After a night with lots of interruptions from barking dogs and crowing roosters, we woke up early. Even before sunrise and started preparing breakfast. Scrambled eggs for the boys. More and more light came and the sun did its best to make it above the mountains. Just after breakfast the sun peeked over the mountain starting to warm up our camp spot. We quickly packed up, as we had a long day ahead. We paid the proprietor Hassan and drove back a few kilometres, across the dam and turned east along the northern banks of the lake. It was a glorious morning, that illuminated the lake wonderfully and let us shoot some nice pictures.

In the town of Ouaouizeght we filled up our cars, because the trip across the mountains with the many thousand meters ascending and descending will certainly consume more diesel and running out of it in the middle of nowhere is not a good idea.
We continued into the mountains. The road was decent and we reached Tilouguite easily. Shortly before entering the village, we were already presented with a spectacular view of what was to come. In front of us rose the “Cathedral of Imsfrane”, a 1868m high mountain, and a historical symbol in the Amazigh culture of Morocco. Called by this name as the mountain carries on it’s top a christian cross. The walls are a couple of hundred meters high.

Beyond the village, we turned off the beaten track/route, as we wanted to see more of this beautiful rock formation. Our new route was a piste, a gravel track through a beautiful pine forest. We started climbing higher and higher and suddenly, we were presented with a completely new stunning view of the cathedral. In front of us the valley was a several hundred meters deep and then this monumental mountain rose from the valley. Just breathtakingly gorgeous. We couldn’t stop taking pictures.
We continued on the track that became narrower, steeper and the drop on the left was deeper than ever before. Pine forest all around. Several more view points came and we stopped to take even more pictures.

Eeyore was struggling with the steep inclines, the heavily loaded vehicle and the thinner air to breath. In lower gears we eventually managed to conquer every steep incline along the entire route.
We joined the original route again and crossed a high mountain range via the Tizi N’Tirghist pass. It was past one p.m. and high time for lunch. Pun intended. At the summit at 2,650m we occupied the only space available and got out our stove and a kettle to boil some water for a hot bowl of instant noodles. Although it was quite windy, the water boiled, of course, much more quickly at this altitude. We enjoyed the view while munching on our noodles and some almonds. Trevor mentioned, that this was his most challenging drive ever. I have to agree, it must have been one of mine too.

We passed through a number of villages. The houses looked pretty and well kept. There was clearly some wealth in the area. More than in previous valleys. The valley was full of orchards, in their beautiful autumn colours, mainly growing almonds, apples and olives. The village of Tabant was reached by turning south from the main road. A small Berber village between two streams. Kids were happily waving at us and running after our cars. The men were at work loading a lorry with freshly harvested apples.
We crossed the valley and rapidly climbed another mountain pass with stunning views at just shy of 3,000m.

At about 2,600m, all of a sudden Brahim and I heard a pop in the car. Sort of a small explosion. What was that?? Stopping, to check out the noise, meant loosing momentum and finding a good place was also difficult. The car sounded fine. So, what was that? Brahim and I discussed it for a few minutes before I found the culprit, a bag of crisps that had popped at this high altitude. Riddle solved.
Brahim returned to his WhatsApping with the youth from the Afous Rofous kindergarten to solve their problems and answer their questions. Even deep in the High Atlas, far away from Marrakech, high on a mountain, he did all he could to help. That’s what I call dedication. Thanks to modern technology it was possible, even in the most remote areas.

Often the tarmac gave way to a gravel road to return a while later. At several places the government is fixing or improving the roads. Driving down a mountain pass with several serpentines on gravel is certainly challenging and requires a lot of concentration and driving skills, especially, if the road is just a bit wider than your car and the drop off next to you is steep!

The road surface had improved again and we were climbing and climbing this mountain. 2,400m, 2,600m, 2,800m. This must be it. The famous Tizi n’Ait Hamad, the highest pass in Morocco with 3005m. Indeed we climbed to the summit and man, it was windy up there! Quickly out and take a few pictures before we got blown over the cliffs. What followed were 12 serpentines to descend again into the valley and to the village of Ameskar.

Before we had reached the end of our today’s tour, we had yet another pass to conquer. When we arrived in Boudeghar, we obviously took the more scenic offroad route to our campsite rather than the much longer, less exciting and tarred alternative. Outside the village the track lead us through a valley with beautiful rock formations on both sides. We crossed paths with several European cyclists and were astonished that they had made it across, as the track was doable for 4x4s, but must have been a real challenge for them. It were a dusty 12 kilometres, but a fun 30 minutes. Trevor had gotten his offroad part, he had been looking forward to since Portugal.
We made it to Ait Youl, a small town in the Valley of Dades. One of the touristic magnets here in the area.

As the sun was setting, we set up camp. Charlotte had offered to make pasta with a freshly made sauce. It was very delicious.

The pictures will only give idea of how stunningly beautiful this area is. While preparing for this trip and this route, I had come across pictures of this area. So I had some idea what it looks like but the pictures really don’t do any justice to the real beauty of these mountains. Also Brahim was at awe, a Moroccan who has already seen much more of his country, than an average fellow countryman.
We were also very lucky today to have had such good weather. It would have been a very tricky route with rain or even snow.

For the statistic freaks: Although we only drove 257 challenging kilometres we took just over 9 hours. Our maximum elevation was 3,005m and the lowest was 812m. In total we ascended 7,109m and descended 6,338m.