Over the hills and far away

Previously on JIRI!!

Like a restless seed which took root in the middle of the unknown, like a young sapling grasping firmly the desert, like a strong tree silently awaiting sandstorm over the horizon, JIRI has grown into the next stage. But paths of destiny are mysterious. Will the tree break or bend, will the sapling dry up or turn green, will the seed be blown away or to leeward…let’s find out!!

After a couple of deaf weekends on the beach using kite only as a umbrella I realized that I have to find a backup sport for non-windy days. Actually I didn’t even have to search at all and only look into my cabinet. Harness and climbing shoes were sadly looking from behind. OH YES!! Rock climbing…of course!! Perfect backup sport. I am not sure if fortunately or unfortunately, but after the last windless weekend I had to wait only five days for another. 

Along the axis: www.google.com – climbing uae – search – www.uaeclimbing.com – forum – Weekend trips – Hatta 13.4. – respond – “Hi, I am JIRI from Czech republic, I wanna meet climbers in UAE and go to try some routes” – “Sure, call Peter. He goes to Hatta this Friday. I meet you there. JERRY” – “Nazdar Petre, to je ale nahodicka. Ja taky bydlim v Dicovery Gardens J”…I arranged from zero a Friday climbing trip in 15 minutes.

The last sentence means that I happened to meet another Czech climber Peter living just few houses away from me. How is the world small and how is internet making it much smaller J

    So at 9am Peter picked up me and his buddy Andre and we drove one hour to Oman desert to climb some routes at Hatta crag.

I was really curious how the place will be and I was amazed. After initial uphill walk I found nice, smooth limestone rock with over 30 bolted routes around 6b. Long ones, short ones, “slabby” ones, overhang ones…everything.

Just to have power enough to finish them all…which was not my case. Surprisingly after half a year without climbing I wasn’t that bad, but still…there is a lot of training to be done.

We stayed there whole day, had typical Arabic shawarma dinner and tee with milk and sugar on our way back. I also learned that there will be a new (second) indoor climbing wall opened soon and that they are more climbers gathering in Wafi wall every Monday. Fair enough.

When I reached nicely tired my bed, I was already thinking that I have to suspend for a while my saving plan and invest to some quickdraws and climbing rope…and maybe new shoes J

This photo: Copyright Andre: www.pbase.com/andreh