“You can’t get there from here.”
It came like a message, bent.
“You can’t get there from here” –
So that’s the way I went.
We had planned two nights at Agoudim and, the next day being a side trip and not part of our traverse, I suggested we allowed ourselves to ride Taza and Tamri up to the village of Taghia for a picnic. Ali thought, and Charles hoped, I was joking about this as the former had never known me to give evidence of any previous experience and the latter is a cautious lad. I was given Taza and Charles was put up on Tamri—two beginners together. Not far into our ride the inexperience showed, and Tamri put a hoof on a sloping slab in the stream and went down, luckily with no damage to man or beast. Charles bravely remounted and as the miles passed his desperate grip, fore and aft, slackened. “Hey! This is rather good”—especially for splashing across the river which we had to do several times as we wended up-valley. Mules don’t have to keep taking off their boots and socks. I thought we were a bit like the pair in Don Quixote. (Incidentally, Cervantes was captured by Barbary pirates and made a slave, as was the fictitious character Robinson Crusoe.) Like the don and his servant we rode on, with a certain excitement, for the scenery up to and around Taghia is reputedly the most spectacular in the Atlas, a claim few would dispute.
Agoudim is a worthy start with clustered castles, green-roofed marabout and the cliffs of Aroudane hanging above. Not far along the way the sun picked out a massive wall of light off to the right, the berg fronting the Aqqa n’ Tazaght. That meandering, many-branched canyon was simply the start of more and more impressive faces and spires of soaring limestone. Filling the view for much of the way ahead was Jbel Aoujdad, a buttressed and tapering symmetry of glowing rock, nature swanking as supreme showman. Taghia lies below this spire but, just as in New York bigger and grander skyscrapers followed the Empire State Building, here Aoujdad is flanked by gorges which are squeezed out like narrow streets by bigger and grander rock skyscrapers.
We dismounted below Taghia and walked on to where we’d once camped. The mules rolled about and kicked dust in each other’s faces. Freed of their loads at the day’s end there was nothing they liked better than a dust bath, a sight I always found incongruous. They are not built for rolling about and a mule, feet flailing in the air in an effort to roll from port to starboard and back, is a ridiculous spectacle. Taza and Tamri then began to rip up grass with gusto and an old crone came and raised hell over this. Later, her hen-pecked husband arrived, so Ali gave him a cup of tea, soft talk and ten dirhams—and the mules could eat what they liked.
The others shot off to see the start of the Aqqa n’ Taghia to the right, the gorge dominated by a 600 m wall of Dolomitic character, the Tagoujimt. I went into the left fork, having had my thrills of the former before. What I found was not mentioned in any book I’d read so came as a complete surprise: the river didn’t girdle Aoujdad but came out of its flank in a score of gushing sources, as dramatic a resurgence as any I’ve encountered. Some of the holes were six foot in diameter, quite a force of water, while others were a mere hand-span. All sprayed and stuttered down over rocks and screes in ponytails to create the river proper. I went up to another fork in the gorge, the prow of Taoujdat like a spear thrust of rock aimed at the clouds, pinioning the sky, while the gorges, left and right, were like prison doors. The aiguille of Taoujdat gives a handful of 500 m high-class climbing routes, put up in the seventies. Dippers were diving in and out below a boulder, bearing food to their well-protected brood.
My explorations over, I turned to scramble down again and a stone whizzed to crack on the spot I’d just vacated. I let out a yell in case human agency was at work but the culprits were goats grazing away up on the ledges below the sheer cliffs. Later I spotted two little girls who were herding the flock, who looked about eight years old. I’d the brew half ready when Ali appeared on the slope opposite and simply skittered down the scree and scrag like a Barbary sheep. Charles appeared half an hour later and thirty years slower. We envied Ali.
The Taghia aqqa must present one of the most spectacular paths in the land, the way across the cliff often created by wedging branches in cracks and piling stones on top of this insecure foundation. A vivid imagination is not an asset under these circumstances. Peyron describes the path as ‘hair-raising...a Berber via ferrata in places’. The Gellners while staying at Zaouia Ahancal on their years of study joined up with Wilfred Thesiger and an Oxford student, Colin Pennycuick, to explore the Taghia gorges. The explorer, hearing thunder, persuaded the group to make an unwilling retreat and, safely withdrawn, they watched in shock as the gorge walls filled house-high with a dirty, roaring spate in which boulders weighing tons grumbled along as if they were chickpeas. They also tried a rock climb up Aroudane’s great face and had to abseil off to avoid benightment. This was Thesiger’s first climb—and abseil. They’d met up at Boumalne des Dadès and made a crossing of the high plateau country to reach Zaouia Ahancal.
