of cliffs and scree to the dirt road in photo, hiking it 5km to the village seen in upper left and then another 25 km of road hiking around the mountain back to the camp on the opposite side. Fortunately, Omani hospitality made hitch-hiking trivial:

 

Waiting for the coffee shop in the first village to open so that we can replenish our water - been out for the last 2 hrs. It never did open but we found a mosque with a water hose outside:

 

With 2.5 days left in our trip, we went exploring the country. This is on a drive up to the Saiq Plateau above the town of Birkat al Mawz:

 

Hiking through some old and charming villages on the Saiq Plateau:

 

Terraced villages of the Plateau:

 

A kuma (traditional Omani men’s headwear) and some laundry drying in the village of Al Aqr on the Saiq :

 

Next day drove back towards the coast and hiked the spectacular if a bit crowded Wadi Shab:

 

More Wadi Shab:

 

And did a loooong off-road drive up and through the Eastern Hajar mountains praying that the radiator on our SUV would not explode (miles of 20% grade and HOT). Coastal cookie cutter development:

 

Goat-maggedon at some remote settlement on the Salma Plateau:

 

Driving through a cluster of beehive tombs in the Eastern Hajar. The countryside is replete with these Bronze Age constructs (in many cases they have been restored):

 

A camel being towed:

 

Finished off the trip with a day in Muscat. The impressive looking Al-Zawawi Mosque:

 

And the old Souk:

 

 

 

 

Gear Notes:

Light desert rack.

 

Approach Notes:

Getting an SUV rental is well worth it. Gas is dirt cheap.

[ivan]

fucking amazing!

 

must be a bitch climbing 5.10 in a burka though

[layton]

wow!

[Alex]

great report! the rating you provide doesn't seem very French though, I suspect some Brits were involved with this at some point.

[fgw]

Ivan, some tr's say E2; I say at least E3 because of the reason you bring up!

 

The rating comes about probably because the guide was written by a Brit: http://www.foordkelcey.net/uae/misht_fp_topo.pdf

 

The route was put up by the French. On the whole, seems the Misht saw much activity by a mix of Euro climbers (other stuff is much harder though). Beyond the Misht, based on our research, most of the routes in Oman were established by the French or British. The routes put up by the foremer seem to look better (perhaps they're more willing to venture onto faces & bolt vs. sticking to somewhat convoluted limestone trad LOL - but we did not climb anything else so can't really tell ). There's some real gems throughout the country - wish we had more time.

[bedellympian]

Thanks for sharing. I've been reading your guys' blog for a while and it is really inspirational to see people living in OR with regular jobs and tackling some really awesome rock climbing all over the place! Keep on trucking!

[OlympicMtnBoy]

Cool, that looks like great fun with the bivy! Thanks for posting!

[markwebster]

Awesome climbing and tour!

[curtveld]

What a cool looking climb...and trip!

 

One of these day's you'll have enough material for a book called something like: 50 Classic Climbs You've Never Heard Of

[trumpetsailor]

So cool. Thank you!

[fgw]

thanks guys.

"50 Classic Climbs You've Never Heard Of" - many of these places are pretty well established by/for Euro climbers likely because Middle East, Africa are a lot closer to them than to us (& they tend to get that shitton of vacation time).