Over two days in November, Rémi Laborde, Stéphane Marigot, and Christian Ravier from France climbed Land and Freedom (630m, 6b+) on the north face of Jebel Nassrani North. The climbers followed the first five pitches of a route called Sabbah’s Homeland to enter a narrow canyon, climbed the imposing black wall of the canyon for four pitches, then continued up the mountain’s upper north face for seven pitches, with a bivouac on a large ledge atop pitch 13. (They did a total of 16 pitches, 11 of them new.) The climbers descended to the south by Hiker’s Road (Haupolter-Precht, 1990). See the topo and photos below.

—The Editors