Morocco Overland route updates March 2017
 

I don’t know if anyone has tried MH1 lately.
Tried it NE-bound today (opposite of book r/d). High Atlas crossing in great shape: Dirt section to Agoudal in little over an hour.
Following the tar eastwards, around KM 91 just out of Agoudim village the road is gone for at least 2-3 km. I turned back after a walk, but bikes have been working their way along the stream and rubble on foot-wide ledges - was not clear to me how and where a 4x4 could manage it, but probably could too.
Actually, looking later at the Garmin North Africa Topo on a laptop, perhaps a road goes round the gorge to the east? See map below.

MH7 west of Asskaoun - that part through the narrow gorge a few km out of town is also a stream now, but a 4x4 could crawl over it in low 1st. Clearly not used much anymore.
MH7 back in the other direction down to the dam is now tarmac - nice ride on a warm spring afternoon.

I was also told MH6 down from Aguim on the Tichka road is also sealed.

MH12 still great road crossing of the HA. No traffic, dirt sections.

Came past MH14 KM46 jct with Olaf yesterday. No tracks - looks very little used.
I was up from Agdz on the Olaf (not in book) - gnarly climbing.
IMO both these routes (and Jebel Sarhro MH4 classic are best enjoyed southbound:
you can enjoy the views as your vehicle generally rolls down the track.

MA2 easy wide dirt road from Ait Herbil to Igmir. Misses out the village oases, less fun. Wwill be sealed soon to Igmir from where it's tar up the steep pass to the main road.
MA3 and MA8 Sealed to Imitek; in the gorge at KM98 keep straight, not left for Ait Alha village (track no longer used). Up on the plateau a new haul road has made the RD confusing - but it all works out. This also affects MA8 coming down. Turn left @ KM49 block for the gorge.
New edition will explain.
MA4 is now the ’N12’ according to RK-H map. Nice road through the jebels.
MA6 - as mentioned a couple of years ago - is now gnarly and washed out in many places. Will be worse now.

MW3 sealed up to Aouainat Igoumane - from here a piste seems to go towards Guelmim? Rest of MW3 as the book.
MW6 - as mentioned elsewhere, easier to start it off the Zag road further south. Fast and corrugated to Labouriat. Later, the track may not all be all there along the oued from KM231. Cut the last oued bend by driving over the hill.

New edition out in August.

You reminded me I didn't post any updates from my trip last year doh

Just got into Morocco in the rain, going to head south fast :)

Anyway

MH1 - last November, Cirque Jaffar closed at KM28.5 for repairs, work underway at the time so I guess its open again now and, er yes, the section on from Agoudim is shocking, I got through in November but it took a while. Sorry for not posting last year!

MH7 - I turned back at KM95.7 track wasn't wide enough to pass in a 4x4 safely and I'd already got into trouble trying silly things earlier in the week!. Turn north at KM95 towards Ammasine and keep on the main track until you reach tarmac about 5km after the turn.

MH6 definitely tar the whole route.

What else did I find...

Great piste from the R109 south of Igherm at N30 00.914 W8 27.132 running east to the Tata road is most definitely not usable by anyone on anything more than a mountain bike. If you ignore the 3 warning signs like I did you'll find the track completely gone at N29 55.294 W8 20.659 leaving you with a long reverse on a narrow track with a shear drop.

New dodgy coppers just past the toll gate as you turn off the motorway on the way to Essaouira N31 28.734 W8 41.386

I've attached a .gpx with some route info I've gathered over various trips, easier than trying to explain where they are

I wonder if anyone has taken that eastern arc that joins in at the junction east of Tounfite?
It is odd that they don't say 'road closed beyond Ag' early on, as no Merc village transporters could get through that oued.
In Ag village a bloke did point right (for Tagoudit?) - but I assumed he meant 'come to my shop, I have a superb array of minerals and cheches in every colour under the sun.

Could be a road on Google aerial, but hard to tell. Wifi is glacial and so is the temp in reception. I am actually starting to shiver.

Route Conditions - send in your updates
 

I've bought my 2 season sleeping bag after you said it was hot! Enjoying the delight of Hotel Dreamland in Fnideq ATM.

When I did MH1 last year 2 campers left Timnay the same morning as me. I met them again at the junction at Tagoudit and we all ended up in Imichil that night.

I remembering wondering where they had been between Timnay and there.

Looking at my maps there's no way east to Midelt you I can only assume they took the loop you mention


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Thanks. Would have gone back again today, but it's all show and icy and freezing winds now. Don't fancy the 450-m climb to get back over there from here.

Yesterday I'm sure I also saw a couple of bikes resting by the roadside (one bike like mine), and they didn't have the aura or splattered dirt of having just bashed along that oued.
Back at Agoudim I did zoom out the Garmin to see if anything else was doing, but looked in the wrong area. I assumed the side road to Tagoudit was just a village access track. They may even have been a crude sign.
And back at Imilchil servo last night, they all insisted it's tout gourdronee to Tounfite.

Funny how the clues all slot in place afterwards.
Hasty assumptions: the nemesis of good nav!

Two season bag will be fine - as long as one of the seasons is 'winter' ;-)
Hard to believe it was 35°C in Assa 2 weeks ago.

MH1
 

Hi Chris/Mark,

I drove MH1 east-west in October. We got to the start of the gorge and the track was completely gone following a huge landslide. No even a moto would have got through. We took the eastern arc that rejoins at the river crossing near Tagoudit as you described. It's a good track and only cost us an extra 20 mins.

The westerly route over Jebel Sahro had been badly hit in places. Large cubes of sharp basalt had slid onto the track. Took my eye of the ball for a second and got my first ever BFG puncture - slice through the sidewall...

