Climbing Jordan came about through the passion for climbing and love for Jordan by Wolfgang & Mark.
Wolfgang is Austrian from the town of Bregenz. He has been an outdoors sportsman all his life: skiing, climbing, cycling, etc. He runs a climbing center in Dornbirn (www.k1-dornbirn.at). His involvement with Jordan came about with his meeting Sharaf Kilani during a trip with his girlfried (now wife) Dagmar to Wadi Rum. Sharaf, a young Jordanian extreme sportsman had a dream of creating the first inside Climbing Center in Jordan and the Arab World. Sharaf went to fulfill his dream by building Climbat Amman (www.climbat.com ) with Wolfgang working as a consultant and instructor. Over the last few years Wolfgang has come over to Jordan on various trips working for Climbat doing route-setting and further instructing new climbing instructors. Beside that, outdoor-climbing was more and more an option for customers start climbing at Climbat and well equipped cliffs were rare. So exploring and improving the potential of the numerous cliffs around Jordan starts to be a nice challenge.
Mark is a Palestinian from Jerusalem whose introduction to the outdoors climbing came later in life. Mark met and became friends with Tony Howard & Di Taylor (www.nomadstravel.co.uk) ), pioneers introducing Wadi Rum to the climbing world, and authors of several books on the outdoors in Jordan and next door Palestine (www.nomadstravel.co.uk/publication/ ). Over more than 12 years Mark has looked forward to the visit of Tony & Di to have the excuse to go out with them on their explorations and projects in Jordan and Palestine.
Mark & Wolfgang met via Climbat Amman and became close friends with the passion of climbing in common as well as many political, social and environmental interests.
The aim of our project is to introduce and encourage climbing to Jordanians and visitors. The reasons are multiple:
Encourage sport and healthy living
Bring Jordanians out of the cities to the countryside and all parts of Jordan
Instill a love of the country
Create environmental awareness
Create economic opportunities in the peripheries of the country and job opportunities especially for those with a passion for the outdoors.
Encourage climbing visitors from overseas to Jordan
Create opportunities for Jordanian climbers to travel to other climbing areas in the region.
Raise funds for creating more climbing routes in Jordan.
This website is an informational tool for you to find out where are the climbing areas in Jordan. We provide Topo maps and directions of how to get to the climbing areas. Also, we connect you with guides who can take you out climbing. And we provide courses for those who want to start or improve outdoor climbing.
Climbing Jordan is a not-for-profit project. All fees go directly to the guides or those providing the service (transport, equipment hire, etc). The only thing we ask for is a contribution towards creating new routes in Jordan. This contribution goes towards the bolts, plates, anchors, travel costs, etc of creating the routes. Note much time and effort for new routes is voluntary and much of the equipment is donated by the people of Climbing Jordan and the wider outdoor community in Jordan.
Welcome to Climbing Jordan!
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