Jebel Faraj Over and Over Again
Jebel Faraj Over and Over Again
2012
Next in the Munro series, Jebel Faraj, a mountain cut in two by the UAE and Oman. This means that you have to approach the summit specifically from the Omani side and at the top you are hemmed in on all sides by the border fence erected by the UAE and reminiscent of Guantanamo bay! (Long story, I was only there for a day or two)
Right so yep this was the next pimple on the earth to conquer. We set off late one morning with the proposed route safely in the iPhone google earth app, no problem there. Along the Dubai Hatta road just before going back into the UAE we nipped left off-road keeping the border fence on our right. I was all excited as I would get to try out my new Canon G12 camera (yes I am hip). Believe it or not almost all the photos before in this blog were pulled off the iPhone! Anyway we continued “ILPH can you just check the route, yep just press the google earth app” I said. “My hero, it doesn’t seem to be working.” the ILPH said. “Try again, it always works even in Oman” I said. Alas it turns out google earth does not always work. Bugger, so it was left to tackle the mountain from memory. (I think you can guess where this going)
So we parked up at the planned location, memory working for now, and set off (the orange route on the map). We zig-zagged up the wadi, turned left at the correct time, climbed up and this is where we (meaning I) went wrong. The plan was to drop down and follow the border fence with it on our left but we ploughed on. And ploughed on. And ploughed on until we eventually summited and thought we were there. “Yes the top!” “There’s a trig-point, is it number 125?” - silence - “125 is Jebel Faraj” - more silence. I went over to have a look and... 124!!!! We were at the last peak before and we looked over at Jebel Faraj a bit peeved especially when the ILPH claimed her Twirl chocolate bonus. We went astray without google earth and summited the wrong bl**dy mountain! That was the end of our day...
Take two (the red route). There was no messing this time, we were going to follow the border fence all the way to the top. It was not going to be pretty. So two weeks later, a bit later in the day we drove the same route but continued all the way down to the border fence. We got out of the car all steely eyed, nothing was going to stop us. Flash backs from my time at Gitmo aside, it was rather nice to walk a path for a change; if slightly rocky. We usually end up scrambling on rocks.
In military fashion we marched up that mountain and near the top there was a small bit of a scramble and some very very odd crumbly rock, nothing like the faulted ophoilite, but that did not hold us back for long. Then the top. A quick check to see if indeed 125 was on the trig-point. It could not have been anything else. We took in the scene and with the sun dying it was going to be an interesting walk down...
We made it about halfway down before you would say it was really dark but that left the second half of the decent to be made in the darkness. We eventually stumbled back to the car happy that the Jebel Faraj Munro had been ticked off.
Hiking - Jebel Faraj 924m
11/3/2012
Twice was the charm for this surrounded mountain...