On Monday we decided to start a route in Chris Scott's book Morocco Overland - MH1.
The route is a crossing of the High Atlas which will take around 2 days, in good weather. Its a 300km run, with only 80km of this being on tarmac.. Starting point is Midelt.
Scenery was amazing. Kicked off easily enough, once we were out of town.
The route is a crossing of the High Atlas which will take around 2 days, in good weather. Its a 300km run, with only 80km of this being on tarmac.. Starting point is Midelt.
Scenery was amazing. Kicked off easily enough, once we were out of town.
Simone got a chance to do some driving, and she cruised along nicely navigating the obstacles :)
We left fairly late so didnt have time to get to a campsite on the route. So we stayed at Auberge Oudadn (N32 21.56 W05 11.05).
Nice place, with excellent chicken tajine. Owner is a real nice guy. 250 Dirhams for two, with dinner and breakfast.
Nice place, with excellent chicken tajine. Owner is a real nice guy. 250 Dirhams for two, with dinner and breakfast.
Who would have guessed so much snow in Morocco. Also, we had no idea that the snow would be our eventual 'almost' undoing..
As we progressed along the route, after the town of Agoudal, a shepherd warned us not to go any further as there was too much snow. From where we were it didnt look so bad and thought we'd give it a try anyway. Initially all was well as most of it had melted away so we reckoned we'd continue.
At N31 55.080 W5 39.582 things got messy ... !
You cant really tell from the picture, but the dropoff was very steep. about 350 metres to the bottom. As we crept up we started losing traction and the back of the car started slipping to the edge. Fair to say we both got very worried very quickly.
What made things worse was the section before this was muddy so the tyres were clogged up with mud, and so with reduced tyre pressures there still wasnt much grip.
I think if the dropoff had been a foot or two we would have carried on, digging and using the waffle boards. But we didnt want to risk it. One wrong foot and it could have ended in disaster.
So we slowly reversed down turned around and headed back for Midelt.
On the way back two french land cruisers passed us (80 series and 120 series). Wonder if they made it over?
At N31 55.080 W5 39.582 things got messy ... !
You cant really tell from the picture, but the dropoff was very steep. about 350 metres to the bottom. As we crept up we started losing traction and the back of the car started slipping to the edge. Fair to say we both got very worried very quickly.
What made things worse was the section before this was muddy so the tyres were clogged up with mud, and so with reduced tyre pressures there still wasnt much grip.
I think if the dropoff had been a foot or two we would have carried on, digging and using the waffle boards. But we didnt want to risk it. One wrong foot and it could have ended in disaster.
So we slowly reversed down turned around and headed back for Midelt.
On the way back two french land cruisers passed us (80 series and 120 series). Wonder if they made it over?