A couple of years ago, two fellow French canyoners, Guillaume and François, came to Oman for the third time to explore new wadis in “Amazing Oman.”
I joined them when they explored and opened three new canyons in Wadi Bani Awf, but I could not join them in exploring Wadi al Thuqbiyah, a tributary of Wadi al Jamal.
A few months later, I teamed up with Chris, a friend of mine, to cross the newly opened canyon, and again, a couple of months after that, I accompanied my friends Nadhira and Ahmed to cross this exceptional wadi.
On the early morning of that Friday, Nadhira and Ahmed picked me up from home in Mawaleh, and we drove to Al Hijir, a small village in Wadi Halhal, a tributary of Wadi Bani Kharus.
On the way to Al Hijir, we stopped in Al Awabi in a coffee shop where we usually take a break to have some paratha bread with cheese and eggs, our regular breakfast before our canyoning trips. After a quick bite, we hit the road again to Al Hijir.
From my place in Mawaleh, it took us around one and a half hours to reach the starting point of canyoning in Al Hijir.
Our backpacks were quite heavy. The canyon is very dry and we had to carry all the water we needed for the full day in addition to our canyoning gear and some snacks.
The beginning of our journey started in the wadi bed (Wadi al Jamal) following the falaj on the left bank, after which we started a very steep trail going up the mountain.
We were progressing quite slowly because of the heavy weight of our bags. On the trail, we had a superb panorama of the north face of Jabal Akhdar. We reached the beginning of the canyon after an approximately one-and-a-half-hour walk.
After a short break, we put on our harnesses and our canyoning equipment ( descender, carabineers, safety line, gloves, and helmet) and we started moving in the wadi bed. Soon after, we reached the first drop, which was no more than 7 minutes in height.
We set up our ropes using a natural anchor (lunule in French), which is a thread in the rock.
I was the first to abseil, followed by Nadhira and Ahmed.
The first part of the wadi is very steep and narrow with plenty of drops not more than 15 meters in height each, and then it opens up and becomes very wide and horizontal before becoming very narrow and vertical again.
We decided to stop at this flat part of the canyon to have a quick bite before starting the second part of the wadi.
So far, we have used only rock threads or trees as natural anchors to fix our rope.
The second half of the canyon was pretty similar to the first part.
It took us another hour to reach the last drop, some 50 meters high, where our French friends had fixed a metallic anchor because there was no natural anchor there.
This drop was superb, with moss growing on the rock face.
While I was abseiling, Ahmed kept on asking me to stop to take pictures of this superb dry waterfall.
I did the same with him and with Nadhira, taking pictures when they were sliding down on the rope on their turn.
I could see their tiny silhouette sliding down the dry waterfall.
Once Ahmed reached the bottom, we retrieved and packed the rope, and we started the steep descent to the falaj. From there, it took us around 20 minutes to get to the water channel and another 15 minutes to reach our car.
It was almost 5 pm when we reached our vehicle.
On our way back to Mawaleh, we stopped at the same coffee shop in Al Awabi and this time it was to have a Karak tea. We all agreed to baptize this wadi “The Lunule Canyon” because almost all the anchors were threads in the rock.
On the way back home, I was already thinking about the next trip for my following weekend in “Amazing Oman.”
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