Todra Gorge is all charm!!!! The Gorge itself is about 15 kilometres away from the local "big city" of Tenhir. Or Tinerhir, or, Tinherir... spelling seems to be as variable as cat colours here. Anyway, it sounds like quite a distance away, but it's an amazing road weaving in and out of the skirts of the High Atlas, with incredible views down to a spectacular valley richly populated by the local agricultural endeavours. Palm trees, olive trees, alfalfa, brussel sprouts and all sorts of funky plants give the arid landscape a beautiful contrast, dotted with villages filled with friendly berbers who speak fluent broken English, French, Spanish, Polish, German, Arabic, Berber, and probably a bit of Japanese. Veeeeeeeeeery broken, lost in translation is a most common occurrence here.
We moved out of our first accomodation because the place depended on a diesel generator for electricity, turned on at 5 sharp and going on for however long the people here decided to let it chug away. Rooftop camping to the echoing engine was not our idea of fun. The hotel we have happily settled into, Hotel Panoramique Chez Moha, is brilliant! It has a very nice family feel, a stable with a cow, calf and donkey, cats and kittens, and a very friendly Berber-hippie family running it. They've started to teach me to play the jambe!!!
Talking about friendly locals, this place rushed us into the busiest social life i've ever had! There is not a single day we aren't engaged to go have tea, a Tagine, cous-cous, or have someone try and show us the local workshops, or stables, or plantations, or whatever. Generally at the cost of trying to sell us something we will definitely not be able to carry away with us. It's got to a point where all we can do is rush off in the morning deep into the gorge to escape any commitment and get to do some serious climbing.
As to the climbing here... WOW. There is EVERYTHING you might want or dream of. Fully bolted sports climbs of every grade and type, from single pitch IVs all the way till multipitch 7b+ type things. Trad climbing for all grades as well, I gather, but seeing as I'm not into that type of thing, I'll not presume too much. Ellie and I have had a bit of a rough time with the local weather though. From a raging 25 degrees (which feels more like 35 if you stand still in the sun) at noon down to a -1 at night, this place is a perfect breeding ground for all sorts of horrible fluey type nasties. So we haven't had as much climbing as we had hoped in the first few days, but we're up and at it now with a vengeance!
The rock over here is reaaaaaaally grippy. Rip your fingers, knees and shoes abrasive I mean. But it's our beloved limestone kind, so you get all sorts of features, from tiny one finger pockets, to ledges, jugs, crimps, pinches, eeeeverything. Overhangs, slabs, vertical climbs, it's all on here, with over three kilometres of awesome walls, boulders and cliffs, it's the playground I've dreamed of most of my climbing life.
In the past month, we have felt how my climbing has improved by the constant contact with outdoors goodness, and here in Todra it has payed off with bonuses. Both Ellie and I are climbing harder and higher than we had ever before, putting together the sheer pumpy pull-up technique we started doing when we got outdoors with the fine-tuning bouldering had given our technique. Ellie has gone from having had a couple of 6c's under her belt to cruising up them whenever we come face to face with one, daintily finding tiny pebbles to push her feet from and really annoying me holding on to crimps and pockets my fingers just have no way of even attempting to grab on to.
Today I had a climbing epiphany. Guiding ourselves by the local topo, a hand-made affair with more mistakes and confusing mixups than I imagine you could ever pack onto a sheet of paper, we went off and started up what we thought was a nice juggy overhanging 6b+. The view was magnificent, massive cliffs all around, halfway up the 300 metre gorge, completely isolated and in the shining sun. Off I went leading it, only to be completely stumped by the fourth bolt, the holds were tiny, sharp, and further off one from the other than anything I had tried before. I came back down to let Ellie have a go, maybe little fingers and dainty footwork were the way forward. Apparently that wasn't so, and the rock kicked her off just as it had done with me. We had a closer look at the topo, and concluded that it wasn't a 6b+, it was a 7b+[7a+ sorry] 15 metre climb designed to make you leave your fingers wedged inside the awkward sharp pockets. As I was beginning to consider maybe leaving behind a maillon and leaving it with my tail between me legs, Ellie up and decided to suggest doing that very thing. One thing is deciding to accept defeat yourself, another is to have your girlfriend encourage you to do so. Obviously, I immediately decided I was going to finish the damn thing if it took me the rest of the day, I was not about to leave gear just because we'd misread the silly topo.
So up I went again, heelhooking to the side in a way I'd never known was frogally possible, pulling on all my hardest bouldering tricks, taking advantage of my height, and generally giving it my all. Bolt by bolt I was encouraged up by an incredibly ecstatic chicken on belay, never had I got such enthusiastic cheering. Finally, I got up to the anchor!!!! I had finished my first 7b+!!!! WHOOP!!!! Torn and ragged, Ellie brought me back down, both of us jumping in glee, I had just climbed something one whole grade above what I had thought I could actually do!!!
