Taghia, Morocco By ukclimbing
Taghia Morocco
The stunning orange limestone walls of Taghia are known to visitors as having some of the greatest multi-pitch bolted routes anywhere.

The most well established cliffs in Taghia: Oujdad and Tagoujimt N’tsouïant © Virgil Scott, Aug 2008
“stunning orange limestone walls…”

Jack Geldard Seconding on Les Rivieres Pourpres © Dave Pickford, Oct 2005
The village of Taghia consists of only a few dozen buildings nestled not far from the base of a slew of massive walls, the giant tooth-like Oujdad juts out centrally, flanked by three converging gorges and adjacent walls. The tallest of these stretches up to around 700m, whilst many others are around 600m. The village is at roughly 2000m altitude and by the time you finish a climb you are often coming close to 3000m, where the air seems to have an alpine chill. It may be scorching hot in fine weather, but if a storm kicks up the temperature drops suddenly and the feeling of being in an African desert is replaced by the sting of large hailstones and worryingly close lightning.
Although most of the ‘well-known’ classic routes lie in the 7a to 7c grade range, there are more than 150 routes in Christian Ravier’s 2008 guidebook – with grades from 5 to 8a, including a huge number of more reasonable routes from 6a to 7a.
“…and the feeling of being in an African desert is replaced by the sting of large hailstones and worryingly close lightning…”

Existing route areas and new route potential areas. © Virgil Scott
A few of the hard classics:
- Rivieres Poupres, 7b, 600m (M. Piola, B. Robert, A. Petit)
- L’axe du mal 7c, 500m (S. Bodet, A. Petit, M. Cortial, M. Piola, B. Robert)
- Babel 7c+, 800m (F. Gentet, N. Kalisz, S. Bodet and A. Petit)
- Baraka 7b, 680m (R. Gentili, B. Duterte)
- Barracuda 7c+, 600m (D. Kaszlikowski, E. Kubarska, B. Szybinski)
- Fantasia 7c, 700 m, (D. Kaszlikowski, E. Kubarska)
Logistics
Source: ukclimbing