Panorama Photo

The most celebrated gorges in Morocco are those of Dadès and Todra.
Dadès, also called "la féerique vallèe", is superior as for length and variety. On the other hand, Todra, carved among red walls well appreciated by rock climbers, is by far more spectacular. The very highlight is the "défilé", where nothing more than the riverbed and the tiny road finds place between vertical walls featuring 300 m height. Something similar can be found among the Alps, I think, only in the gorges of Cians and Daluis.
For those who have some spirit of adventure, the asphalted roads of Dadès and Todra continue beyond the Atlas watershed under the form of rough pistes. The latter join on the Atlantic side at the strikingly beautiful place of Agoudal (2350 m).
On the Dadès side, one has 65 km asphalt to Msemrir (2000 m), plus other 65 km piste through the 2920 m high Tizi-n-Ouano. On the Todra side, one has 53 km asphalt, plus 33 km piste though the 2706 m pass that is shown here.
From Agoudal further 30 km of asphalt lead to Imilchil, the most renowned place of the Moroccan Atlas, both for the September "bride moussem" and for its two lakes, Isli and Tislit. However, as for environmental beauty, neither Imilchil nor any other place can compete with the region of Agoudal - "esplanade" in Berber - with its flavour of a high «land's end» site.
The Tizi-n-Tirherhouzine lies 22 km from Agoudal, and the picture shows the upper section of the descent towards the high flats above Todra, where one first finds the villages of Aït Hani and Tamtatouchte - the "terrace of the sun" in Berber.
I had just waken up after a night in a 2 square meters hut on one side of the closed pass café. To fight the cold, I had burnt some bushes dug from below the snow, as Berber shepherds routinely do. By the way, I did not receive a great benefit from this operation, since the amount of smoke chased me outside the hut more often than not. When, later in the day, I reached the Todra défilé, packed with buses full of Japanese tourists, it was hard to believe that only 50 km separate these so desperately opposite worlds.
Now this photo has a sort of historic value, since in December 2010 I have heard converging rumors that the piste has been asphalted. I was perhaps one of the last bicycle riders who could enjoy the perfect equilibrium between the rough piste and the naked stony flanks of the mountains all around.