At Taghia we once had our worst scorpions encounter: several were running about under the stove as I cooked supper and we zipped bivvy bags tightly that night. I was sure the hard frost would send the creatures underground—or under Karrimats. I don’t think I helped by saying that scorpions were preyed upon by lethal spiders. Years earlier, a Club Alpin Français (CAF) member had reassured a visitor by writing in a newsletter: ‘The High Atlas scorpions are not mortal (sic) but the bite gives great pains and serious disorders. Never has a member of the Marrakech Alpine Club been bitten (sic) by a scorpion...’
One of the female scorpions had her back covered with pale miniatures; they carry their young for the first few weeks.
Returning from our Taghia side trip, I went on ahead of Charles and the mules hoping to take photographs and walked most of the way back, only waiting for a mule lift at the last big ford. That time I was left to ride Tamri who only went well when he lost sight of Taza and broke into a panic trot. Our host laid on a vast cous cous for supper and, one by one, finally in droves, the family came in for photographs—even matriarchal granny. Ali and Hosain smartened up for a night out while we retreated to an eleven-hour kip, lying on our sides as our tummies were bulging and our backsides sore.
Jbel Aioui, which has been renamed Jbel Aroudane, is one of the most spectacular climbing cliffs in the Atlas. It is strangely unknown or visited by British climbers who tend to want their routes both accessible and pronounceable. Peyron gave a sketch which shows a mere nine routes on this 3 km long cliff, 600 m in height, but he warns: ‘[Aroudane] has attracted rock gymnasts of various nationalities, with occasional fatal consequences’. Issues of La Montagne show that a score of notable routes of all grades have been added; there’s plenty room yet for new lines. With miles of cliffs and gorges beyond Taghia or down to Tamga and scores of other rivers, the climbing possibilities are endless. There’s more rock thereabouts than in the whole of the UK. Aroudane looms over a deep glen to the north, the Aqqa n’ Illissi runs up to a tizi of that name and over to a devious piste from the outside world, Aït Mhammed, and Azilal. West of Aroudane, eye-catching Jbel Azurki is also flanked by this piste, a branch of which skirts Azurki for a pass into the upper Bou Guemez valley. After the Tizi n’ Illissi we hoped to outflank Azurki on the other side but it had looked snowbound when seen from the Tizi Hammadin a few days earlier.
Our walk up to the Tizi n’ Illissi was a delight in the cool of a 0615 start (Moha had brought in hot bread at 0545) and I’d learnt some of the quirks of the track on other visits so we didn’t waste time and effort straying. A finger pinnacle fore-fronted the distant view of Azella and the Tafraoute peaks we had to bypass. Where the valley grew steeper, we stopped for a snack below a huge, spreading juniper, then flanked up to a watered alp hidden away behind a spur. A snarling dog got a surprise when I scored a direct hit on its ribs with a stone—so, I may say, did I. There was no sign of the mules so we took a lazy route up to the tizi through slopes of boxwood. The white fin of Azurki suddenly surfed over the horizon. The piste drops to Oussamsouk, a small Tuesday souk, where the drainage from both flanks of Azurki, and several gorges and hidden valleys to the south, all converge. By cutting across we could drop into the first of these valleys to camp on a grassy sward, a site we’d christened Azurki View. The traverse path had helpfully cleared of snow in the last day or two. From there we’d see if the Tizi Yllaz (Azurki bypass) was practical. We ate bread and sardines waiting for the others. We could see back to Laqroun and beyond, a satisfying retrospective. It wasn’t long before the mules came; we’d only been given a two hour start!
I showed Ali the rising traverse line off from the piste and we let them go on to give some scale to the scene. Azurki put a cloud scarf over her head for the camera. Jbel Azurki is perhaps best known as a ski-mountaineering challenge, as the northern slopes catch and hold the snow, an impressive sight from far on the Demnate—Azilal road. The southern slope is a steep, tiered, scree-covered horror. The source pools beside the camp were full of toads’ spawn so Ali built a small dam on the stream beside the tents and had the water spouting from a cut-down Sidi Harazem bottle. Our big tent was invaded by flies and almost as many choughs seemed to argue their way through before rain drove us inside. Our supper of potatoes, onions, green peppers with beef slices (tinned) and a cheese sauce wasn’t so bad for a night using up leftovers. Later the weather cleared up so there was a slither of moon, as if a fingernail had pressed on the black membrane of sky and let through a golden glow from whatever lit beyond. A big moon simply quenches the stars but, at new moon periods, the sky throbs with stars like a pulse.
