Tafraout Granite

Nestled on the south side of Morocco’s Anti-Atlas mountains, the oasis town of Tafraout is one of the hidden gems of the climbing world, and for the adventurous traveller it promises a unique and memorable experience, far removed from the popular holiday haunts of the Mediterranean. The traditional climbing on the quartzite cliffs of nearby Jebel el Kest and Jebel Taskra has rocketed into public awareness in recent years, with ever-increasing numbers of visitors coming to enjoy the remote, adventurous climbing that the high mountain crags here have to offer. Few of them, however, look to the south, where an incredible landscape of granite tors creates one of Morocco’s natural treasures; a place of rugged and intense beauty, painted orange and pink by the burning glow of the Mahgreb sunshine. This is the Tafraout back-country, and for climbers looking for something a little bit different it's a paradise of granite slab and crack climbing, as well as brilliant, bizarre esoterica. Known to the locals as Awmrkt, the relatively small area described by this guidebook lies in a triangle to the south of Tafraout, bounded roughly by the R104 (Aday Road) to the west, the R107 (Aguerd Oudad Road) to the east, and the unsurfaced Dou Toulzoukht track to the south. Between these confines, the semi-desert landscape is punctuated by striking outcrops of coarse-grained orange granite; a fascinating maze of wadis (dry river beds), valleys, and crags awaiting exploration. For many years, the rock here has had a reputation for being somewhat crumbly. But whilst it is true that the slow-cooled crystalline granite does suffer from relentless thermal exfoliation and a lack of weathering by water, the routes included in this guidebook are on sound rock that is a joy to climb, requiring the kind of full-body, three-dimensional manoeuvres that you’re unlikely to call upon on many other rock types. This, of course, alongside the brilliant friction climbing and full-on jamming for which granite is well known. Tafraout, though, is more than just another winter-sun climbing destination: it is a fascinating cultural journey, brimming with character and overflowing with adventure. The local Berber people are as friendly a race as you could ever hope to meet, and taking the time to savour the hospitality of this amazing town is one of the true pleasures of a Tafraout climbing trip. Thankfully, with so much rock right on the doorstep, doing so is wonderfully easy. Welcome to a climbing holiday like few others. This edition is the first printed guidebook to the granite climbing around Tafraout and aims to provide as much detail as possible about trad, sport, and bouldering opportunities in the region. Information about the climbing here has been notoriously difficult to come by in the past, and as a result it has been impossible to produce a completely definitive guidebook. This latest edition is based largely on the 2012 miniguide as well as the Tafraout area new-route book and extensive ‘in the field’ research during the winter of 2017-18. In some cases, the existence of routes has only been identified by the discovery of pitons or bolts on the crags, and it has not always been possible to ascertain the history of such climbs. Interim names have been given to these routes in order to avoid large numbers of ‘unnamed’ climbs, which make identification frustrating and logging of routes impossible. If you have any information to add, or can fill in any of the gaps then please do contact us at www.climb-tafraout.com