Ice and Mixed Climbing in Morocco

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Ice and Mixed Climbing in Morocco

Page Type: Article

Activities: Mixed

Page By: Stokesrees

Created/Edited: Aug 26, 2009 / Aug 30, 2009

Object ID: 545592

Hits: 7277

Page Score: 90.09% - 53 Votes

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Ice Climbing and Skiing in the Moroccan Atlas

In summer the Atlas mountains see a procession of British and European hikers enter the high valleys, entranced by the mysterious Berber villages and drawn to the barren hills by their formidable 4000m heights. The terrain is brown, arid and bleak. A crude iron frame tarnishes the broad scene of the Atlas' highest summit. Parties of 10 or more parade into its shadow and descend as swiftly back to Marrakech stopping for cerveza at one of the huts or kasbahs.

In winter heavy storms burry the range in a heavy blanket of snow and forbid all but a few hardy mountaineers from seeing their upper reaches. In January I packed up my gear and a few kilos of food and hiked/skied into the valley surrounded by Ras, Timesguida, Biguinoussene and Toubkal. Crossing frequent piles of avalanche debris and gazing upon the mountain faces around me, I was surprised to see numerous ice gullies and steep coulouirs reaching from valley to summit. These were to be the target of my climbing and I have compiled a video clip to show some of the best areas.

Ultimately, the more amazing discovery was that during three weeks in the region, I did not meet or hear of a single climber entering the range for the purpose of winter climbing on these exceptional, long pillars and gullies of ice. Clearly these lines were either unclimbed or seldom climbed, and it took me many days to even recce access routes (by ski) to the upper ice and faces.

Andrew Stokes-Rees (2009)

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Viewing: 1-19 of 19

Gattsu	Excellent vid!
Voted 10/10	Thanks for sharing. Didn't do anything for my cabinfever tho, just made it worse :p
	Posted Aug 30, 2009 4:00 am

gert

Thanx for sharing

Voted 10/10

".....in summer the Atlas mountains see a procession of British and European hikers...."
did'nt know there is a differnce ;-)
Thank you for sharing this excellent video!

Posted Aug 30, 2009 4:11 am

climbxclimb

Who would have thought...

Voted 10/10

Nice to know that you can do alpine climbing there, I knew of some good rock climbing...Great video!

Posted Aug 30, 2009 5:05 am

missymtngirl

Absolutley Amazing!

Voted 10/10

Your video is awesome!

Posted Aug 30, 2009 6:03 pm

gimpilator

The Atlas

Voted 10/10

Thanks for posting this video. I enjoyed it very much. I spent 3 months living in Essaouira. At one point I passed over the Atlas Mountains and found their beauty striking. What an awesome place to climb!

Posted Aug 31, 2009 12:22 am

km_donovan

Oh wow!

Voted 10/10

I really want to go. That is just an amazing place.

Posted Aug 31, 2009 3:42 pm

stinkycheezman33

very nice video!

Voted 10/10

morocco has always been on my short list, but i think it just became urgent priority! :)
thanks for sharing your awesome experiences.

Posted Sep 2, 2009 8:45 am

Liba Kopeckova

wow...

Voted 10/10

Who would think about going to ice climb and ski to Morocco? I guess you....Amazing!
Great video shootage. Very artistic. Thanks...Liba

Posted Sep 2, 2009 1:15 pm

klwagar

wow

Voted 10/10

I loved the ending.

Posted Sep 5, 2009 7:15 pm

woodsxc

Simply Awesome

Voted 10/10

That was a stellar video. Now I just need to convince my parents that going to Morocco is a good idea... ;) Thanks for posting.

Posted Sep 6, 2009 10:19 am

rickford

Excellent video!

Voted 10/10

Andrew, great job! Few images have inspired me more. Good job on some of those ballsy free solo pitches, too!

Thanks for sharing this.

Posted Sep 6, 2009 5:49 pm


	jvarholak	Re: Excellent video!
	Voted 10/10	Amen Rick..... Great job indeed Andrew. john
		Posted Sep 8, 2009 8:37 pm

paulbalegend

very

Voted 10/10

cool! good climbing, too.

Posted Sep 8, 2009 12:10 pm

tobe945	awesome
Hasn't voted	what a great video, thanks for sharing. i lived in spain for 5 months while studying and and sevilla, which is very close to morrocco. i always thought about visiting to climb but never made my way down there. how is accessibility?
	Posted Sep 16, 2009 1:47 am

suddendescent

Unbelieveable !

Hasn't voted

The position of the Atlas mountains in being near the equator and in being so close to the Sahara leads to certain typical assumptions which you have dared correct with due consideration for the maximum average elevation of the mountains . Although as is my usual dumb habit may I dare to ask if the desert is actually a stone throw away from all that ice ? !

Great article !

Thank god some people are around to describe such parts of the world which otherwise would be unsuspected as such !

It made me think of the unsuspected mountainous scenery to uncover with Google once doing a close up of south west Cyprus...

Posted Sep 18, 2009 2:11 pm

dmiki

Cool shots, nice video