In March 2013 I skied in the Atlas mountains for the first time (click here to read the trip report). I summited some peaks around the Toubkal hut and skied perfect corn snow. Apparently there is another, more remote, hut from where one can access a number of beautiful couloirs. In February 2014 I visited Refuge Tazaghart in order to ski the best lines Africa has to offer…
Morocco offers several options for skiing. If you’re looking for couloirs however, there is only one place. Refuge Tazaghart is surrounded by many narrow corridors, all pretty easily accessible. Couloir ouest de l’Adad was spotted when climbing couloir Occidental on the opposite side of the valley. It looked simply amazing and had to be skied. February 7, 2014, together with Jurriaan Huisman, I decided to give it a go.
Morocco offers several options for skiing. If you’re looking for couloirs however, there is only one place. Refuge Tazaghart is surrounded by many narrow corridors, all pretty easily accessible. One of the better couloirs in the area is Couloir Median which offers two variations. Looker’s right there is a very narrow couloir, nice and steep. I climbed and skied it on February 6, 2014, together with Jurriaan Huisman.
To complete my goal of skiing on all the continents I had to ski in Africa with Morocco being the most obvious place to do so. Skitouring in the High Atlas mountains was therefore automatically on the agenda, but what else had this country in Northern Africa to offer?
Initially I went to Morocco ‘just’ to ski on the African continent. I expected bad snow conditions and relatively boring terrain. As low expectations are always a good thing, it turned out I had great springsnow in the tail end of the season, perfect weather and some interesting terrain. The last day of the trip I skied the couloir from Brèche des Clochetons just opposite the Refuge des Mouflons, a great finish of a great skitrip!