Chancing that the Tizi Yllaz would be passable, we allowed ourselves a side trip and ambled off for the top of Aroudane next day. We rose steadily under a rock bulge, Waousramt, and met another path higher up where there was a large and very soggy sort of plateau on the 3000 m mark. We swung up to follow the west ridge, dodging as much of the snow as possible, enjoying the odd sharp limestone edges. After a false summit, we found ourselves on top at 3358 m. Ali, who had given us an hour’s start, was snoozing when we arrived. The map and Peyron indicated we were on the summit but Charles insisted we went along to another bump in case it was higher. The altimeter gave the same height! I was content to be the coo’s tail, dawdling behind, as I wanted to study what we could see especially as clouds were rolling in.
Jbel Ouaougoulzat (gargling helps with pronunciation) at 3763 m to the southwest is the eye-catcher from there, a succession of snowy summits with gashed drops inbetween. From a camp by the Lac Izoughar, a small group of us from the Eagle Ski Club had made a ski ascent in similar conditions, except there was water in the lake to act as a reflecting pool for Azurki. South from Aroudane lay rolling shaly domes and the great aqqas of the Taghia area. Beyond them lay another long crest of snowy domes ‘of some of the loneliest and driest high altitude desert in the country’ (Peyron) which we later explored on autumn trips at the time the nomads were loading-up and heading south to winter quarters. A southern bypass on GTAM would have to have found a way through that mountain maze. Looking ahead, the Tarkeddid crest was smothered in snow and M’Goun looked more Antarctic than Atlas—a no-go area for certain, but one we had really wanted for GTAM. It was a strange world, layered worlds within worlds really, with life in the valleys, seasonal flocks on the plateaux, and a few peaks like Azurki or Aroudane lording over all. The scale still shocked with its magnitude.
Azurki is grazed by the Aït Atta, a long way from their southern home of the Jbel Sarhro range. Tradition has it that Sidi Said Ahancal called on Dada Atta to help quell his neighbours. They took as reward the right to summer grazing on the hills. John Willison and Clare Wardle went around the south side of Aroudane on their traverse and were astonished to find so many flocks. One child sitting on a mule (facing the tail!) led about 400 beasts, all purposefully heading for the heights. Once the Bou Guemez is reached this plateaux country ends, as does the traditional transhumance lifestyle.
Ali was saying the mules were low on food which riled Charles and me for we had emphasised we should take a good supply. He suggested a raid down on the Oussamsouk souk the next day, so we gave him a shopping list of human requirements as well. The weather was still playing up and we were in and out the tents with Azurki clouding over steadily. In the middle of the night, Hosain began a loud inter-tent conversation with Ali (whose tent was about 50 metres off) and I stuck my head out to see if the mules were involved. They were quietly grazing, tethered to our ice axes hammered in the full length of their shafts, a use I’m sure the manufacturers never envisaged. Hosain had heard a rummaging under the pile of panniers, which lay covered by plastic sheeting just outside the mess tent. Vehicle lights on the flank of Azurki looked strange, but top evening entertainment was some rummaging of our own to catch a mouse discovered in the kitchen case. I eventually caught the terrified creature by the tail and whizzed it out the door. If the mouse had hitched a ride from Agoudim it faced a long walk home. A jackal sang me back to sleep.
A rather bored sunrise greeted us, but Ali was off at first light and we weren’t long in leaving either, traversing west with some (dry) obstacle watercourses to cross before joining the Tizi Yllaz track from Oussamsouk. At the valley head, the snows had blotted out the voie normal track up to the tizi. This was obviously a regular annoyance, as there was an alternative track zigzagging up on the snowless eastern side—quite a relief after days of worrying if we’d get through. The tizi was cold and windswept but the view of the strung-out wave crests of Ouaougoulzat and mighty M’Goun were as astonishing as ever. The crest of Ayachi ran away over the horizon. We wandered about but there was no water in the immediate area. Charles stayed to keep an eye on the tizi while I ran down the dusty valley eastwards hoping for a source seeing there were so many azibs visible. Eventually I found a proliferation of small gorges running with water and sending the melt, as it mostly was, down into a deep aqqa, with Aroudane rising proud behind. Of course I’d left cameras with Charles and by the time I’d rejoined him the weather had changed its mind about being friendly. We ate, then saw the mules charging up not far below. “Hirrah! Hirrah!” we shouted, urging them on. They always seem to go at slopes hard, which certainly wouldn’t suit us. The mules had ample food which was what mattered. And no doubt our companions had had a sociable souk visit.
