In Lebanon, Climbing to Get a Grip Again
- Amélie David
- 2 hours ago
- 7 min read
Lebanon has a small climbing community of roughly 300 people. It is growing, but it has also had to adapt to crisis, war, and a chronic lack of resources. A report from the crag.
Beit Mery, about nine miles north of Beirut. Among steep, striking limestone cliffs sits one of Lebanon’s precious climbing areas, with roughly 30 routes. On a late-May morning, a handful of young men gather on the paved road that winds through the cliffs. Pickaxes, pruning shears, large trash bags, ropes, and carabiners slung over their shoulders, they head down a steep little trail barely visible from the road.
“We’re going to split into three groups,” says Jad Khoury, the climber who organized the maintenance day. “The first group will clear the trail up to the olive tree. The second will work from the olive tree to the platform where the first climbing routes start, and rebuild the stone steps there. The third group will handle the last section, where we need to build the bridge.”
Developed over the past decade, Beit Mery is still being explored every week by route developers and bolters, the climbers who establish new lines and place fixed protection. Over the years, they have built trust with landowners, local officials, and nearby communities. In 10 years, they have opened about 30 routes here, from roughly 5.9 to 5.13a.
A Bridge Toward Paradise
The group gets to work clearing the trail of invasive plants, but also of the trash that has piled up here over the years. In a hollow in the mountain lies an old dump: tires, slabs of cement, buckets, clothing, the frame of a pink stroller.
“We’re going to clean what we can, then build a bridge to connect the two sides,” Jad says, visibly excited. “There’s an Ailanthus altissima here” — the so-called “tree of heaven,” an invasive species that prevents other plants from growing — “so we’re going to cut it down and use the wood to build the bridge.”
The bridge will link the existing crag to another sector spotted on the far side of the cliff, where the group hopes to open new routes.
In Lebanon, these climbers have made environmental care a priority. “It’s important for climbers to take care of the environment and leave no trace behind,” says Ramy Abu Khalil, who is also an agricultural engineer. “It’s like we’re part of the place, part of the cliff.”
The thirty-something trims branches from a thorny shrub, then crouches down to show the group a wild orchid. At other areas, including the very popular Tannourine crag in the north of the country, climbers maintain trails to limit erosion.
“Climbing isn’t just about sending five routes a day,” Jad Khoury says. A send is a clean ascent, without falling or hanging on the rope. Khoury is the founder of Sit Start and Rock Climbing Lebanon. “It’s also about helping preserve these places. Even if we didn’t cause the damage, we do the restoration work. Our goal is for everyone to benefit from it, not just climbers.”
“We want other people to discover how this sport changed our lives. It helps you get past fear, stress, and forget the war a little. We want people to be able to experience that too”
Lea, a Lebanese climber
Two massive trash bags fill up with debris collected from the site. Once they are full, the climbers haul them up by rappel. Léa Medawar, one of only two women there that day, belays her friends during the operation, managing the rope to keep them safe. For the thirty-something, who has been climbing for six years, the community is built around a shared passion, but above all around shared values.
“We want other people to discover how this sport changed our lives,” Léa says. “It helps you get past fear, stress, and forget the war a little. We want people to be able to experience that too.” The two heavy bags are hauled up along a route called “Hummus for Breakfast,” then carried back to the road. Lower down, the rest of the group is still building the bridge and cleaning the sector so they can explore the possibility of opening new routes. Jad Khoury saws hard into a branch of the tree of heaven. “In a crisis,” he says, “climbing is a safety net.”
After So Many Years
“No matter what happens in Lebanon, there will always be someone climbing, someone bolting routes, someone camping by the river and climbing on the cliff every day,” says Tino Deeck, a climber who has been making a documentary about the sport for the past two years. “Especially during a war. Especially during a crisis. Especially after an explosion. Especially in a time of instability.”
For more than a decade, Lebanon has been hit by one crisis after another: economic and social collapse since 2019, the double explosion at the port of Beirut in 2020, then the war between Hezbollah and Israel since October 2023. The latest offensive, which began on March 2, has already killed more than 3,000 people and injured 10,000. More than one million residents have been displaced.
Despite a truce officially in effect since April 17, the Israeli army continues to kill residents, bomb Lebanon, raze entire villages in the “buffer zone” south of the Litani River — an Israeli military control area inside Lebanese territory covering more than 230 square miles, denounced by Lebanon and many international actors as a violation of the country’s sovereignty — and push into the country. In recent days, the army has called for the evacuation of the entire area south of the Zahrani River, north of the Litani, far beyond that “buffer zone,” raising fears of a long-term occupation like the one that lasted from 1980 to 2000.
