Rock Climbing "Cat Wall" in Riyadh

There are three adventures that I'll include about "Cat Wall".

It all started at the Sweet Heart Ball, at the American Embassy. The table I was at was only half full, so once the place started to fill up, two American guys asked if they could join us. Travis and AJ were about my age worked for the Red Crescent (the Red Cross of the Middle East). They told me they had only been in Saudi Arabia for about two weeks. After a short time I learned that these guys, like me, were all about getting out there and seeing what there was to do around here. One of the things that came up was rock climbing.

After a quick search of the internet, I discovered there was a climbable rock wall quite near the embassy, but that after the attacks in 2001-2004 the police would chase you away, as it is on the wall to the diplomatic quarter. A few weeks later AJ and I went out to find this wall. There was a police officer parked in the parking lot, after a few waves and smiles as we unloaded our climbing gear, it seemed like he wouldn't chase us away. From the parking lot to the wall was about a 700 meter walk. The wall proved better than expected, with two established sport routes and a few trad routes. A few hours of climbing showed me how out of shape I had become, as my arms were dead.

Part 2:

The next few times we went were much like the first. Wave and smile to the cop, who always seemed to be parked in the corner of the parking lot nearest the climbing wall. One day however, there was no cop when we showed up. While we were setting up our gear, one arrived. They got out of their vehicle and started walking around ours. We assumes this was a bad sign, but kept setting up our gear. A short time later three more police cars showed up, and two police started the 700 meter walk towards us. As they got closer it became obvious they were carrying MP5 sub Machine guns. We took this as a clue to slowly make our way to meet them with our hands in plain sight. Being that I speak no Arabic and the police spoke almost as much English, AJ did the talking in his limited Arabic. The conversation basically went as follows; "What are you doing", "We're climbing, we have no weapons", "Our Capitan wants to talk to you, stay here". So we wait a little while, making small talk with the guards until the Captain and one other officer arrive. The Captain speaks pretty good English and we make small talk with him for a while. After about 15 minutes of talking he tells us to have a good day and leaves. Then we start climbing.

Part 3:

With some borrowed equipment and a YouTube education, it is time to start bolting our own route. It is an exciting moment when you first load a bolt that you have put in yourself. It makes you realize the faith you are putting in those who have put in the other bolts you are using. It makes you hope they didn't just learn how to do it one day based on some YouTube videos. Our first bolts held strong. Phase two will start soon, cleaning the wall. There is no shortage of flake that will need to be removed.

You can find "Cat wall" at these corrdinates +24° 40' 5.52", +46° 36' 38.88".

There is also good info here http://www.rockclimbing.com/routes/Asia/Saudi_Arabia/Riyadh/Cat_Wall/Cat_Wall/

Desert ATV

Yet another thing I have been wanting to do since I arrived out here, but up until recently didn't have the opportunity, 4 wheeling. A large group of of all decided to go one Thursday morning, but as is expected here when the time to leave rolled around, about half the group dropped out.

The 8 of us headed out at about 10am out to the sand dunes, where there were a line of tents with guys renting ATVs. After a bit of haggling (their set price is 300 SAR/hour), we jumped on some 400 cc ATVs, got a quick lesson and heading out into the desert. Only 3 of the 8 of us had ever ridden ATVs before, so we started out slow as the rest of the group was regularly stalling and getting stuck in the sand. By the second hour everyone was pretty comfortable and we were able to cover some real ground.

We all tried to stay together, which was hard. If you traveled two dunes away from the group you got the sense that you were alone. If you went further than this it would often take a few minutes to find anyone else. Most of us had some small wrecks, but luckily nobody was injured.

The coordinates are +25° 4' 42.26", +46° 42' 31.90"

Edge of the World

It only took six months but I finally made my way out to the desert. We left right after work at 1pm, and made it to the Edge in only about an hour and a half. The Edge of the World is a crazy site. There are huge cliffs and below it the ground is flat, as far as you can see. Words are hard to describe it you have to see the pictures. I got to climb around a bit and really use my 50D. We took off in time to get out of there with some sun to light our way out, but still get some sunlight shots before we were back to civilization. It is a shame we couldn't spend longer out there, it would be a great place to camp out or even just grill out. Maybe I'll get the chance before I leave here, I still have to much time left.

On the way out we saw a bunch of camels chewing on the trees. We got out to get a closer look, and that's when one attacked.

The required Bro photo

Some climbing

The Edge

Felt like this picture would look better

Sunset

Attack Camel

The coordinates are +24° 56' 41.34", +45° 59' 31.86"

Jeddah, KSA SCUBA Diving

I was lucky enough to get out of Riyadh for a long weekend a few weeks ago. While there I manged to get some time underwater. It was my first chance since I left Hawaii. It was also my first chance to use my Underwater Camera I bought right after leaving Hawaii. The pictures are all quite blue, and I lost my USB cable for my Dive Computer, but other than that it was a great time.

