Western Sahara (and some more) in 17 days
 

Me and 2 friends crossed the Western Sahara inland.
From Bou-Jerif to Smara (around 500 kms), then (for the Western Sahara part of it…) from Smara to Barbas (around 1000 kms) and back north nearer the ocean, refueling near Dakhla, and in Boujdour, Laayoune and Tantan.
2800 kms of off-road riding, except for going in and out of the cities.

2 motorcycles: a 2001 Bmw F650gs (with the Touratech tanks, plus 10 liters in 2 fuel containers), a 1987 Honda Dominator (with a 26 L tank, plus 4 Roto-pax packs), and a Suzuki 800 King Quad (packed with 130 liters of fuel for the Smara / Barbas 1000km route).

What a great trip! Fantastic landscape, wonderful pistes…

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-w...2B23.39.19.png

You can see photos
here

and I am uploading my iphotos here

Fantastic trip!
Bravo!
(It seems the PicassaWeb pictures link is broken, though).

Nice photos, everythings so green since my last trip

Fantastic trip, fantastic pictures! In January I want to try the part between Smara and Bir Anzarane (and then go for Dahkla) I guess you passed it on your way to Barbas. Are there any fuel drums in this area? Thanks for informations!
best regards
Chronist

Nice pictures, and clearly a lot of pretty tricky riding...
Like the quad idea!

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/lF...=w1097-h601-no



We didn't pass by Bir Anzarane. We went down some 60 km east of it, closer to the Berm.


There was nothing there, except for some military when we passed west of Oum Dreyga. A 4x4 chase us for some time and we were escorted to a basic camp. We could see a major military settlement on the horizon, that must have been Oum Dreyga, which we were trying to avoid earlier... They checked our documents, contact their superiors via radio and let us go after some time, when we finished drinking the tea they served us.

The all trip from Smara to Barbas was all about void, emptiness, and vastitude. Very few human contact.



The guy that traveled on the quad did it that way just because he did't have a bike that could make the 1000km leg form Barbas to Smara.
He did the Smara - Barbas route before on a motorcycle (albeit on a different track), but at the time with a 4x4 companion.
He didn't carry any water or fuel for us the riders...

(the track above is on a OpenStreetMaps map)

Dunes
 

Hi 834,

I see some dunes in your photos.

Could you give me some idea of how much of the pistes in this area are soft dune sand as opposed to other surfaces.

I would be driving a LR Defender so its a hard drive in dunes plus need for fuel calcs etc.

Cheers.

Waypoints
 

Hi
We would like to do this route in two 4x4 in March 2016
do you have any Waypoints that I could use for my GPS or have you any further details to help us with the route remember we are 4x4 not bikes

Thanks
Maurice

Our trip was made using Gandini’s book as a reference.
It took many hours of work to design the all trip, making the gps tracks. Most of the way was clear on Google, but in some areas the pistes were faint and we used Gandini’s waypoints to make routes and make our way.
Most of the trip was made on clear, well marked pistes, but at times the tracks did in fact disappear. Maybe, some of them they were old and unused pistes. On the south, near the RIM border, where there’s a sandier area, they also vanished for time to time under the sand. And just before getting to Barbas the all area was quite difficult as far as navigation, if you tried to follow the track, because of the sand / camel grass terrain.
The mines were on the back of our mind all the time, even knowing that the mines weren’t randomly placed. Sometimes we took risks riding off-piste just because there was no piste to follow, but that was rare.

Here are some waypoints of the trip.


Heading south out of Smara, there was some works going on a corrugated large road, that’s on OSM.

N26° 19.273' W11° 45.742’
After around 45k head west out of the main road. Soon after you join a track coming from Smara. An old Paris - Dakar track, on OSM.

N25° 58.578' W12° 05.673’
More or less at the north right angle border line between Morocco and the RIM, the OSM piste goes southwest to cross the road to Guelta Zemmour, marked as N5 . We took a (OSM unmarked) track, parallel and very close to the Berm, on a southern direction.

N25° 19.137' W12° 28.646’
Crossing of N5 road

N24° 41.619' W12° 58.381'
Well

N24° 05.625' W13° 40.757’
Military Post
(I mentioned it on an earlier post, that's about 30km west of Oum Dreyga)

N24° 04.408' W13° 47.200’
After 320 km on an OSM unmarked track we rejoin the piste that’s on OSM all the way from Smara, the Dakar piste. From the N5 road to here there were some places without a clear piste. We did ride off-piste some parts, trying to get to the right track.

