Travel Travails and Epic Limestone in the Taghia Gorge, Morocco

April 7, 2007; Marrakech: chaos welcomed me in the blinding sun outside the airport. Moroccans shoved past each other. Heatedly, they shouted, “La grève, la grève, pas de taxi!”: a taxi strike, hardly ideal for four dirtbag climbers — me, Andy Burr, Jonathan Thesenga, and Brittany Griffith — trying to reach Morocco’s Taghia Gorge, a stunning and isolated limestone oasis in the High Atlas Mountains. The only way around would be with the hard-haggling, “unofficial” taxi drivers.

I hooked up with Andy, our expedition photographer, in Marrakech. The trip had been Jonathan’s idea, and he’d sounded the rallying cry during a meeting at Andy’s house in Salt Lake City that winter. Although I’d not yet met Brittany, I knew she was an ace climber and not wound tightly.

Brittany and Jonathan’s hotel in Marrakech organized a private car for $200 (double the going price), to take us to the High Atlas town of Azilal, where the pavement ends and the mountains begin. Azilal sits about 60 miles from Taghia in a mountain range that spans 1,400 miles across northern Morocco. An area nearly as expansive as the Dolomites (but much drier), the Taghia features similar cirques and towers, most virgin. Climbers, mainly French and Spanish, have come here since the 1970s, adding circa 115 routes from 5.6 to 5.13b on walls ranging from one pitch to 12. With the exception of some of the earliest routes, most lines are bolted (the rock doesn’t offer much natural protection). The bulk of the climbing starts at 5.11, with only about 40 single-pitch climbs. And there is no area-specific guidebook — only hand-drawn topos at the local gîte (refuge).

Once in Azilal, we discovered the taxi strike reached there, too, meaning the 4x4 we’d hoped to rent was not on offer. Enter Mohammed, a local “businessman” and the proprietor of a gîte in Zaouiat, the town nearest Taghia. He’d been recommended by The North Face climbing team, who’d visited in 2006; Mohammed, they said, could mule-pack our gear the seven miles from Zaouiat into the gorge. (The river running through the Taghia makes car access impossible.) Mohammed greeted us warmly at an open-air market in Azilal. A skinny, tanned man with a hawk nose, he looked innocuous enough, like a guy who’d invite you around for tea.

Mohammed convinced Abdullah, our driver from Marrakech, to take us to Zaouiat. Little did we know, neither our city-slicker driver nor his old Peugeot van were up for desert driving. As one of the few French speakers in the region, Mohammed, we’d learn, had a sweet scam going, convincing tourists of his good intentions while simultaneously emptying their wallets. He’d likely set us up with Abdullah to pocket a deal-brokering commission, fully knowing the whole thing could go to shit. Helpfully, Mo offered to accompany us in the cab.