Bullet Holes for Handholds

Lebanon is one of the few places in the world where you can ski in the morning and swim in the ocean (without a wetsuit) in the afternoon. In fewer than 30 miles you can go from warm Mediterranean water to the snowy plateaus and cedar forests of the Lebanon Mountains. The country has been called the Switzerland of the Middle East, and Beirut was once known as the Paris of the Middle East.

Before the Lebanese Civil War began in 1975, people from all over Europe went to Beirut for the beaches, cuisine, and nightlife. The war, which raged on until 1990, damaged the tourism industry and caused 76,000 people to flee the country. Over the past four years, the conflict in neighboring Syria—Damascus is only about 50 miles southeast of Beirut—has added a lot of tension and almost a million refugees to Lebanon.

For that reason, Sam Elias thought Beirut could be an awkward place for a professional rock climber—decked out in techy gear from The North Face and rolling with a VICE Sports film crew—to look for urban bouldering routes. Elias has been climbing for The North Face since 2010 and considered hiring a personal security detail and evac insurance for a six-week trip there this spring.

"All you see when you search the Internet for the Middle East is beheading this, kidnapping that, suicide bombing here, terrorist attack there," he wrote in an email.

Sam, though, originally from Detroit, has deep roots in the Middle East. He traces his ancestry to Syria, Turkey, and Lebanon. Sam's father, who still doesn't understand how someone can earn a living climbing rocks, emigrated from Syria through Lebanon to the U.S. in July of 1968. Sam expected that his trip to Lebanon would deepen his understanding of his heritage, but he was apprehensive about the learning curve.

What he found in Beirut was life under stress. Tension in the air, over everything. A lot of people in a small space living under a wartime ambience.

"I've thought about the stark contrast between my life and my day-to-day versus the reality and the day-to-day for most Lebanese people," he says. "I'm out doing my thing in these amazing natural places—places that are amazing on a global scale—while simultaneously nobody in Lebanon knows or even cares about those things. They're just struggling to get by."

One person in Lebanon who does care what Sam is doing is an expat climber named Will Nazarian, also of Middle Eastern ancestry and originally from Southern California, who has been promoting climbing in Lebanon since 2011. Inviting experienced climbers to Lebanon is part of how Nazarian is building the sport. Sam and Nazarian started laying plans for this trip last year while climbing in Spain.

In March, Nazarian received a USAID grant to promote rural tourism in Lebanon. The grant supports the theory that the economic benefits of rural tourism will cascade through the local population. Nazarian believes that with the help of people like Sam, Lebanon could become a global destination for outdoor recreation, which would not only bring in money but also give the country an identity as someplace other than a former warzone

Lebanon is slightly smaller than Connecticut, covering about 4,000 square miles. It sits at about the same latitude as San Diego and enjoys a similar climate. Warm currents regulate the mild water on the coast. Mount Lebanon, the country's dominant landform, is a north-south spine of limestone running parallel to the coastline for 110 miles and reaching an elevation of 10,131 feet at its highest point.

Six ski resorts currently operate through the winter on Mount Lebanon. The 293-mile Lebanon Mountain Trail, established in 2007 through a USAID grant similar to Nazarian's, connects towns, campsites and inns for the length of the country. Generally, though, the recreational opportunities are rare, and few people are using the trails.

"Tourism's growth in Lebanon is linked to the political situation in the region as Lebanon mirrors the unrest in neighboring countries," says Nell Abou-Ghazale of Beyond Beirut, an NGO promoting rural tourism in Lebanon. "The number of tourists entering Lebanon was on the rise from 2006 to 2010 then showed a steady drop until 2013 reflecting the situation in neighboring Syria and in other Arab countries."

While overall tourism has declined with the war in Syria, rural tourism has increased. In the case of Lebanon, rural tourism includes nearly all activities outside Beirut. In February this year, the Lebanese Ministry of Tourism announced its Rural Tourism Strategy for Lebanon, which prioritized the kind of development that both Beyond Beirut and Nazarian are encouraging.

"Rural tourism, in the experiential meaning of it and with all its other aspects, is definitely heading toward a rise," Abou-Ghazale says. "Mountain biking is still a shy sport practiced by very few. Rock climbing is fairly new."

Nazarian's organization, Rock Climbing Association for Development, will use its USAID grant to train small businesses for the tourism industry, build more trails and climbing routes, and develop an infrastructure for outdoor sports and recreation. As models for what Nazarian hopes to accomplish, he's looking to other places in the Mediterranean – Spain, Greece, Turkey – where climbing communities have fostered economic growth and development.

"Nature is a resource that can bring millions of dollars to a community," Nazarian says. "We're trying to accelerate the sport by mimicking what other successful climbing destinations have done."

Because of his deep ancestral ties to Lebanon, Sam's efforts to encourage and help build a climbing community there had a profound effect on him. At the age of 16, Sam left home. There were parts of his identity and his family from which he had disconnected. In some ways, his experience in Lebanon gave closure to a gap that had never been fully bridged between his professional life and his roots.

Sam's career path has been difficult for his father to understand and accept. Before his trip to Lebanon, Sam hardly knew his sister, Kayla Elias, who has intermittently traveled to Lebanon for the past five years and served as Sam's interpreter and guide this spring.

"My life as a misfit, rogue climber-skier is a radical departure from any lifestyle anyone in my family has had," he says, "I think the only way to understand some deeper aspects of who I am is to come here."

On a personal level, Sam filled in the blanks of his heritage. On a professional level, he was hoping to reciprocate what the country had done for him: engender a greater sense of self-identity. To Sam, it was important to try to inspire the Lebanese. He wanted them to know that people are interested in their culture and landscape.

Nazarian considers Lebanon an overlooked, untapped resource for some of the best outdoor recreation in the Middle East. Sam calls the country's potential for mountain biking, trekking, climbing, and skiing epic. They both want to see athletes from all over the world travel to Lebanon, but it hasn't happened yet.

"It's a surreal experience to be touring in the mountains and wonder where everybody is while simultaneously knowing where everybody is," Sam says. "They're down in the cities, near their homes. They're anxious and afraid, awaiting the next conflict. It's bizarre, and it's sad."

On the south side of Beirut, Sam visited the Shatila Refugee Camp, where his sister has volunteered in the past. Home to roughly 20,000 Syrians, it resembles other urban refugee camps: piecemeal housing, open-air septic drains, a web of electrical wires over every street, and trash everywhere. The most common diversion for children in the crowded camp is video games.

But thanks to Sam, the camp now has what an increasing number of schools in the U.S. are looking for: a climbing wall. By gluing beach stones to a wall with masonry adhesive, Sam has given the children in the Shatila camp an alternative to staring at a computer screen.

"As I get further along in my career, I realize that accomplishments in competitions are a fleeting aspect of being a pro athlete," Elias says. "The older I get, the more I'm searching for deeper meaning and a connection with people. I love climbing, but I don't want to be remembered only for my accomplishments in the mountains."