"Rock Empire" 8a –Wadi rum 5.2.2012
"Rock Empire" 8a –Wadi rum and Ofer Blutrich
On 16 January 2010 I and my partner Elad Omer decide to travel to Wadi rum, Jordan to try the route "Rock Empire" graded 8a.
Wadi rum is a beautiful and remote adventure climbing destination.
The area of Wadi rum is a high elevated desert, in south east of Jordan expending into Saudi Arabia.
The Wadi offers unlimited sand stone cliffs and superb routes of all grades and difficulty, the area is so vast that it will take a life time to explore all the maze of peaks, beautiful sand dunes and the mysterious black and orange sand formations.
The route "Rock Empire is bold sport climbing route; on a 650 meter long east face of Jabel rum, the route was bolted ground up in perfect style by the Czech team Tom Sobotka and Ondra Benes.
After a night without sleeping and 12 hour driving from Israel to Jordan, we started to climb, after two pitches (6c+,7b+) that we did on sight, we got to the crux pitch, the pitch is beautiful 40 meter long, black sand stone face with little crimps and lots of mono's. I lead the pitch, falling on the last 5 moves, so we decides go back to the ground and attempt tomorrow again.
On our second day I fell again much lower on the wall, but we decided to keep on climbing to do the rest of hard climbing, so we climb two more pitches (7b+, 6b+).
On our last and third day I succeeded to red point the 8a pitch, and on sight all the rest of the route, it was a beautiful day.
Ofer Blutrich on "rock empire" 8a photo: Oren Nogradi
Ofer Blutrich on "rock empire" 8a photo: Oren Nogradi
Oren Nogradi, Elad Omer and Ofer Blutrich on the east wall of Jabel rum, the village can be seen below.
Ofer Blutrich is a member of the RAVELTIK CLIMBING TEAM.
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