Today, I stomped my last geophone as a contracted “Mountaineer” in the remote desert of Oman. It has been an interesting 60 days of consecutive work in an industry I knew nothing about.
I was contracted by a Canadian based company called ‘Global Mountain Solutions’ who hire ACMG certified guides to work in the seismic industry for Petroleum Development Oman (PDO) and Shell. The job was quite involved, but put simply, we drove around the desert and laid equipment down on steep terrain so that ‘cat scans’ could be taken to map the internal structures of the earth. We were involved in the process of looking for resources in difficult terrain, i.e. Oil and gas.
Having never been to Oman, I did not know what to expect. What I did find, was that the people are kind, the Sultan of Oman cares for his people, and the country is a safe place to travel and explore. I spent most of my time in the middle of know where in a camp made out of steel boxes, but did get to know and befriend some local Omanis. I also had an interestingly long road trip from the far south to the nation’s capital – Muscat – so I was able to see more of the country side before my 60 day visa expired.
When I wasn’t implanting small devices called “geophones” into the ground and laying out 70 to 120 meters of electrical cable with recording devices, I was keeping busy around camp. Many hours were spent honing my ping pong game, exercising on the TRX portable training program, and jogging about the desert under moonlight. I also managed to memorize roughly 50 Arabic words to help me communicate with the locals. You can’t spend 2 months in a foreign country and not have the desire to learn a bit of the spoken tongue.
The heat was, at times, unbearable. When I arrived the mercury was pushing 40c by 1030am and was creeping ever so close to the 50c mark by the early afternoon. Coming from a relatively cold place like Banff, and enjoying long winters and short summers, this was hard for me to handle in the beginning. Except for short drives in our air conditioned Toyota Hilux 4x4s to and from job sites, there was no escaping the heat. The wind blew hot and even the shade offered little relief. Thank god I arrived in the fall and the temps were on their way down for the winter months. By the time I left, the mornings were perfect and the daytime temps were in the high 30s – not bad at all by comparison. I watched the sunrise and set, every day, for my entire stay. I never once felt a drop of rain, or saw clouds thick enough to hold any significant amount of moisture. I had the pleasure of seeing life in a place so dry and barely hospitable. I often crossed paths with the intriguing Camel, saw lizards, vultures, gazelles, and a couple rare desert fox sightings. I always wondered what they lived off of.
The toughest part of the job was being away from my beloved partner Ellen, family and friends and of course the mountains. I’m looking forward to spending some time at home and playing in my backyard this coming winter. Bring on the ice and the snow!!
