Click on photo for more pics of climbing Wadi Rum! Photo by John Goodman

From deep in the Arabian desert red stone mountains rise up, challenging the sharp blue sky’s godlike grandeur and it is here in the heart of this vast expanse of desert where the Bedouin village of Wadi Rum has been settled. In such an unsympathetic land caught in a perpetual flux of blazing days and frigid nights the Al Zalapeh tribe in Wadi Rum has learned to become flexible in allowing for change and unpredictability. Taking what the past has taught them and integrating parts of the outside world, the families here are creating a new way of living among the sand and stone. New generations of young Bedouins are redefining how they interact with a land that has no patience for the faint of heart, and they see their future taking them to new heights among the sandstone walls of Wadi Rum.

When arrived in Wadi I wanted the cliffs to keep pushing up from the rose-colored sand dunes and burst the relentless sun that was mercilessly beating down on my exposed face. Just a few hours earlier I had been freezing in the desert’s nighttime air, but the sun thought it needed to remind me what the desert was known for. Yet, as I stood there gazing about, all my thoughts about temperature were replaced by a vision of red mountains. For a few moments I stood there dumbstruck as I grasped to comprehend what I was seeing. I looked around to remark to someone on the magnificent vertical rock around me, but sheepishly I remembered that I was traveling alone. Quickly, I reached into my rental car and pulled my camera out, snapping shots quickly like I was afraid the mountains would suddenly disappear. Getting back in my car, I raced down the road to see what was ahead in the Bedouin village at the end of this road.

While the village is only about 10 or 15 years old, nomads have been traveling in these southern Jordanian deserts since prehistoric times. Due to economics and government policies that have encouraged the Bedouins to stay in one place, many in Jordan have begun to trade tents for towns.

"In the past climbers tempted fate by climbing routes in the desert to hunt the elusive animals that lived on the rock walls..."

Engulfed by rose colored slabs climbing and falling in a succession of peaks and plateaus that echo repeatedly into the horizon, the Bedouin of Wadi Rum learned long ago the valuable skill of ascending big wall faces. In the past climbers tempted fate by climbing routes in the desert to hunt the elusive animals that lived on the rock walls, but now with game scarce the area has become a nature preserve to protect the wildlife that remains. With the draw of the hunt no longer motivating ascents, the new generations have been rethinking how they can use their surroundings, and with a little inspiration from the west this Middle Eastern destination is learning it has all it takes to be one of the world’s great climbing locations. Using all the skill, technique, and determination of their western counterparts, a handful of local climbers have pushed themselves to a professional status. Outfitted with a strong sense of their surroundings and heritage, these climbers bring a unique color to the sport of climbing.

I had come to Wadi Rum as an afterthought, originally just coming to Jordan to see the Nabataean ruins in Petra. (The place where the final scenes of Indian Jones and the Last Crusade were filmed.) Petra has enough mystery, history, and beauty in itself to warrant to a trip, but before I left my steely-eyed and mountain-crazed friend told me, as he packed for his trip to Nepal, that I needed to go to Wadi Rum. So, I thought I would pencil it into my mental itinerary, but since I arrogantly thought I knew all there was about desert mountains, having grown up in Arizona and Southern Utah, it was no more than an afterthought.

My plan to get to Wadi was to grab one of the busses that shuttled the locals around the country, but after spending two days in the seaside town of Aqaba I learned that schedules were meaningless in Jordan, especially to places as remote as Wadi Rum. Waiting for buses, planes or whatever doesn’t really bother me, it is part of the flavor of traveling. But, and I emphasize the "but", it is not cool to wait for hours, trying to communicate in a language you don’t understand, and constantly be told to "stana" (wait) for something that now seems as real as Loch Ness. So, I got a clue, and decided to empower myself by renting a car. A few handshakes and dollars later I had a car, after that, I and my backpack were on our way. From there it was only a matter of some easily crossed military checkpoints until I wandered into the desert.

Wadi Rum was brought to the attention of the world during WWI through the exploits of T.E. Lawrence who worked with the local Bedouins and used the area as an important staging point of the war. Later the public was able to get a glimpse of the majesty of the landscape when Hollywood used Wadi Rum as the backdrop for the classic film "Lawrence of Arabia".