Rakebat Canyon, Wadi Rum Jordan
I've posted TRs on our other hikes in the Wadi Rum in "Hiking, Scrambling, Peak Bagging". I'm putting this one in "Canyoneering" as it was a canyon even though no ropes are required. Apologies to anyone who feels it is misplaced here.
Our last day with Radi, our guide in the Wadi Rum was spent doing what he claimed was his favorite canyon: Rakebat. It was definitely my favorite too. It combined some challenges in climbing (both up and down) with fantastic rock formations, some stemming in narrows and spectacular vistas.
Rakebat was actually very close to Rum Village which is where the paved road ends and the fun begins in the Wadi Rum. If someone came to the Wadi Rum only for a day trip I would recommend doing this canyon as you get right into some good stuff and then have some classic Wadi Rum vistas at the end.
We parked the car at the mouth of the canyon. Radi's jeep has seen some use; some small holes in the floor boards, windows that don't really stay rolled up, and no working locks. As this was our last day we had packed up our luggage and had it all in the jeep. We were just leaving the jeep unattended and Radi's cousin would find it later and drive it to the other side of the canyon for us. "Will our stuff be safe", I asked? "We have never had a problem" was his reply. Nor did we that day. I wonder how many trailheads in the US we could leave a jeep parked full of luggage? The people in Jordan and the Bedouins in particular seem very honor bound and we never felt in danger of being harmed or robbed. Overcharged? Oh, yeah some (not all) people will try to do that. But we had no problems with theft.
The canyon cross completely through one of these tall "bread loaf" sandstone mountains that are scattered throughout the area. As such it's not like a typical canyon that that starts high and ends low. Here you climb up from either end to a canyon "pass" in the middle and then drop back out the other side.
As we approached the canyon it was easy to pick out the two layers of sandstone that are prominent in the Wadi Rum. The upper (newer) layer is light in color ranging from almost white to yellow and dates to about 400 million years. The lower (older) layer is very red and dates to the Cambrian period almost 600 mya. But as we hiked up the talus slope leading to the start of Rakebat I noticed that we were walking on granite. This granite is dated to about 2,000 mya. We stopped to catch our breath as we got off the talus field and stood right at the boundary of the sandstone and granite. At the time I hadn't researched the exact dates, but I knew we were looking at an unconformity very much like what one sees in the inner gorge of the Grand Canyon where the Vishnu Schist and Tapeats Sandstone meet.
Enough geology, we were here to explore a canyon! The start of the route ascended through a series of ledges at the canyon mouth. At first it was pretty easy but soon the ledges got more exposed, narrower and not always level! At one rest stop in the photos where you see Robin, Aaron and Radi on a ledge it was not particularly clear how we would proceed. But a few careful steps around an exposed corner and we got back to a wide ledge again.
This canyon has just fantastic shapes in the Red Cambrian layers. There were some small arches and the dripping ledges all around us. In the middle section there was some fun stemming and a little tunnel (see the shot of Aaron crawling out from under it). A couple hours later we finished some fun downclimbs and the canyon opened up again. The back side had these huge sand dunes sloping up to the canyon walls. It was a perfect place to sit and gaze at the view, then run the dune slopes and have a picnic back at the waiting jeep.
We finished out the day with a camel ride. Aaron and Robin (OK, me too) really wanted to do that and this was the perfect place. In Petra and the Great Pyramids in Giza there are folks touting camel rides, but the tourists look like dorks riding camels with so many other people walking and standing around them. Here camels are a way of life and feel like a natural part of the landscape. We rode for about two hours over to a natural spring that was also at the unconformity between the granite and sandstone layers.
Our trip to the Wadi Rum was over. We left feeling like we had experienced only a small part of it, but that what we did see and do was fulfilling and gave a real sense of the beauty and vibe of this special place.
