Wow!!! Is all I can say. I have just got back from two weeks Climbing in the Taghia valley in Morocco. Taghia is a small village of about 200 people situated in the high atlas mountains. Surrounding the village is a mass of limestone ranging from 150 to 800 meters, with the majority of the routes well bolted the area has been popular with the French and Spanish. I was there with a strong team of Brits to repeat some of the classic routes and generally sus the place out for futher trips. After a 3 hour flight to Marakesh we stayed the night in a swarve hotel ready for an early start the day after. We got up early and piled on to an already cramped bus and headed off into the mountains. The first bus journey was about 4 hours on decent roads, and then the second bus journey took us straight to the end of the road to a small village called Zaouir. We stayed the night there and enjoyed some amazing food and mint tea. The weather the next day was rubbish...no-one told us it was going to be cold and wet in Morocco at the end of May!!! The weather finally cleared enough and we started our 3 hour walk into Taghia (1900 meters) with donkeys carrying our rucksacs. It was a fairly chilled walk up the valley passing all kinds of massive untouched limestone cliffs, until we reached Tahgia where the cliffs were even bigger.
For a warmup Harry 9 toes, Andy Cave and I climbed a 6 pitch 6c+ called Class Montange Epinal. The route was fairy good with some interesting slab climbing and good rock. We abseiled back down with loads of time before an evening dinner of soup followed by veg tagine.
The next day Andy and I climbed the classic Zebda 7B+, 8 pitches of amazing climbing on perfect rock. After debating whether or not to walk off we decided to ab off instead.
The rest days consisted of listening to techno, eating rice and tomatoes, reading books, and playing cards, basically trying to do as little as possible. Everybody else got off to great starts despatching some of the classic's and jumping on some of the really long routes.
Andy and I then had an early 6am start to try a route called Riviers Pourpes 7b+. We climbed the 1st 10 pitches on sight and then abseiled off due to bad weather coming in.
After another rest day we had a late start and walked in to try a route called Tout pour le Club, an 8 pitch classic 7C. The plan was to have a go at the first 3 pitches and see what happens. I onsighted the 1st pitch, 7b+,Andy despatched an easy pitch of 6c and then I led the 3rd pitch, 7C, and it was game on. After some more hard 7b and 6c pitches, we were below the final pitch which was a 7c crack pitch. Andy was super keen on having a crack at it and as he pulled through the first roof he was home and dry. We abseiled down with the light fading rapidly. We just about had enough time to pack our kit away when it went dark. We stubbled around looking for the path using the light on our cameras until Harry and Nic came to the rescue with head torches. Heros!!!
The weather then turned more unpredictable, and to be honest, I was glad of a few days rest. Climbing totally onsight without chalk over 8+ pitches is mentally and physically taxing.
The Climbing in Taghia is very interesting with lots of diffrent styles on excellent quality rock. The majority of the pitches consisted of thin technical climbing on small to very small holds and just off vertical. All of the routes we did were well bolted with great belays. Im already looking forward to going back sometime......
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