N23° 30.223' W14° 10.625'
Military barracks
On the OSM map you can see pistes going southwest, here, and a bit further south, but we didn’t take them, we went south instead, as we wanted to go as close to the Berm as possible.

N23° 05.907' W14° 08.989’
Tower with a military control
We were so close to the border that the military escorted us from here to the nearer tarmac road, 70km west. Just before that military post there’s a piste that passes beyond the tower, maybe it’s possible to get trough. Our idea was to get to the town of Aousserd, just south of this point, on an unmarked track.

N22° 54.547' W14° 44.336'
Tarmac Road to Aousserd

N22° 55.688' W14° 45.902'
Abandoned house by the road, 3km NW from the last waypoint
From here we took a sandy piste from Gandini’s book, (M - La boucle archeologique) roughly heading 200º. (my friend on the quad had his computer with him and he improvised a track that night).

N22° 41.710' W14° 52.404’
Well
Soon after this point the Gandini’s route goes westward, but we went directly south, instead of doing the loop, and rejoined the Dakar piste roughly at

N22º 24’ W14º 57

the one that’s on the OSM map.

N21° 49.704' W15° 03.716’
Houses on a very sandy area.
Mobile network works! We saw some old Land Rovers, but we didn’t see anybody. A little to hot to be outside, maybe...
From here it’s westward until Barbas. Very sandy at times. It’s a track marked on the OSM, and we roughly followed it.

N21° 51.025' W15° 38.223’
House

N21° 38.286' W16° 10.973’
Camping spot
Around this area it’s difficult to follow the OSM track. The sand and the camel grass makes it really difficult to ride and navigate at the same time.

N21° 57.420' W16° 31.685’
There’s a fence with barbed wire on the piste! No more sand.
You have to go around, off-piste to west and then north to find the piste 1 km away

N22° 00.237' W16° 36.466’
Instead of follow the OSM track North we deviate westwards, and then NW on a old rocky piste (as far as I remember) until we got to the tarmac road at

N22° 03.019' W16° 44.141’

just 1 km away from the Barbas roundabout and gas station.

Some parts of the southern pistes were soft sand but you could always avoid the dunes. Apart from the camel grass bits it was ok. But along the way I remember stretches of what appeared to be hard terrain but it was soft underneath. The bike was in 5th, in low rotation, and all of sudden the soil kind of sucked the bike and one had to pull the 4th, or even the 3rd, to get speed again.
I can't say exactly how much of soft sand pistes we did, but I would say that there's no more than 150 km.


I hope this info will help you.
If you have any doubts, jus ask.

Thank you very much for taking the time to reply in such detail the GPS points will be very helpful

One last question was Diesel fuel available inland ?

Thanks
Maurice

Thanks
 

As Maurice says,many thanks for taking time to do this for us.Very useful info.

One of the challenges of this trip was the length of the Smara / Barbas stage.
Ridding it with our unsupported bikes meant that we had to take all the fuel and water for the 1000 km. That was part of the adventure.

We fill up our bikes in Smara, adding more fuel in different containers for each of us, and that was it. We didn’t look for any fuel during the journey, and we didn’t pass any villages.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/6P...S=w872-h654-no

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/aT...a=w872-h654-no

N21° 49.704' W15° 03.716’
Houses on a very sandy area.
This is the closest thing we got resembling a village. Looking back in one direction and looking forward in the other.


Maybe there’s fuel in Guelta Zemmour, in Bir Anzarane, or in Aousserd, bit I don’t know. We never passed those.

Thanks again

We will be driving few old Land Rover Disco so needs lots of fuel but we could make 1000km as we have 160Lt Diesel tanks , and could take some extra cans

Did you feel safe ?
Was there any time you were worried about Land Mines and or personal security ?

Maurice

I always felt safe in Morocco. Also in WS.

As we left Smara, we knew that we were going for a 3 or 4 days remote desert traverse, and I remember I had that strange feeling in the stomach you get whenever big thing are about to happen…
We had a satellite phone, just in case, and we exchanged family phone numbers.

As for the land mines, there are lots of informations and insights, here on the Hubb.
As I wrote before, we took some risks ridding off-piste, and that was sometimes stupid, but at the same time unavoidable.