72 Hours in the Mountains of Oman

I didn’t even know there were mountains in Oman until my colleague Rich rang me one Thursday night in November 2019. The Mountain Rescue team for the race had pulled out at the last minute and they were desperately searching for suitably qualified climbers and mountaineers to make up their support crew. The catch? We would leave in 24 hours. After a mad rush to organise team members, pack, unpack, repack, and pack again, then dash to the airport, we were on our flight out of cold and rainy London.

Stepping off the plane into 40c heat, the first day was a blur. A white knuckle taxi ride to the race organisers office, the explanation of the runners route through the mountains, the location of dangerous sections and where we would be stationed along the route to provide support. All rather overwhelming after a 14 hour overnight flight.

The aim of Oman hosting the race was to boost their international profile and promote tourism. They have certainly come a long way in 60 years from being a secretive and closed country, to one with a burgeoning tourism industry based on their incredible natural scenery and heritage. As such, the scale of the operation for putting on a faultless race to showcase Oman was incredible. Supported by the Sultan, the race was provided with logistical support from the army and medical staff from the Royal Omani Police.

The guards did the only sensible thing and arrested us at gunpoint

Tim and myself were stationed at the race checkpoint on the summit of Jebal Shams. I’m sure we drew the short straw here. We would be sleeping out for three days and two nights, waiting for runners to pass through and providing mountaineering support to the Omani medical staff assigned to our team should they be needed to help a race participant in distress.

Usually it would take eight hours to hike up to the 3009m summit, avoiding the restricted land of an Omani airforce base which is built right on the peak of the mountain. Luckily, we were promised access, which would dramatically shorten our hike with massive rucksacks of equipment, food and water, as we now had permission to drive.

Unfortunately though, the required documents hadn’t been faxed to the guards, so when confronted with two random Englishmen trying to get inside the perimeter of a radar base, the guards did the only sensible thing and arrested us at gunpoint.

A quirk of the Omani custom is that they must always be gracious hosts. So, despite the arrest, we were treated with local dates and tahini (delicious) and spiced coffee (not so much). Thankfully, after a nervous couple of hours, some phone calls were made, our passports were returned and we were allowed to go on our way. The airforce staff now quite excited that the race would be passing right by their office windows.

After some tense phone calls to the race director we managed to organise some more locals with donkeys to carry not only the medical equipment, but also tents, sleeping bags and warm clothes for our local staff who had turned up without anything. Scrambling across rough limestone pavement, spiky scrub, and up the steep walls of the wadis which we had to cross, the donkey really was the best option for carrying the heavy loads of equipment.

Two hours later, just as the sun was setting, we made it to the race checkpoint and set up our camp for the next three days. With the first runners not due until mid afternoon the following day, we had nothing to do but enjoy the sunset and the amazing night’s sky. Tim was disappointed he had forgotten his UV light to search for scorpions in the dark, which was just what I wanted to hear as I lay down in my sleeping bag, ready to try and keep warm against the rapidly dropping temperature.

A cold night of minus five Celsius soon dawned into a stunning morning and with it the temperature soared back up to the high 20s. In another display of Omani hospitality, our local staff cooked pancakes with Dairylea triangles and squeezy honey for breakfast (a local delicacy, apparently) whilst we waited for the first runners to appear on the horizon.

Not long after midday and a full 24 hours since starting the race, the first and second position runners made it up the final climb to our checkpoint at 3009m. Climb is definitely the correct word: many of the steep sections of the race are equipped with via feratta cables and metal rungs to literally climb the vertical walls of the deep wadis and limestone cliffs.

Over the course of the day, runners continued to trickle through our checkpoint. We sat and waited, hoping that our mountain rescue services wouldn’t be needed. Considering the terrain, we knew that any potential rescue would have been pretty serious.

He had forgotten his UV light to search for scorpions in the dark, which was just what I wanted to hear as I lay down in my sleeping bag