• Nick looking the part at Tafraout's painted boulders (photo Tom Reader)

  • Steve enjoying the climbing banter (photo Tom Reader)

  • Pete, Joe, Chris, Steve, and Nick enjoying a late dinner back in Tafraout after a long day at the crag (photo Tom Reader)

  • Joe explaining something to his customer's (photo Tom Reader)

  • Pete, Steve, Nick, Chris, and Joe outside Tafraout's famous antiquities shop (photo Tom Reader)

  • Just like this "ship of the desert" we 'set sail' back home to the UK from Tafraout

  • Steve on the penultimate pitch of Moroccan Gold on Lower Eagle Crag

  • Nick on the awesome Dragon Rock (photo Lydia)

  • Pete, Julian, Nick, Steve, and Lydia - we'd met Julian and Lydia in Tafraout and they'd joined us for the day climbing, walking, and photographing and Dragon Rock

  • Nick and Pete either side of Mobarack, the manager of what became our favourite Tafraout restaurant

  • Steve and Nick at the car at the end of another long and fun climbing day in the Moroccan Anti-Atlas mountains

  • Joe tackling the desperate overhang Missing Link at Dragon Rock

  • Pete and Nick belaying Palm Tree Gorge (photo Joe)

  • Another amazing sunset of the Moroccan Anti-Atlas mountains (photo Joe)

Moroccan Rock

I’ve just got home from an amazing rock climbing trip to the Moroccan Anti-Atlas mountains. I was last here fully ten years ago, and again I was based out of Tafraout…

Our gang of climbers was loosely myself and Steve and Nick and Joe. However, Joe’s first four days were spent teaching climbing to a small gang of relatively newbie climbers. But that didn’t stop Steve and I making the most of the amazing rock on offer!

That said, our trip got off to a bad start! Due to a miscommunication between Steve and I about flight times we managed to miss our flight from Manchester to Agadir!!! We did manage to book a replacement flight at great expense, but our trip was now reduced from fourteen days to twelve…

Pete, Steve, Nick, Chris, and Joe outside Tafraout’s famous antiquities shop

The climbing was awesome, and the weather was even better!

On one of our days we were joined by two fun people we randomly met in Tafraout – Julian (from France) and Lydia (from Germany).

Lydia isn’t a climber, but she enjoyed a day taking photographs and walking near our climbing venue – Dragon Rock. It turned out she had a great eye for a great photo!

Julian had a big day out with Nick. I wonder if it was what he’d expected after simply seeing me in Tafraout, thinking I looked like a climber, and coming over and asking if there was any chance of joining in as he was climbing partnerless!

We had some very long days out. Not least because being based in Tafraout and climbing on the north side of the range required over an hour’s drive each way.

Well, it was great in Morocco and I can’t wait to go back! Especially as I’ve come home to awful wet Lakeland weather and a world in apparent chaos and closing all it’s doors due to the global pandemic of corona virus!!! Oh, how I wish I was in the sunshine climbing marvellous quartzite rock again…

Just like this “ship of the desert” we ‘set sail’ back home to the UK from Tafraout

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