So tonight is splurging night, we're off to hunt for beer, tagine, and people with proper English to celebrate with!!! Might even have a jambe session to celebrate :P
On a separate note, if you are Agus and Pablo, add us on facebook!!!! look for Ranaz Bautista and Ellie West, we idiotically forgot to get your number/facebook/email.
See you soon, lovely people.
We moved out of our first accomodation because the place depended on a diesel generator for electricity, turned on at 5 sharp and going on for however long the people here decided to let it chug away. Rooftop camping to the echoing engine was not our idea of fun. The hotel we have happily settled into, Hotel Panoramique Chez Moha, is brilliant! It has a very nice family feel, a stable with a cow, calf and donkey, cats and kittens, and a very friendly Berber-hippie family running it. They've started to teach me to play the jambe!!!
Talking about friendly locals, this place rushed us into the busiest social life i've ever had! There is not a single day we aren't engaged to go have tea, a Tagine, cous-cous, or have someone try and show us the local workshops, or stables, or plantations, or whatever. Generally at the cost of trying to sell us something we will definitely not be able to carry away with us. It's got to a point where all we can do is rush off in the morning deep into the gorge to escape any commitment and get to do some serious climbing.
As to the climbing here... WOW. There is EVERYTHING you might want or dream of. Fully bolted sports climbs of every grade and type, from single pitch IVs all the way till multipitch 7b+ type things. Trad climbing for all grades as well, I gather, but seeing as I'm not into that type of thing, I'll not presume too much. Ellie and I have had a bit of a rough time with the local weather though. From a raging 25 degrees (which feels more like 35 if you stand still in the sun) at noon down to a -1 at night, this place is a perfect breeding ground for all sorts of horrible fluey type nasties. So we haven't had as much climbing as we had hoped in the first few days, but we're up and at it now with a vengeance!
The rock over here is reaaaaaaally grippy. Rip your fingers, knees and shoes abrasive I mean. But it's our beloved limestone kind, so you get all sorts of features, from tiny one finger pockets, to ledges, jugs, crimps, pinches, eeeeverything. Overhangs, slabs, vertical climbs, it's all on here, with over three kilometres of awesome walls, boulders and cliffs, it's the playground I've dreamed of most of my climbing life.
In the past month, we have felt how my climbing has improved by the constant contact with outdoors goodness, and here in Todra it has payed off with bonuses. Both Ellie and I are climbing harder and higher than we had ever before, putting together the sheer pumpy pull-up technique we started doing when we got outdoors with the fine-tuning bouldering had given our technique. Ellie has gone from having had a couple of 6c's under her belt to cruising up them whenever we come face to face with one, daintily finding tiny pebbles to push her feet from and really annoying me holding on to crimps and pockets my fingers just have no way of even attempting to grab on to.
Today I had a climbing epiphany. Guiding ourselves by the local topo, a hand-made affair with more mistakes and confusing mixups than I imagine you could ever pack onto a sheet of paper, we went off and started up what we thought was a nice juggy overhanging 6b+. The view was magnificent, massive cliffs all around, halfway up the 300 metre gorge, completely isolated and in the shining sun. Off I went leading it, only to be completely stumped by the fourth bolt, the holds were tiny, sharp, and further off one from the other than anything I had tried before. I came back down to let Ellie have a go, maybe little fingers and dainty footwork were the way forward. Apparently that wasn't so, and the rock kicked her off just as it had done with me. We had a closer look at the topo, and concluded that it wasn't a 6b+, it was a 7b+[7a+ sorry] 15 metre climb designed to make you leave your fingers wedged inside the awkward sharp pockets. As I was beginning to consider maybe leaving behind a maillon and leaving it with my tail between me legs, Ellie up and decided to suggest doing that very thing. One thing is deciding to accept defeat yourself, another is to have your girlfriend encourage you to do so. Obviously, I immediately decided I was going to finish the damn thing if it took me the rest of the day, I was not about to leave gear just because we'd misread the silly topo.
So up I went again, heelhooking to the side in a way I'd never known was frogally possible, pulling on all my hardest bouldering tricks, taking advantage of my height, and generally giving it my all. Bolt by bolt I was encouraged up by an incredibly ecstatic chicken on belay, never had I got such enthusiastic cheering. Finally, I got up to the anchor!!!! I had finished my first 7b+!!!! WHOOP!!!! Torn and ragged, Ellie brought me back down, both of us jumping in glee, I had just climbed something one whole grade above what I had thought I could actually do!!!
So tonight is splurging night, we're off to hunt for beer, tagine, and people with proper English to celebrate with!!! Might even have a jambe session to celebrate :P
On a separate note, if you are Agus and Pablo, add us on facebook!!!! look for Ranaz Bautista and Ellie West, we idiotically forgot to get your number/facebook/email.
See you soon, lovely people.