We followed my prints back to the streams and carved out individual tent sites on a ledge above a gorge. The horizontal banding had shattered into thin slabs, which we used to pave tent entrances (an anti-dust measure) and even make troughs for Taza and Tamri while every guy line was fixed round a stone. A good wash removed the dust of our labours. After a brew we each wandered off. Charles, the summit ticker, headed for the nearest peak (Ifrilzene, 3171 m), one of the nearer and bigger of the swelling bumps of this vast plateau country). Ali and Hosain took the mules to graze a wet grass patch on a higher level. After seeing a whole lot of fake carvings (modern, mostly footprint outlines), I was eventually rewarded with one faint, decorated prehistoric disc which looked genuine. I then went a long traverse in and out the gorges, each better than the previous for sites and water. I explored a long leak line, came back up the gorge to camp and made the tent ten seconds ahead of a storm of rain. The north was black, with trailing showers.
‘What a season!’ I complained to my log. ‘The flowers here are at the stage of Iblane and that was a month ago... A simple tagine, tea and biscuits our meagre repast while the rain drummed on the tent at our ears. Shorelarks and wheatears the only sign of life. Retire early.’Thinking out the next bit of storyline to my book was always a sure way of sending myself to sleep.
Despite the spitting grey clouds of dawn we decided to give Azurki a go, arranging to meet up with the others over the pass by Lac Izoughar which, despite the wet, was brown and dried out like an overdone pancake. We wended back to the Tizi Yllaz and then along and over tedious rises to reach the steeper slopes above. A ridge led straight up which improved with height but was abominably loose and held bottomless sugar where snow-covered. Eventually, scrambling from one ledge to the next, we came up under the ledge carrying the corniced ridge. This ran off for miles to the west, and down for a long way to the east. Charles started to kick steps up while I tried ascending with the initial help of a ramp. However, this led to a vertical wall of snow and I wasn’t tackling that without some protection so, when Charles backed off his line, I went up to have a look and battered on to gain the crest. I realised at once that that was far as I was going. The miles of ridge were edged with a curving wafer of fantasy cornice and the north side was hard snow, requiring crampons. Sans rope, sans crampons it was sans hope but at least we’d made what could be called the East Top at 3640 m.
Shelley called mountains ‘the naked countenance of earth’, and they don’t come much barer than Azurki, sacred summit though the peak may be. Even colours were stripped away that morning to leave the world white, black and grey. We retreated carefully. The local legend has Azurki as the chosen spot for the burial of the Prophet Mohammed. When the camel bearing the body arrived, however, the poor beast was frightened away by the din coming from harvest eve at the Bou Guemez, where the fields were noisy with everyone scaring off the birds. So, to the local loss, the camel headed back to Arabia.
We followed a ledge east below the cornice, lunched, and then descended snow, scree and other rubbish. We even sat and slid to try and hasten the descent, frightening a big brown hare. We floundered in soft snow over to the summer col, traversed to springs and began the long, gentle-angled descent to the wide valley, almost a plain, which ended in the Lac Izoughar (Izourar), a seasonal lake dependent upon rain and snowmelt.
Nearing the lac I was a bit disconcerted to see its size. I felt like an ant which had made Wembley a rendezvous. A blue dot in quite the wrong direction gave a moment of dismay until a look through the telephoto lens showed plastic on an azib roof. I printed steps over a smaller dry lac and climbed up to a refuge, a well-designed and sturdy building which had appeared since our last visit. However, the place was a wreck inside and, with no sign of water in the immediate area, seemed a bit of a white elephant. I began to wonder where our party had vanished to. Over by some azibs to the south, where a broad valley ran up to the chantilly of Ouaougoulzat, I could see a mule and figures. I lit a prickly bush to send up a smoke signal—and was replied to at once.
Charles arrived wearily and suffering from a headache (more usually an Ali complaint) and we had to hurry to pitch the tents while still dry. A sneaky wind puffed dust over everything, dust which was 50 % soil and 50 % dry goat-shit. We had one of the less-liked camps: in or by azibs seldom satisfy for many reasons. Once or twice we’ve been desperate to get into an azib out of a storm but, if itching to get in, we’ve usually been scratching to get out. The rain eased later so I had a look behind our row of azibs and found a track that led up to a spur from which there was a view—and a track—down into the Bou Guemez, a major pause with known comforts. By the time we were eating apricots and custard (sprinkled with wind-borne additives) the wind was blowing hard and did so all night. Dust seeped in and swished over the tents like brown snow.
