(Back to: Middle East, Oman, Western Hajar)
Jabal Kawr, M’Seed Rappers, Anhydrous Living; Jabal Misht, Vultures’ Keep; Amqah Tower; Jabal Nakhus, Hand Grater.
By Paul Knott, New Zealand
During late December 2009 and early January 2010, Graham Rowbotham and I completed five new routes on the exotic limestone of the Western Hajar. Starting on the southwest face of Jabal Kawr near M’Seeb hamlet, we climbed an old watercourse on the shallow buttress immediately left of the Kawr Tower. Some sources record this as the line of the 1984 route National Day Climb (500m, D-), but I had concluded after a visit in 2007 that that route likely took an easier line much farther left (AAJ 2008, p.283). Nevertheless we found several rusty pitons on the opening pitches, and immediately below a capping overhang a hawser-laid cord around a tree and another peg with an old Joe Brown carabiner. An awkward, cam-protected traverse on friable rock allowed us to continue, and we found no further signs of passage…. (read more)
