Picture this: It’s New Year’s Eve 2014 and I’m sitting on White Beach (a beautiful beach close to Fins) with my local Omani friends. It’s a very long night and we’re camping local style, sitting around the fire and preparing some delicious local dishes. We are looking over the cliff out on the sea and right behind us are the Selma Plateau Mountains. I don’t remember who exactly started to talk about the mountains and what they mean for the local people but according to the stories of the locals, it is the place where spirits live. One of the places with a particular interesting story is the cave complex called Majlis al Jinn (meeting place of the spirits).
I spent weeks after that researching this cave but unfortunately found out that exploring it is allowed under special circumstances with an approval from the Omani government. With my research, I found out that there is a company in Muscat which organises a variety of adventures, among one of them is also the exploring of a cave complex called the 7th Hole Cave. I got in contact with Justin and we planned to climb down with a small group of people the following month. I’ve never been into climbing or caving in my life, I’m more of an extreme sports enthusiast but after I learnt what is planned out for us I was pretty keen to be a part of it.
First Trip: Descent into 7th Hole Main Chamber
There are two adventures within the 7th Hole complex. The first one requires a 120m free-hanging abseil. This is done on a re-belay eight metres from the top. Once the huge descent is made, there is much to explore at the bottom. One way drops into pitch black for a further 160m into the lower main canyon room. Before this trip, you have three training sessions spanning two hours each. This covers descent with passing a re- belay, change-overs from ascenders to descenders, ascending with the use of jumar and croll (a technique called frogging) and again passing a series of re-belays. After taking the training in Muscat, we drove to pass Fins the next morning and from there drove through Qurran next to an airstrip which took about 45 minutes of off-road driving. When we got to the spot, Justin set up all the ropes and revised everything we learned the previous day. The least pleasant moment of all was getting over the edge and completely trusting the ropes. After a few seconds of free-hanging and getting used to the situation, I started abseiling. To get down the 120m took me a few minutes and I discovered there is much more to explore at the bottom. Another way drops into pitch black for a further 160m into the lower main canyon room. This, we have planned to explore over four weeks. The whole group got down one by one and we took some photos. We then exited out of the wadi at the opposite end of the cave. There are no tight squeezes (if anyone is claustrophobic) and it is all lit from holes in the roof over a hundred metres above you. Overall, to get in and out took us about six hours and we all drove home.
Trip Two: The 7th Hole to Kahf Tahri Crossing
After a month, we came back to explore some more of the 7th Hole. For this one we dropped in via the way we exited from the original trip, the wadi. We abseil a 30m pitch, followed by a 40m pitch, entering the 7th Hole upper chamber. At the shelf above the lower section, we then abseiled 60m into a dark cauldron, then a further 100m past five re-belays into the canyon room, 280m below the surface.
For 3.6km, we descend and ascend cauldrons and crossed high exposed traverses, until we finally enter the Selma Highway. We passed a beautiful crystal chamber and exited out of the Kahf Tahri – a huge arched cave at the bottom of a 300m cliff. Thankfully this time, our trip was dry. Previous trips have meant 300m swims in hard and frigid conditions. This cave system is very prone to flash flooding.
The second trip started out at 6:00 a.m. and we got out after 13 long hours. In front of us was still a two and a half hour journey to the campsite. I got to my Omani friend’s place late in the evening beaten up but with a great feeling.
I’d like to thank my dearest Omani friends Mohammed Al Ghailani and Mohammed Hashim for sharing a piece of their history and heritage with me and I’m looking forward to what they have planned in the near future.
I strongly advice not to go exploring the 7th Hole Cave complex (or any other caves in Oman) on your own. If you would like to go, trust the best and contact Justin Hall (justin@holiday-in-oman.com)
(+968) 96114950 or visit his website at www.holiday-in-oman.com
Words + Photos By: Pavel Bafeel