We had realised that Ighil M’Goun (4068m) was not going to be possible this time but I’d been up it more than once, the last time with Charles, so Ali was the one who would miss out. In 1972 when I’d my VW Camper in Morocco, a gang of us tried to drive in to the Bou Guemez. The road was in such a horrendous state, however, that I gave up after bouncing over bare limestone pavement to Tamda, an abandoned French outpost. The road beyond was snow-blocked anyway.
Alistair and I were in the middle of a world-roaming sabbatical and lacked the Munrobagging spirit of Eric Roberts who was set on M’Goun as the only 4000 m summit he’d not bagged in the Atlas. So Eric and Donald Mill set off for M’Goun and I was delegated to be at Skoura on the south side to pick them up several days later. They ran into foul snowstorms and, after three nights, still had formidable M’Goun to cross and 50 km of unknown tracks to find the van, passports and flight home. The traverse was covered with deep snow and the winds were the coldest which either had ever faced; they were thankful to escape to the south. Darkness ended their twenty-hour traverse, with the scale of the walking out only dawning on them. No map names seemed to mean anything and there was still 45 km to Skoura and the tarmac. A mule lift took off a few kilometres next morning and, over a meal in a house, they heard that a blue vehicle had been enquiring for two people the night before but had “gone back to Skoura”. They set off for a weary walk and, round the first bend, found Alistair and me picnicking by the Camper. They caught their flight. Only later it was noted that was the first British crossing of M’Goun: in 1972! Sadly Eric was to be killed in an avalanche on Annapurna and Donald was drowned trying to cross a Highland burn in spate one Hogmanay. Just as well the gates of M’Goun were closed to us on GTAM perhaps. The ascent is long and tedious rather than technical, but the weather is always dodgy and nobody makes the summit easily.
It was much easier recalling memories than rising from our snug beds. Everything inside the tent was filmed with dust. Dust grated between my teeth and clung inside ears and nostrils. Tea and muesli sufficed for breakfast. All we wanted was to be away from the disgusting dust. Two mules crossing the dry lac provided a scale to the scene. I sat up on the ridge waiting for Charles, firing a bush to keep warm and was amazed to find optimists carving out fields. Once down steep zigzags and refreshed by a thorough wash in a seguia, we followed the south side of the Bou Guemez valley. Every village seemed to be rebuilding the older, attractive buildings (in the process of crumbling to dust), with neat stonework. This cannot be regretted, and is simply the same thing that happens everywhere. In Scotland the old thatched blackhouses of the Highlands have been replaced by an aesthetically unpleasing mishmash. For a decade in Ireland the best-selling book was The Bungalow Builders’ Guide. At least what goes up now in Morocco, urban as well as rural, still has a style and suitability. The Bou Guemez is somewhat regarded as the Shangri La of the Atlas and is certainly a beautiful and productive vale with attractive villages. Conditions can be harsh in winter, however, hidden away in the mountains and often cut off from all outside contact. The valley is unique in being long and wide rather than the usual narrow strait.
Spring had caught up on us at last. We sat for a nibble by some scented thuyas to watch a field being ploughed below. The whole valley was covered in what looked like carpets in all shades of green, a patchwork of neat fields. Potatoes were being planted. Sadly, the standard greeting from kids was “Donnez moi un stilo” without even a “Bon jour”. Teachers and/or parents do the kids no service teaching them to beg, nor tourists in giving stilos, dirhams, bonbons, or fennig. The latter puzzled as it sounded pfannig and one wondered at a partiality to minor German financing but fennig is just the local word for cadeaux. Here it seems the first verb learned in schools is donner, to give. Pestered with donnez-moi demands I’ve occasionally asked “Pourquoi?” only to receive blank looks. Turning the tables and begging off them can be rewardingly disconcerting to the little beggars. As the Bou Guemez follows Toubkal as the most popular trekking area in the Atlas I’m surprised it remains so unspoilt.