“There’s a disconnect between climbing to escape reality and being in a country at war”
Tino, a Lebanese climber
On phones, notifications keep scrolling by, listing strikes and bombings in the south of the country. In Beit Mery, though, the roar of Israeli bombs and tanks feels far away. For a moment, birdsong covers the buzz of drones. Still, reality often catches up with those who look to climbing for an escape.
Sitting in the shade of a carob tree, Tino Deeck remembers a day out at Tannourine. That day, the filmmaker had tried to put some distance between himself and the noise of the war. He was warming up at the base of a route when a group of children came over. “We started talking to them about climbing because they didn’t know the sport, so we showed them,” says Deeck, who knows he is lucky to be able to step away.
The children tried climbing. The group shared drinks and chocolate bars. But the conversation quickly turned heavier. “They told us they were from the south, that they had been forcibly displaced,” he says. “One of them told us his mother had gone back south to check on their house, and he didn’t know whether she would come back that night.”
The big man’s hands shake as he grips his camera. After a pause, he adds, “There’s a disconnect between climbing to escape reality and being in a country at war.”
Since the 1980s, when foreign soldiers opened the country’s first routes, climbing in Lebanon has reflected a country shaped by colonization, occupation, crisis, and conflict. Climber Space is part of that story: a clothing brand and outdoor-trip organizer born in the middle of the pandemic and economic collapse.
In 2020, the founders could no longer find climbing shoes because of pandemic restrictions. “We started repairing our own shoes and offering several climbing products for the Lebanese market, so people could buy locally and promote our culture,” says Jad Issa, who co-founded Climber Space with his two brothers, Georges and Elias. The three brothers taught themselves the craft and, within a few years, earned Vibram and Scarpa certifications. In 2022, they created Spacefest, a climbing festival held every summer in Tannourine.
“The idea is to bring together the whole climbing community, people who love outdoor activities, and people who want to discover the sport,” Jad Issa says. “But it’s also about introducing our country and our culture to climbers who come from abroad.”
“I’m Not Exactly Going to Quit Now”
Back in Beit Mery, the afternoon moves on. The sun now plays hide-and-seek with the mountain. Charlie Sifri ties into his harness and steps to the base of the wall. Hands dusted with chalk, climbing shoes on his feet, he starts up the pale gray rock. His fingers search for holds, feeling around. His first try fails. He lowers, resets.
“I’m not exactly going to quit now,” he says, laughing. After several more minutes of effort, he reaches the top. A climber for seven years, Charlie Sifri also worked on developing the sport for the Swiss organization ClimbAID. Through several programs, the organization aimed to create safe spaces for dialogue between different communities in the Bekaa Valley, in eastern Lebanon, while also offering psychological support through climbing.
“ClimbAID introduced climbing in the Bekaa among marginalized communities,” says Sifri, the former project manager. “They managed to take a first generation of women, Lebanese and Syrian women from the Bekaa, climbing in Tannourine and other places. They also helped bring those young climbers from the Bekaa into the wider climbing community.”
Hassan Shehade, originally from Aleppo, Syria, was one of them. Now an experienced climber, he passes the sport on to younger people.
“For me, climbing is not just a sport. It’s a way of life,” he says from the Bekaa, where he still lives. “I feel like I’m part of the climbing community because this sport creates strong relationships between people, based on trust, support, and encouragement.” He is still working to develop climbing in Lebanon, but also in Syria, where he has been returning regularly since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in 2024. His next goal: “to open a climbing route in the Syrian mountains that represents the Lebanese and Syrian community.”
At Beit Mery, the final hammer blows finally ring out across the cliff. Foreheads are beaded with sweat. Faces break into smiles. The tree of heaven is gone. It is now possible to move from one side of the cliff to the other with ease.
For Tino, the bridge reflects the spirit of climbers in the Land of the Cedars. “We’ve learned to do things ourselves and set our own rules, instead of letting someone from outside come in and impose theirs,” he says. “Because we know our land. We know how it works.”
The bridge Jad, Léa, Ramy, and the others have just built still sways a little. But with maintenance, persistence, and determination, it should carry hikers and climbers for years.
Above all, it connects two sides of the same cliff.
