Mountaineering guide to the High Atlas, Morocco - North Africa

• Location
• Description
• Contents
• Introduction
• Sample Route
• Reviews
• Further Reading

Preface

The term ‘mountaineering’ can conjure up many things to different people – roped climbing; exploration; technically easy but remote peaks; lack of reliable mapping; different cultures; mixed snow and rock routes; 4000m summits; and pack-animal support, as might be used on an expedition in the Greater Ranges. The Moroccan High Atlas has all of these.

In spite of increasingly easy access from Europe, this is a mountain range with rarely traversed ridges which can take days to complete, countless winter gullies with never a footprint recorded, and valleys where you may be the only visitor. Whatever your concept of mountaineering, and whatever massif you visit, you can be sure that the High Atlas will offer you a variety of scenery, culture and terrain that is unmatched anywhere – and all within a few hours’ flight time from Europe.

Many commercial trekking parties visit the two popular massifs (Jbel Toubkal and Ighil Mgoun) in the spring and autumn. However, in winter the peaks in these regions are transformed into worthy mountaineering objectives. In addition, many of the intervening ridges between the high summits are rarely traversed – in any season. This is not so much because of their technical difficulty, but because of lack of information about access, the unavailability of adequate maps, the remoteness of the areas and the lack of (English-language) guidebooks covering the entire range.

The 50 routes in this guidebook cover all the 4000m peaks in the range, as well as a number of prominent peaks (30 summits). While some readers may wish there were more difficult routes in the book, the selection reflects my abilities, an interest in exploration and a belief that, once in a particular area, readers will themselves pick out routes that will entice them to return. Although all the routes described in the guide can be undertaken in spring and autumn, the majority have been described specifically with a winter ascent in mind, as in my view this is the most rewarding season for mountaineering in the High Atlas.

Mountain guidebooks of any description risk opening up hitherto lonely areas to mass usage and over-development. However, the fact that the routes in this book may entail winter camping, remote access, self-sufficiency and the like are just as likely to turn many away. Those who find themselves, particularly in winter, on ridges and summits described in this guide will deserve to be there.

The guide is aimed at – and will be most useful to – those who have a background of winter walking, climbing and scrambling, and who are looking to expand their horizons in a mountain range brimming with adventure possibilities.

Introduction

The Atlas mountains were described by Pliny, the Roman geographer, as the ‘greatest mountains in all of Africa’. While there may be other contenders for that title, the range certainly offers a huge variety of scenery, culture and terrain to the mountain traveller. There are similarities in some areas to the high Tibetan plains, the South American Andes and even the Scottish glens, but this is a unique range of mountains and a unique mountain people lives within them.

Stretching across Morocco, the Atlas mountains run in an east-north-easterly line into neighbouring Algeria before fading away in Tunisia, and reach their highest altitudes in Morocco. Rising just east of Agadir on the Atlantic coast, they seldom drop below 3000m for most of their time in Morocco and are justifiably called the High Atlas.

Depending on what is judged to be a separate mountain rather than a subsidiary top, there are at least seven mountains that reach over 4000m. The highest of these is Jbel Toubkal at 4167m (jbel = mountain). All of the 4000m peaks are in the Toubkal region apart from one – Ighil Mgoun (4068m), which is situated in a vast tract of upland east of the Tizi n-Tichka (tizi = pass).

Looking at a map of Morocco, you will notice a few other subsidiary ranges. The Anti-Atlas run parallel to the south of the High Atlas, as do the Jbel Sahro further east. The Middle Atlas run in a more north-north-easterly line, and although they sometimes reach over 3000m and are snow covered in winter, they never attain the grandeur of the High Atlas.

Although the High Atlas is predominantly Jurassic limestone, there are significant interruptions at the western end of the range, with volcanic andesites and rhyolites, particularly in the Toubkal region. These weathered volcanic rocks are very fractured and bedded together as loose masses. The visual result in the Toubkal massif is of jagged peaks and steep-sided valleys, with mostly grey masses of scree evident in the summer and early autumn when free of snow cover.

Small ancient glaciers may have existed in the higher cwms, but on the whole this is an unglaciated region. In fact, there are no glaciers in all of North Africa.

Moving east of the Tizi n-Tichka, rivers have cut down through the soft Permian-Triassic rock to produce deep gorges. Together with huge escarpments, terraced cliffs and flat-topped summits, they are typical of the region, particularly in the Ighil Mgoun and Jbel Maasker areas. Close observations on the summit ridge of Ighil Mgoun reveal many small sea-shell fossils.