Above the village of Ifrane the piste from Aït Mhammed gains the valley floor but it is quite possible to walk field paths and riversides without trailing along the hard, hot road. There is plenty of opportunity for straying, but serious errors are unlikely. Several of the villages we passed through had a solitary standard street lamp, powered by a solar panel, often set up in the most incongruous spot. The official gîtes in the valley invariably have solar-powered lighting and probably hot water showers from a gas supply, havens of peace and traditional hospitality often in superb settings. “When I’m old I’ll come here for weeks of pleasant indolence”, I said to Charles, after we’d looked at one gîte and had tea from giggling females, the master being absent.*
We had a last snack below a wood of silvery-barked poplars with an overpowering scent of apple blossom in the air, before cutting over to a traditional tighremt to circle round to Iskattafene (Imelghas). We could see Taza and Tamri at a door and Hosain waving from an arcaded balcony above. We felt as if we were coming home, as this splendid gîte was the home of Mohammed Achari, one of the most experienced guides of the area, and an old friend of ours. When Charles and I made our first visit to the area we drove to Aït Mhammed only to find that the road on past Tamda was blocked by snow. (Now, there is an alternative road winding in to the lower end of the valley, less at the mercy of the weather.) We were assured—at noon—that we could cut across country via Sremt and still reach the Bou Guemez that day. We did as well, but that route is a reasonable two-day walk including a high pass, and we arrived utterly exhausted. Luckily we had a mule to carry our rucksacks. We even rode for short stretches but found being perched on a mule in the dark skidding downhill was more frightening and energy sapping than walking. We seemed to pick up strays too and ended up with about seven people, one mule and one semi-functioning torch. When we debouched onto the valley road (at 2100) the torch beam picked out a brass plaque on the first building. ‘Mohammed Achari. Guide des montagnes’. We must have been tired. We were beyond eating, even Charles.
That assault course into the Bou Guemez was never regretted as we discovered the classic way to approach the valley of valleys. The miles of open plains from the tarmac reveal the reality of time and space. Sremt as an overnight stop is a gem of a place, with diverse towers on hills and riverbanks. The majesty of the mountains is exploded on the walker by the Tizi n-Aït Ourïat, as no other approach can do. M’Goun rises as a long white crest like a seventh breaker curling in on the Atlantic seaboard.
I’ve often been asked how to avoid all contact with the locals in the hills—as if one could! Television and mass tourism (while having their good aspects) must be among the most pernicious destroyers of ethnic cultures in the world. Travel programmes are usually as trite as the rest. The wastefulness of western ways is using up everyone’s world and it’s the only one we have. GTAM gave me a fierce, deep, almost desperate love of the Atlas mountain people. Thank God they have had this last half-century of peace. Even prosperity bears the seeds of destruction, like red poppy warnings among the green corn, as pistes penetrate the furthest glens. I suppose many of the problems arising between tourists and local contacts are due to the limited time and opportunity to create any relationship: the former only has a brief goldfish bowl swim, the latter an instant for their fishing.
A year after GTAM when some of us were back in the Bou Guemez our host, Mohammed Achari, spread a colourful display of carpets and local blankets on the courtyard of his house and said they were for sale if anyone was interested. He had one sale and while Bob was tempted, they couldn’t agree on a price. Two afternoons later we were at Aït Mhammed, having walked out via Sremt, when a car and a Land Rover approached our camp. The latter was the Caïd of the Bou Guemez who wanted to meet me, the former our host who, of course, knew we’d be there. (We had his mules.) While the youthful caïd and I talked I noticed Bob being led over to Mohammed’s car and, a few minutes later, he returned carrying the kelim (carpet) of his desire. “He’d put it in on the off-chance.” Bob apologised and laughed at his own glad surrender. “These people! They’re just bloody marvellous, aren’t they?”
The remainder of the Bou Guemez rest day was hard graft with the hundred and one tasks needed to keep our caravan humping westwards. Mohammed Achari arrived and said his Land Rover would be bringing the ‘Flowers’ gang the following day. One more mule than was first ordered was “no problem” and he confirmed that heading for M’Goun and the Tessaout was out of the question with the deep, unconsolidated snow. Our onward itinerary also had to take into account the coming of Aïd el Kebir, the Sheep Festival when, like Christmas, every family wants to be together at home. While disappointed at not taking in M’Goun we’d simply be deflected to more new country and the thrill of novelty.
M’Goun is a huge east—west whaleback with arid, difficult approaches from the south so is most often approached from the Bou Guemez. The base is the Tessaout/Tarkeddid plateau, snug under the mountain’s northern corries. It is a magical meadow of sources and meandering streams, the banks starred with gentians, but quite a trap. The Oued Tessaout, flowing west, drops into one of the country’s most fearsome gorges, the Wandras. Flowing east, it drops into a big dip and eventually breaks out to the south by more magnificent gorges. From the dip, the Arous gorge slices northwards down to the lower Bou Guemez. Mules find the Arous a bit much as paddling and abseiling are required, and gain the sources plateau by a devious route over the high ridge of Tarkeddid. Between M’Goun and its westward continuation lies the Tizi Oumsoud exit to the south but it can be impassable to mules until the end of June. The great historical pass south is the Tizi n’ Aït Imi which joins the Assif M’Goun to either follow and wade its length through grand gorges or exit over other high passes southwards, trekking routes sans pareille. We once watched sixty mules cross from the M’Goun villages carrying potatoes to a Bou Guemez roadhead, yet a single lorry now carries more over the Tizi n’ Tichka than what a whole caravan crossing the range could carry in the past.
