Central Atlas 2005: Taghia,
Koucer, Assif Melloul
A good source of
information for this trek is Montagnes du Maroc, by Hervé Galley,
Editions Olizane, Genève, Suisse, 2004. ISBN
2-88086-302-3 (in French)
Return to my
mountaineering-trekking webpage
The itinerary of my trek is shown on the map
below. Click here
to get a higher resolution map.
North face of Djebel Aroudane
Azibs (shepherd houses) of Imi s’Tazart at the entrance of Aqqa n’Tazzart (
Views of Aqqa n’Tazzart. It is several hundred meters deep.
The higher portion of Aqqa
n’Tazzart requires technical climbing and ropes, but
an easy smaller canyon leads to the high plateau of Almou
n’Toucht (populated during the spring and summer by
the Aït Atta, a nomadic berber
tribe coming from the Djebel Sahro).
This photo shows the start of the smaller canyon from the plateau. It truly
looks like a sink!
The cirque of Taghia, as
it suddenly appears from the top of the “corkscrew” trail. The two huge canyons are Aqqa
n’Taghia and Aqqa n’Kandate. Like Aqqa n’Tazzart, they are several hundred meters deep and
sometimes very narrow.
(Click on the first two photos below for higher-resolution photos.)
Views of the corkscrew trail.
The corkscrew
Another view of Taghia
cirque, from the opposite side
Aguerd n’Isfoula
(the saddle that separates the Taghia cirque from the
Aqqa n’Tourde). The Koucer plateau lies at the top of the right range in the
background.
Houses below Tourde.
Views of the high Ahancal region above Agoudim. The
Koucer plateau is beyond the top cliff.
Views of the Koucer
plateau… It’s a different world up here, populated by the Aït
Abdi. (Bottom left: the well of Almou
n’Ouhanad, one of the very rare locations where water
is available.)
The
Canyon views between the Koucer
plateau and the Assif Melloul.
The
Views of the
The
The
The lower part of the
The Cathedral, a huge rock formation located where
Assif Melloul flows into Assif Ahancal
