Morocco Meet

Shortly after I started climbing 6 years ago I came across this article …

I was sufficiently taken with the idea of the climbing in the area that I chose to take up trad climbing with a view to doing a trip there when I had enough experience. Queue several years of trad all over England and Wales, bits and bobs in Scotland, Spain, the Alps and a 3 week trip to Arapiles, there have been some fine adventures over the course of those years, however the experience of climbing in the Anti-Atlas certainly ranks highly amongst all the others!

I was glad to have 5 other members of the Climbers’ Club (Mark Anstiss, Mark Courtiour, Harry Moss, Brian Hodgson and Geoff Der), a keen aspirant (Marcin Kruszelnicki) and Harry’s Old Friend (a half rope which might well predate me!) join me on the trip. Some of whom I had climbed with/ met before and others who I had not, everyone provided good company both on and off the crag.

For the first half of the trip we based ourselves in Tafraout at the Hotel Argana, a low cost means of accommodation (100 dhirams pppn for shared rooms), during this time we climbed some excellent routes including Ride the Wild Wind, Flake Quake, High Sierra (bring BIG cams for these 2 and done expect perfect rock), White Tower Original Route and White Tower (Slot Machine). Clearly the mountain routes are what the climbing on the south side is all about with White Tower Original being one of the stand out routes for the year in my eyes (also having one of the least comfortable belays I have ever used!).

There are a good variety of places to eat in Tafraout, Restaurant La Kasbah is certainly worth a visit, as was a small French place on the left just after the bridge. Tagine forms a large part of the menu here, so it is good that it is quite tasty! Marcin did choose to brave a “Goat Evaporator one night”, I don’t think he was much more certain what had been done to the animal after he’d eaten it!

The second part of the trip was spent at the Ksar Rock Guesthouse to the west of Ida Ougnidif, it’s got a heck of a view from the bedroom window:

The food here was quite basic (and felt quite thin on the ground at times!), it seemed that we got the same amount of soup/ tagine when there were 6 meat eaters as when there were 4! Geoff seemed to do pretty well as a vegetarian! Ksar Rock provides an excellent experience with easy (but slightly prickly) access to a range of 3 * routes, Morocco Coco, Sahara, Pelez, Jedi Grooves, Age of Empires, Palladin, Desert Storm, Cannon Buttress Direct and Civilisation all provided good sport for various members of the meet:

We did also make the occasional foray into Ida to buy food for our lunches (also to get internet so that Marcin could attempt to find his wallet, wherever it had gone after he left it on the plane when travelling to Morocco!), the Souq was on a Thursday I believe and Marcin decided to purchase some moccasins in which he could roam the mean streets of Oxford.

The mountain routes in the area also proved to be excellent with teams enjoying Pink Lady, Black Beauty, Inshallah, Moroccan Gold, Jaws (What a chimney!!!!), Michael Burka (my first E1 lead in about 8 months, thanks for not complaining how long I took to get up it Mark and Marcin!), Crazy Mushrooms Ridge and Hee-Haw. I also snatched the opportunity to go for a walk after climbing (mostly seconding) Otello on the Sanctuary, this took me into the valley behind Upper Eagle Crag.

Due to the none availability of climbing gear out in Morocco I would strongly advise to have some spare with you (I brought a spare rope in case anyone wound up having to chop up their rope in an epic descent, thankfully no such situation occurred). Alternatively you can use the time honoured solution of Gaffa Tape:

Having talked a lot about climbing I now feel that there should be some photos of the adorable Afantinzar Puppies!

Do I have any regrets about investing so much of my life to make this trip possible? None whatsoever!

Did the trip meet my high expectations? Absolutely!

This has certainly given me rather more confidence in myself and lit a fire of enthusiasm to visit other similar areas (and of course to return to the Anti-Atlas)!

Cheers
Spenser Gray

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