Most people tackle the Wandras Gorge in ascent and there are exposed pitches of up to V. Diff. standard to tackle. John Willison’s account of their descent is worth quoting in full, a case where the bliss of ignorance was somewhat retrospective. Willison had had a bout of serious dysentery from which he bounced back for a long traverse of nearly all M’Goun’s many tops, several over 4000 metres.
‘The concept of walking along a ridge for 40kms is difficult to imagine, but when it narrows to a knife point it is quite spectacular and the view magnificent. We do all the minor summits, believing each to be the best yet, and finally stop on the main top at 4068m. The ridge then snakes round several giant corries, each perfectly scooped out and with towering ‘soldiers’ of rock standing up against the back walls, and descends via another succession of minor summits. We have come to a point where I have neither map nor photocopy, and tiring of this splendid ridge we come down from it early, over extremely steep and difficult scree. The plan is to follow an apparently harmless valley to arrive in Amezri for late evening.
‘Our valley starts with a beautiful green bowling green of a meadow with the amazing sight of hundreds of skydivers [swallows?] whirling around in a great cloud only inches from the ground. The valley suddenly narrows and we follow what has by now become a large stream down through a tiny gorge—the stream quite fills the gorge and we have to jump carefully across boulders. Soon it is some twenty metres high with the torrent becoming stronger. At one point we have to climb round the vertical walls of a pool.
‘All the time the gorge becomes deeper and deeper while the river develops into the most powerful we have come across, carrying along rocks the size of footballs. Every fifty metres or so we are faced with a fresh problem: usually the sheer smooth walls of the gorge close in and we have to choose between some tiny ledges, often wet with spray, and climbing high up the side walls, out of reach of the torrent but totally unprotected. Sometimes there is a third course involving a big and accurate leap to an almost submerged boulder and immediately another leap to the opposite wall. The noise is deafening and we have to communicate by signs as we explore the separate alternatives. Another hour of this very slow but deliciously adventuresome progress and it is nearly dark. We are halted for some twenty minutes by the most testing problem so far, only to be followed instantly by an even more difficult one. We just have to solve it: neither of us could face going back for the best part of a day, besides, many of the waterfalls would be far harder in reverse.
‘This one is the end; the walls are too smooth, sheer and high to be climbed even without sacks, and the waterfall is a drop of some twenty metres. Eventually in the dark I find the equivalent of an inland blow-hole, wide enough to squeeze into and narrow enough to bridge my way down. Partly wet, the first few metres are not too bad, but then it narrows and the sack has to come off and be jammed in the crack above me, thereby removing the faint light I had. Slither on down, and at last a ledge, I grope around some more and find that I am coming out of the roof at the back of a cave, with a soft silt floor, level with the next bit of river. I return for the sack and to guide Clare, and we’ve made it. We sleep there on the silt; lovely and dry, although still with the deafening roar of the waterfall to lull us to sleep.
‘We start relatively late as the bottom of the gorge receives little light. Only ten metres further on we arrive at a long drop which looks well beyond our capabilities, so we climb out high to one side, to follow a wide ledge along the side of the gorge until we find an easy way down. For a kilometre it holds well, although the bottom of the gorge falls away fast and soon we are stranded at the dead end of a ledge with some 300m of sheer rock both above and below. I remove my sack and tentatively traverse on a ledge wondering whether Clare will want to follow and if it does let up whether there will be worse to come. It widens to a terrace once more and I explore further. Sure enough after another 400m it peters out for good. Back to Clare and then return to the start of the day’s walk almost, and to our surprise we find three sheep. How they got here I never shall know; we chase them to see if they know a way out, but they just retrace our steps and then wheel horribly near the edge and gallop back to the start. Suddenly we hear faint shouts from deep across the gorge, and after some methodical searching we spot a tiny Berber waving a stick at us.
‘Ten minutes of wild arm signals later we manage to bring him more or less beneath us; he seems to be pointing to a way down but neither of us can see any possible descent. Finally I lean over the edge as far as I dare. He is motioning us to come straight down where he is; looks absolute madness but we haven’t come up with anything else in four hours. I gingerly dangle a foot over the edge, having removed my sack, and to his cries lower myself further. Just as I feel at my point of no return my foot touches down on a tiny hold and I can breathe again. Another couple of metres of this and it gets marginally better. The Berber has come up to join me and assists Clare; we can now pass the sacks down; still there are stretches of almost vertical slithery loose rock and a good deal of it ends up below as we scrabble down. We will never forget that Berber. Shaking with adrenaline, on to Amezri except we had underestimated the length of the valley and only reach Amezri after six in the evening.’