Happy trails,

Peter

I did make a habit last autumn of ignoring every possible sign there was trouble ahead a plowing on regardless.

Just arrived in Essaouira, the north has had god almight rain today and fresh snow around Tetouan by the looks of it. Felt sorry for the bikes on the motorway heading into it. If your south don't rush north just yet :)

Anyone tried MH5 recently? I looked at the end last year and decided against it, but something makes me want to try again

Thanks for the clarification Peter. Did the eastern arc - all sealed and straightforward.
Coming from the north, 3.4km after Jaffar T junction, turn SW off the light coloured road onto darker tarmac.
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@32.48.../data=!3m1!1e3
No signs (yet?).
Deepish ford soon (same rogue river), then over the hills.

Met another poor soul on a heavily loaded bike who blundered into the gorge from hell from the south end like me. Luckily some Berber kids put him right (and helped pick up his bike) before he got too far.

MH5 - "it'll be rude" as they told us once in the Yukon ;-)

Going to come up with a new name or better clarification for these locally unused and abandoned stages between the last village on one side, and the next on the other.
Good to know the diff as lack of regular use/maintenance makes things much harder. As we found on Jebel Timouka above issil the other year.

ME7 is now graded from Beni Tajite to roughly Km21. 60kmh almost the whole way to the Col. very dusty though.


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Atlantic route to Dakar upd
 

Recent account of Atlantic route to Dakar (on pushbike).
Soliloquy of a Wandering Pilgrim

MA2 Izerbi -> Igmir and MA3 Akka -> Imitek: Both road sections mentioned have been graded and covered with black sticky stuff (tar?) as well as tons of fine gravel. Especially the MA2 section pretty much sucks at the moment on a motorcycle (like riding on marbles). Both roads do not really resemble a piste any more and look like this:

https://abload.de/img/img_4241ngon4.jpg

In other news: The pretty rough oued sections at the beginning of MA2 (in one of the villages before Igmir) can now be skipped via a large new piste that has been built. Naturally, I discovered this after plowing the big GS through the oueds. The new road is not yet on OSM.

R101 Et Al
 

I have deliberately left this post in the Landmines thread because of its relevance in terms of access.However,the moderators may decide to move it as it otherwise has nothing to do with the mines.

The R101 has/is being upgraded and is tarmac all the way from Tan Tan to Smara.

About 6k South of Abteh a tarmac road comes in from the west and this runs to the coast North of Akhfenir. There are six fuel stations at this junction but I think the three old ones will close as the new ones are commissioned!!!There is no fuel on the Akhfenir road and nothing else of interest either.However,it is a fast route to the coast if you need it.

We crossed from Khawi Nam to this road on a miriad of gravel pistes that could be done on bikes but some of the washouts may prevent 2wd and big road bikes. The terrain is usually flat gravel plain interspersed with sand hummocks.Apart from camel watching we found it not very interesting but hey,another track/munro done:mchappy:

MS7 Mhamid Foum Zguid update
 

Rode MS7 (among other pistes) end of April.

We actually started off road at 29.899268, -5.619037 to avoid the dunes just West of Mhamid.

We then faced the expected sand, dried lakes and stones - stones are really the benchmark of this piste.
If your suspension endures and your bones stand up, I'd say that you can consider yourself fit for Morocco.

Tarmac we only found again at 30.060358, -6.869388, after the passport control just before entering Foum Zguid

https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4175/3...84542099_n.jpg

https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4177/3...cc885f2d_n.jpg

A couple of pictures can be found here:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/148874658@N08/albums/

Route updates early October 2017
 

Early October 2017 - a few light bikes and a 4x4.

MA7
Southbound, it gets quite rocky and washed out for about 10km between the last hamlet at the northern end and Amtezguine [KM56] from where it's now tarmac to Tlite and FZ.

'MH19'
In good shape - see this or this.

MH4
Northbound, gets rough near the summit, as usual, but also now also a bit washed out of the northbound descent to the road. this was the only damage we saw following recent rains.
Also, they are working or a new road out of Nekob - can get confusing. Hard to know if it's going to the last villages (Bab n Ali, Tazlout?) or all the way over the top to Iknioun.

MA13
I'm told they will be sealing the middle section between Assaragh and Agadir Melloul, but I imagine that may take a while.

Just got home yesterday after 10 days in Morocco, on my own this time so less adventurous off-road. Thanks again for the book Chris!
- 3 hours to get out of Tanger Med port. No hassle, just very, very slow!
- Tizi-n-Tichka. Huge roadworks Marrakesh side. Soon to be all 3 lanes? Some long delays but on a bike this means you can get to the front of the queue.
- Big road-building on the Telouet road from the col down to Ait Ben Haddou. Easy, but dusty!
- MH6 seemed to be completely tarmac, so I turned round and rode MH 8 to Askaoun then Aoulouz, which was brilliant. Clearly signposted "Askaoun" from the tarmac south of Sour. The "washed out track" km61.5(71.5) is washed out but fine. The "precipitous section" is recently graded and easy.
- MH4 is soon to be tarmac all the way. Massive construction out of Nekob. You can ride the new graded track at first but then get forced onto the old track, which has been pounded by trucks. Big works in the villages of Bab-n-Ali, big new cutting across the hill by the waterfalls. Line of new pylons. The old trail seemed washed-out and rockier than I remember from 2015. Strangely there's no sign of work yet on the Iknioun side.
- I was told in Dades that the exit North to Agoudal was difficult. Instead, I rode to Tinghir,Ait-Hani, Amellago,Rich (MH13) All tarmac but a beautiful ride.