canyons of morocco
October 2021
Canyoneering in Morocco, in total, is about a dozen Europeans looking for first descents, and half a dozen Moroccan guides looking for money. There's a tiny 'community', at best, and very little information. A guidebook was published in French a few years back, detailing mostly mediocre canyons that have likely not been repeated.
But with such a great geology and geography, shouldn't this large desert nation of hidden springs have some gems?
Suhei and myself flew to Morocco to find out. We spent two weeks traveling this fascinating country, a week caving, and then a week canyoning, mostly in the area around Tafroute, called the Anti-Atlas Mountains.
It was very hard to get any information. There's nothing on the internet, and even finding a guide looked daunting. Eventually we found a guy in Tafroute claiming to be a canyoneer. We asked him for beta, and he asked for money. We didn't know what to do, but he eventually agreed to take us to a canyon. He seemed tense, but once he saw we had our own gear and knew what we were doing, he loosened up. Possibly because he didn't know what he was doing either. As we gained his trust, he told us a few more canyons. We really only received GPS pin drops and lengths of biggest rappels, and then Suhei and myself set off and ran some canyons by ourselves. After we ran each canyon, in order to give back to the global community of canyoneers, and encourage others to visit Morocco by seeing the quality of existing routes, I published some of the canyons on Ropewiki.com:
There's a huge variety of canyons in Morocco, including many with running water and potholes. Aside from two or three good ones in the Rif Mountains, the best, for now, seem to be concentrated in the Anti-Atlas. March is probably the best month for canyons, with good weather and plenty of water.
One thing to consider is that local shepherds across the country steal bolts off of rappels. Who knows what they do with a bolt and hanger. Regardless, bring a bolt kit and enough material for natural anchors on any canyon that can be accessed by shepherds, no matter how remote.
Future years will likely bring more decent discoveries here, and hopefully an expanded and more outsider-friendly dispersion of canyoneering beta. It's a desert oasis wonderland, sure to impress any canyoneer.
