Feedback on current state of some of Chris Scott's routes - MA 1,2,3,4,5

[itchyfeet38]

Also posted in Morocco Piste Conditions.

We traveled in Feb/March 2014 in a Defender 110.

MA1 - Tiserkine Gorge was lovely. It was tricky to find the track along the oued in Afella at km 52. Just very faint tracks in the oued and we kept losing it. Just go on direction. Some road building going on in the area around the engravings. We planned to go south on MA1 and then back north on MA2 turning at km 89. As it turned out MA1 would have been a much better place to camp due to road building on MA2 (see below).

MA2- We started at km 17 having come down MA1. We had hoped to camp around km 26 as per Chris's suggestion but there is a big new road passing through the valley. It is up high and even if you can get off the road to the argan trees you would be completely visible. The road goes past Igmir and climbs up out of the valley.

MA3- The piste off the main road at the start is now tar and this continues for the first 8-10 km. This makes the directions at the start of the route a little redundant - no more crossing in and out of oueds etc. Tagahirt seems to mow be a lot bigger. We also couldn't find the turn to the engravings.

There is a lot of work going on on the R109 they are building three big new bridges.

The track through the gorge is the bed of the oued. I don't know if the stones have compacted with use but it was a good and fairly smooth driving surface. We were also expecting the track to be a lot narrower than it was. We passed a few small trucks coming the other way. The climb out is indeed steep! Once up on the plateau there is a big wide new road with the odd quarrying truck barreling by at 80kmph.

The steep loose descent into Aouklid is also no longer. Actually I think it is still there as a turn off from the road but there is a brand new wide graded road which switchbacks down the other side of the drop. It is still a stunning descent. I have a great little video if I can ever work out how to post it.

When you approach Tamegroute the road to the left is a kind of bypass around the village. Right if you want to visit the shop.

We took a wrong turn after Afella. There was a sign right to Tafroute which we took which took us back via Ait Mansour.

MA4 - a nice drive but if you are doing in reverse remember to carry on along the N12 until the waypoint Chris gives. If you take the earlier turn to Taghhjit you can't get through.

MA5 - we started from Tafraoute. At km 30 don't bother turning SE onto the piste. it is now just 100m of very rough track that joins the new tar road. The tar doesn't last long and the road down through the gorge was lovely. We camped at Amtoudi along with half the population of France, and "enjoyed"an evening of accordion playing and dog howling. There is a very nice place to stay at the other end of town which I wish we'd found. You can also eat there if you give some notice.