we found a source, the mules caught up, tents blossomed and we dined with the scent of genistas in the air.
On the track up for Laqroun
We continued up the gorge then angled off up a long ridge, snow-edged, for Ouzoua (Ouzwa)-n-Igader (3093m) on the south side of our glen, looking across to the sprawl of Laqroun. The limestone meant good flowers. We hit the crest and undulated along to the highest point of a rewarding summit. The north-east corrie was a jam roll of layered strata, and we looked right into the big cirque of Mouriq, also on the ‘shopping list’ after our 1995 walk through. The descent to the Tizi n’ Wangargi (2650m) wasn’t straightforward, with barring crags and snow gullies. (From Laqroun it was all black and white stripes.) Laqroun thereafter was really just a long plod, keeping to the edge being the most interesting line until rising onto the crest, which gave endless bumps and hollows and a confusion of final bumps for the summit, at 3117m.
Passing traveller
Camp was at c2010m, so feeling the 1000m descent hard work was justified. We simply went on and descended the corrie/valley straight to our overnight site. A relaxing end of the day would have been pleasant, but some of the party who had just ‘bagged’ Laqroun rather than making the circuit were itching to descend to Tamga (1167m) that night – another 3½ hours of descent (Morocco has such depths as well as heights!), and we arrived at dusk after a 13½-hour day. This forced descent was made because some of the party wanted to find a way up the Cathedral. They failed. The saner of us had a delectable day doing very little and resting afterwards. A cathedral, after all, calls for worship.
ROUTE SEVEN
The Cathedral (La Cathédral) / Mastfrane (Aghembo n’ Mastfran) 1872m
| Commitment | An extraordinary find, a day out from a Tamga camp – but the way up not for the faint-hearted; very exposed and decayed aids and narrow ledges. Great ‘Wow!’ factor. |
| Maps | 100: Zawyat Ahancal; 50 Zawyat Ahancal. Latter clearer, but most paths and useful detail absent; but, mapless, you can hardly miss the Cathedral. See Route 6 for route map. |
| Texts | A blank. Only the sketchiest of mentions and, surprisingly, no good pictures in the source books. |
| Travel to start | Goudron, then piste access from the Bin el Ouidane lake to Tamga in the Ahancal valley, or trek from further afield. Tamga, 1167m, means the summit is 700m above. Plan a day-outing – it may be needed. |
| Local assistance | None. |
An imposing, buttressed, well-named rock tower in the grand Ahancal valley, with an unlikely route to its summit.
On the trail near the Cathedra
Many maps still give prominence to the nickname the Cathedral, bestowed on this feature by the French, and it is not a bad description of the massif tower and its buttresses. At 1872m, standing in a valley, it is surrounded by massive mountain features, yet still can stop walkers in their stride to gaze in admiration. Any mountaineer also reacts by thinking, ‘Can I climb it?’
The club party who’d been on Laqroun in 1997 went off to try and came back without having found any chink in its armour, so I was astonished later to read somewhere that goats were grazed on the summit. Not that that was entirely encouraging. I used to think that where goats could go I could follow, but not any more, not after seeing where they climbed to on Atlas crags. However, back at Tamga on the road below in autumn 1999 some of us wandered off to at least circumambulate the Cathedral and, if lucky, see how the goats and, presumably, their owners made their way up to the top.
On the ascent of the Cathedral
We received a shock on returning to where we’d camped previously. The site had been wiped out by a flash flood, leaving a tidemark two metres up the tree trunks, and the road bridge, of substantial iron girders, had been swept away and beached downstream. There are times when nature sends a shiver down the spine.
Four of us paddled across the river and went up to a piste, which we partly used, then bushwhacked for a hot hour on the south flank. (The piste actually zigzagged up and then went off over a shoulder, not to the tower’s tizi.) Nothing worked, so we shifted to the other down-valley side. There were breaks onto lower terraces, but no sign of use. We went right round back to the up-valley side and, tucked in a corner, was a ‘Berber ladder’ of logs and stones ramping up to a steep bit and then onto the start of easy but sensational ledges. After I’d had a recce, two of us went on. And on. The exposure was sensational.
The Cathedral
Caves, goat droppings, one log ladder across a drawbridge gap, another up to a big bay – and then no sign onwards, yet we had to be nearly up. Glancing overhead we looked at the undersides of a log structure attached to the cliff by faith as much as friction. Our path. This led back and soon onto easier ground, with box and oak on a rocky shambles. I built mini-cairns (to knock over on return) to make sure we found the magic doorway in the featureless scrub on the edge. There wasn’t much grazing on the tilted plateau, and we met no goats. We peered over the rim in places (why didn’t we have hang gliders?) and lounged on the top but, having told the other two we’d be gone for an hour, we set off down. The trouble with that sort of descent is that it doesn’t leave much room for imagination – it’s all too visible.
Camping at the bridge over the Bin el Ouidane reservoir’s east end
We split again, two going south, hoping to use the piste, and two of us (and the camp-friendly dog) along the connecting ridge until we found a good path down. Nearing the foot the dog raced over some screes to dive into a seguia. We had a swim beside the marooned bridge; temperatures of 38ºC deserved a splash. And so did another kind of splash to celebrate a very different Atlas experience.
The moonlight on the Cathedral was creepy and I was loathe to go to sleep. I’d just dream about the climb. When I did drop off, another dog went into a barking frenzy outside my tent, each yack echoing off the tower opposite. Unable to stand this two-for-the-price-of-one din I took the discovered remedy and gave the dog a sleeping pill. We both slept well.
My notes are hardly clear and the maps are of limited use, but there’s enough to go on, and part of the fun will be the nosying about and then finding the start. Eureka! – and all that.
ROUTE EIGHT
Mouriq 3242m
| Commitment | Remote enough to need a day or two for a drive in, Mouriq, as described here, is a straightforward ascent. A day to remember guaranteed. |
| Maps | 100: Imilchil; AFC sketch/map. Not a problem if no maps. See Route 6 for route map. |
| Texts | AFC gives good coverage; AF p130 a picture of our ascent line; MP2 covers. |
| Travel to start | 4x4 access as yet. Spectacular way in is from the Bin el Ouidane lake to Tamga and up the canyon to Anergui, then the stiff piste up to a high valley, from which Mouriq is climbed. The quickest but less interesting way in is to continue east from the lake to Taguelft, then south to drop into the Tezgui valley starting spot/camp. With about 860m of ascent from camp allow a day, as we did; too good to hurry. |
| Local assistance | Not relevant. |
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