I wasn’t sure what to expect from my first technical canyon in the Tafraout area of Morocco’s Anti-Atlas Mountains. There is a short French canyoneering book here, a guide company, but it’s not something I’d heard of before about Morocco… The hand written topo from my guide looked cool though, with many obstacles so I said yes for Ifelou Ihedan (V4 A3 II, 60m). I was so pleasantly surprised by a real, natural, featured, novel canyoning experience that was full value despite it being short and communication challenges.
Getting There
I meet Ahmed at Anti-Atlas Adventures at 9am and after some brief communication (it’s primarily French or Arabic in Morocco) we spent some time grabbing gear and went out with 3 ropes. The other guide took some people out climbing in their SUV so I drove us North, dropping into a cloud filled valley at 2,500 ft before going West and up and up and up, eventually rising to 5,400 ft above the valleys below. This might not sound like much, but Morocco does a lot of landscape with a little elevation. Tan fortress walls of Berber villages spotting a rising terraced green valley with a backdrop of orange-brown mountains rising higher still to 8,000 ft.
Approach
After an hour of driving we reach the parking area off a bend in the road. We put on our canyoneering shoes and head up and left on rocky terrain until we reach a stream (our canyon).
We cross this a couple times and then pull a two move climb on great hands to continue up. It is flat for a bit as we hike on the climber’s right side heading towards a noticeable notch on the right which we scramble up on moist, but solid rock.
We bypass a pool and again hike up on the right by a small stream before looping back left to the canyon head. The approach made the canyon look okay, but not too interesting. However, I found it had a lot of water in it, a lot of featuring and was very cool.
Descent
We are in flowing water for the rest of the day, wearing wetsuits in very cold water that often requires swimming. We rig a couple featured rappels through sculpted rock. One going underneath and through an arch. I blow showing I can properly rig a to-lower block on a figure-8 and how to add friction to one on rappel. Definitely loosing some credibility. 😀
After this we have a couple short slides. There is 1-2 bolts at each of these stations and the hardware looks good. I get warmed up on some small jumps (I don’t typically jump) and then we hit the pipe.
The 90 ft rappel drops over a waterfall spout and spits out a hole / pipe into a small pool with a waterfall at its lip. I couldn’t see what I was rappelling into from the top but I assumed it was the pipe to finish. The pictures of this canyon show this with no-flow but it has some heft at medium flow after the rains a few days ago.
I wish I had worn some gloves or could add better friction, but its full send. Ahmed already went down first and I throw the bag. I am new to flowing water canyons and the footing is only a little slippery, but the waterfall hitting me makes me lose my balence a little. I rappel quickly through the pipe and drop into the pool. I see the waterfall in front of me and am unable to get through with footing or hands. I allow myself to recirculate back behind it and plan again. I try to shoot through the waterfall and swim, but my bag slows me down and feel like I’m thrashing in low density water. I feel like I’m a baby splashing around going nowhere despite trying to force it, but not lurching otherwise I will tumble over the next rappel. Anything I grab at or press my feet against is smooth. I start breathing in some water after spending some time in the waterfall. Eventually, Ahmed gives me a hand over the lip out of the pool at the waterfall spout. I am embarrassed, it looks like a basic flowing canyon obstacle to me despite being a really cool rock feature pipe.
We get back on track and with a 35 ft jump and a beautiful 60 ft rappel along a waterfall.
Then we have several small jumps with swimming through multiple pools.
Finally we reach the big 200 ft rappel to finish things out, Ahmed advises we should bail because the rappel goes through the decent flow waterfall and if I catch my foot in a crack and invert I will drown.
I probably didn’t give him much confidence with how I handled the last waterfall either… I guess this canyon is normally flowing a lot less. He apologies multiple times, but he gains respect from me. A lot of international guides feel pressure to make things happen and he did a risk assessment and decided against it. We scramble up and return shortly back to the car.
Summary
This was a REALLY cool experience. The canyon was short (3 hrs), but it was a party of two and estimated as 6 hrs for a normal group. The canyon didn’t look like much hiking up but had a ton of cool featuring. Rappelling through an arch and a pipe (despite owning me a little) are definitely unique features. I saw 10x more water in these three hours than in the last five days in Morocco. So it hits all the boxes: adventurous enough to provide excitement, a unique route, a beautiful setting and authentic canyoning!