From Amezri they descended the Tessaout valley by mule, both riding the same beast when not falling off or sending it skittering in terror at their rolls of yellow Karrimat. They kept well north of the main Atlas crest to cross the Tizi n’ Tichka road at Zerqtene (Zerktane) and on through to Setti Fatma, mostly on foot but with some mule lifts and the help of a souk-day lorry.
The ‘Flowers’ contingent arrived late the following afternoon (6th May) via the Oued Lakdar (lower) entry rather than the now seldom-used Tizi n’ Tirghist (upper entry), towards which we’d been tempted to walk to meet them. ‘Flowers’ was just my shorthand for a group who came out every year or two to spend weeks exploring the alpine flora of the Atlas while trekking. We kept returning to particular areas in order to see the seasonal variations, while also exploring new places. Some treasured flower could mean a bum-in-air posture for half an hour before the petals stopped blowing in the wind and the shutter could be clicked. I remember one incident when six flower fanatics were all nose-down, rear-up around a solitary rare orchid found by a field path. A group of wide-eyed children viewed this novel form of worship with wonder and as soon as the group had moved on rushed in and took their places, peering intently, utterly baffled, for they could see nothing of interest at all about the grassy patch.
When we show pictures of daffodil meadows or hillsides blue-acred with hedgehog broom there is almost a feeling of awe in the audience. The Bou Guemez is often, justifiably, called La Vallée Heureux, and this verdant swathe among stony mountains, lit by spring blossom and shining waters, poplar rows, orchid meadows and darting black damselflies, can astonish. Our Flowers gang arrived in a state of suppressed excitement.
David had been head gardener at Branklyn Garden on the outskirts of Perth, a Himalayan garden created by the Rentons between 1922 and 1968 when it was bequested to the National Trust for Scotland, Francis was in charge of the gardens on the Berriedale estate in the far north of Scotland and Charles was from Kendal where he followed another profession but was no less knowledgeable on alpine flora. He and David were to follow up this trip with articles in relevant journals and visits to universities and botanic gardens to study herbarium specimens, generally bewailing the lack of accurate information on the Atlas flora. This professional seriousness was balanced by Lorraine from Perth and Nicola, Irish, but working in Luxembourg. They had all been wandering in the Atlas before and were delighted to be back. You never visit Morocco once.
We had the pleasure of using the house’s hammam, a small cell with a barrel of water brought to near boiling point by an external fire underneath and a tap in the wall for adding cold water to our buckets and basins. Within minutes, the room was billowing steam and every pore in our bodies was at work. Later, we were taken to the main guest room for a superb cous cous supper. Eating by hand can be a messy job and even Moroccans these days tend to use spoons. Old accounts write seksu, seksuksu and other variants. Although instant versions can be bought even in UK supermarkets, the real preparation is a long, skilled task. The vegetables and meat are boiled in a bulbous pot on top of which sits a steamer containing the cous cous, cooking in the aromatic steam. Even the best can be rather bland so a peppery harissa sauce is often available for the bold or the innocent.
Mohammed’s guest room ceiling and upper walls were decorated in bold primary colours and geometrical patterns, the work of an itinerant artist. A cartouche on the end wall bore an invocation to Allah and the date. Above, another hand had drawn lifelike horses. Looking kitsch and out of place were some Fête champêtre prints of eighteenth century court life and a fat stuffed lizard a metre long. Charles, with new, willing ears, recounted our past doings by the hour. I spent as long sorting out gear and food, wondering how gear manages to accumulate, and had a huge bagful to donate to our host and a bigger ungainly parcel for him to deliver to the Hotel Ali storeroom sometime. David managed to get himself locked out although no one noticed for some time and Nicola took her bedding onto the terrace to escape the prime snorer. We had a windy, bangy night, and I hoped the weather wasn’t loosening up for another assault by rain. There’s nothing more depressing than a wet weekly souk.
I woke to a nightingale concerto and rose at six to do my own packing. Ali produced brews and then Mohammed bore in tea, coffee, hot brown bread (loaves almost a metre across), fresh butter and honey. Even David, a strong eater, was satisfied. Mohammed’s hospitable gîte was to be the only three-night stop on the whole journey and, in retrospect, the sites where we repeated nights tended to be recalled with greater affection. While driving the journey forward was important, a part of us constantly desired to linger in such beautiful, natural caravanserai. If others are tempted to stray all or bits of the Atlas, note our experience, and linger over the journey—as one would sip a good malt.
* A decade later, the Bou Guemez had electricity and is reached by a spectacular tarred road.