Farside

Overview

"Farside" is a newly developed crag by the famous John Gregory and friends. This past month Mr. Gregory along with his two sons, Ian and Chris worked and several other friends worked very hard to clean and put up the new routes. They have been busy working on this area, coming out and cleaning the routes every weekend for the past several weeks.

There are 7 routes on this face. There is 1 sport route, a mixed sport and trad route and 5 trad routes.

All of the routes have been led except for one.

If you decide to climb here before it is finished please be courteous to those who are putting in all of the hard work and give them the right to make the FA.

The Routes

Here is the topo and info for the route on Farside All FA's were done in November 2010.

1-Child's Play 30m/98ft HS/5.7 FA John Gregory and Joanna Thornton Trad

2- Cherubim 30m/98ft VS/5.8 FA John Gregory and Carla Hansen Trad

3- Ghost Rider 30m/98ft HVS/5.10a FA John Gregory and Ian Gregory Trad

4- Angle's Way 30m/98ft 6a/5.10c FA Ian Gregory and John Gregory Sport 4 star climb full of all kinds of moves

5-Devils Slide 30m/98ft 6b/5.10d FA John Gregory and Aiden Laffey Sport and Trad 4 star climb difficult moves up the smooth face with lots of fist jams the trad portion is HS/5.7

6-Not led yet

7-Phantom Crack 20m/66ft HVS/5.10a FA John Gregory and Carla Hansen

The abseil anchors and the path to anchors are marked in blue. The crux's for the routes are marked in green. Red are the sports routes and yellow is trad.

Getting There

Fly into Dubai or Abu Dhabi.


You can access some of the routes right off of the road. Other areas require a hike or some off-roading. Make sure you have 4-wheel drive. Expect some scrambling in some areas, lots of loose rock or soft sand.

From the roundabout on the north end of Emirates Rd. go N. for 7.7km to the Clock Tower roundabout. Turn right (going east) for 2.4km. The RAK lagoon will be on your left. Turn right (going SE) for 2.9km. You will pass a golf course and come to the Lantern roundabout. Go straight through the roundabout for 400m to the Coffee Pot roundabout. Go strait for 4km to a crossroad, and continue strait for 600m to a t-junction. Go right for 1.4km towards the mountains. You will pass a military base and the Wadi Bih (W. Al Baih) signpost will be just passed that.

After the Wadi Bih sign follow the road for 5km to the t-junction. Turn right and drive for 8km where you will find a left turn (go left, if you go right you will run into the border post). Near Side/Junction is about 12km past the turn on the left and 4km past Dickinadozer/Cleavage. Near Side/Junction is visible on the right (East) next to the road. Far Side is across the road from Near Side, on the left.

External Links

Here is a link to a forum with route information and topo's.

www.uaeclimbing.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=506
www.redarmadapublishing.com/nearside_1.pdf

Images

View Farside Image Gallery - 3 Images