This was my first dive outside the U.S. and my first dive not using my own equipment. Both of these things started to worry me a little as I arrived at the dive shop. When I showed up the only questions they asked are; SCUBA or Snorkel and what equipment do you need? Not once did they ask to see a dive liscence or a log book. Back in the equipment room everything looked rather beat up. I thought I would be able to use my own regs, but this ended up not being the case since I have an AIR2, so my hose wasn't compatible with their BC. I didn't realize this until I was on the boat setting up my gear. Luckly one of the guys working for the company had time to run back and grab me some regs. I was able to use my computer.

We did three dives the Cable Wreck, Crazy 8 and one other reef. All we good dives, even if the visibility wasn't great. Bottomed out at about 75 feet. Saw plenty of small fish, got a few good pictures. By the third dive I gave up playing with the camera, because I realized I was spending most the dive following the camera, watchign the screen. I had a great time and made some new friends, who with luck I'll get to dive with again before I'm out of here.

My new Saudi friend

Spotted Ray

Fish that aren't camera shy

Easter in Mullerthal

Spent my Easter up in Mullerthal. Which is known as the Little Switzerland of Luxembourg. It is just my kind of place. Big rocks, little streams with waterfalls and lots of hiking trails. On Easter I dragged two of my roommates up there to take advantage of the great spring weather, and enjoy all the thing I just mentioned about it.
We started off at a little waterfall that is famous with tourist because of the cute bridge over it and because it is on the side of the road. The parking lot for the falls, despite being next to the road is about a quarter mile away. So we took the nice little trail following the creek to the falls, rather than walk along the road like many of the tourist. Upon reaching the falls we looked to see if it was deep enough to swim, or at least get wet from head to toe. It was, about 3 to 4 feet in the deeper holes. This was perfect depth for jumping off the 8 foot tall rock below the falls. The water was very cold but we still managed a few jumps and some splashing around, much to the surprise of everyone else who was there to see the waterfall.
After that we headed to this other really cool place. There are a bunch of rocks between 10 and 60 feet tall with slots between them. The place reminds me of one of my favorite places back home called "rock city"..The rocks are like sky scrappers surrounding the slots that are like streets. We climbed a few rocks and did some jumping along the "rooftops."
After we got a good feel for rock city we headed off looking for a place I'd seen pictures of on a map, but didn't really know where it was. It turns out that my natural ability to snoop out cool places was in over drive that day because I found it. Heading in the direction I thought it would be, I pulled over in a parking lot and headed for the trail. The trail had 4 branches leaving the parking lot. We took the right one and after a nice walk along a really small stream we reached these caverns and natural amphitheater.

Check out the pictures below.

Sorry I've been sucking

Sorry I haven't put anything on here in a while. I hate excuses but here are mine. Bad internet connection and the cold weather has caused most of the little free time I have to be spent in the bar. I have a new camera coming in soon, so that should push me outside a little more.

I haven't been a total shut in. I have been heading over to Bambesch to hike and bike, despite the 0 Celsius temps. I found a few long but not real steep down hills for biking. Next time I go I'll have to bring the POV. I'm trying to get into video editing, to improve the quality of my videos.

Hope everyone had some killer holidays, and are ready to get out and enjoy the new year with some new adventures. I know I plan on hitting up some spots around the alps to get in some snow boarding and some other winter activities.

Keep on keepn' on.

Bunjee Jumping

Bungee Jumping in Southern Cali:
Bryce my brother-in-law and I took this trip that had us hike 5 miles up the Los Angeles Mountains to “the bridge to no where”. This Co. we went with has 5 world records and never has had an incident in 19yrs of business, a legit group. Also, they are the ones who do like 90% of Hollywood stunts with this sort of thing, all of Mtv's stuff and Fear Factor's stunts. Cool people, and one dude was OG...Oahu Grown, anyways. We each got to jump 2 times off this hundred foot beast, arched bridged where you actually bounced back up underneath the other side of the bridge. Pretty scary, but awesome. Got to hike around some pretty cool terrain, really clear water up there like Hawaii but super freezing! We actually had to cross the stream like 6 times on the way up. Our group had about 13 people, we took two breaks, and people were still falling behind. Bryce and I were like holy geez these people are weak.

Bryce, my bro crossing a treacherous stream along the hike.

This is "The Bridge to No Where", the 108ft bridge we were doing our "Lele Kawa" from.

Couple more photos here...on the river and one later that evening. We went to this tight Japanese Res. and ate some killer grinds. Then went and walked the “Hollywood walk of fame”, or whatever it is, with all the stars you know? (This book I have, a 101 things to do before you die, has in there: write your name over a star's name of whom you don’t think deserves one.) Well, I could not find Ellen DeGeneres, Dennis Miller, or Ray Romano, so Britney Spears was the next best thing. Only her star was right in front of that place where they give out the Grammy’s, I want to say the Kodak Center. Thousands of people were around us, but we did it real quick like. Good times, then we stopped by High Voltage tattoo parlor, but tats were seriously over priced, not worth it, the same with clothing there. So we bounced....

Great weekend!

Laters Ohana people.

http://www.bungeeamerica.com/

(link to the bungee place)