Morocco

Morocco Taghia, Oujdad, west face, A Little Less Con­ versation. In M arch an d A pril o u r team o f G erm an clim bers, accom p an ied by the B ritish couple Sarah and Tony W hitehouse, spent three weeks at Taghia. We were slow to get m oving due to a su rp risin g re tu rn o f w inter, w hich p u t dow n a lot o f snow, even at low er levels. W hen the w eather began to im prove, three o f the team , E rhard Klingner, Peter K ohbach, an d D ieter Ruelker, each well over 60 years old and spo rtin g 8,000m peak experience, repeated som e F6 routes. T he rem aining four o f us G erm ans, M ichael Baensch, T ino K ohbach, Tobias Wolf, an d I, the “young kids” w ho were only h a lf th a t age, forced a new line, gro u n d up, th ro u g h the center o f th e west face o f O ujdad, one o f th e few walls in th e region th a t catches sun d u rin g the day. O u r progress was slow due to the tem perature, only slightly above freezing, an d problem s recharging o u r drill batteries in the village. We placed as few bolts as possible, w hich led to long pitches in order to m inim ize b olt belays. Toward the end o f o u r tim e on the wall, a friendly Por­ tuguese clim ber lent us his drill an d fresh batteries. This allowed us to com plete the route w ith­ o u t m uch h an d -d rillin g , an d we were even able to ad d a few b olts o n som e o f th e longer ru n o u ts. W olf and I b o th red p o in ted all eight pitches o f th e 300m route, w ith m ax im u m diffi­ culties 7c+, 7a o b l. We nam ed th e route A Little Less C onversation after th e Elvis Presley song, as we had a n u m b er o f serious discussions a b o u t w hich line to choose a n d w hat m ight be p o s­ sible in the prevailing conditions. However, people w ho know o u r gro u p will also u n d erstan d a n o th er reason for the nam e. W ith spring encroaching deeper into th e Atlas, we started to tackle som e o f the Taghia clas­ sics. M ost o f these are set in deep canyons, facing n o rth ; clim bing fast was essential to keep w arm and avoid freezing the belayer. We repeated La Z ebta (eight pitches, 7 b+ ), Les Rivieres P u rp u res (11 pitches, 7b+ /7c), Fantasia (11 pitches, 7c), Làxe d u m al (14 pitches, 7c+), Libiti Bito (nine pitches, 7b), an d the first seven pitches o f W idm o (8a+ ). In m y o p in io n Làxe d u m al deserves a special m e n tio n for its varied clim bing and perfect rock— som e

o f the best lim estone I have ever clim bed. T he o th er route I highly reco m m en d is Les Rivieres P urpures, entertaining and sustained clim bing th at is easy to on-sight. T he area o f Taghia, w ith walls up to 800m , perfect lim estone, friendly people, an d wild am bience, is a treasure. T here is still m u ch potential; only the m ain gorges rising from th e vil­ lage o f Taghia have been developed. T he su rro u n d in g valleys hold stacks o f unclim bed rock for the next generation. It will n o t be o u r last visit. R u e d ig e r H

e l l in g ,

Germany