Third time’s a charm - just managed to get a visas for the third time in London, smoothly enough, and despite multiple DZ port vehicular entry/exit stamps in my pp from previous trips.

I’ve only go two weeks in Feb so won’t make it too far south but still plenty to explore within two long days’ ride of the coast. Far enough to get down from the mountains at this time of the year. Nonetheless looking forward to seeing what I can squeeze in a shorter trip this time.

PS Jim - if that northern In Salah CP is right on the town limit, that’s a new one compared to last year. May or may be noteworthy.

Ed


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Where Next Barney? / Trans Morocco Trail

This wont be of use for your trip in Feb and while I wouldn't advise anyone else reading this to avoid check points - it can make life easier!

Especially the one to the South of In Salah which is at the roundabout by the filling station at 27.174844/2.499995.

The northern checkpoint is just to the N of the escarpment to the N of In Salah Airport - I did have this waypointed on my DMD but I lost it - taken from Google it's at the junction at 27.418733/2.557607

I left town from the road that finishes at 27.165738/2.481672 (seemingly a cemetery) and cut S.

Yep, this is a new one Jim compared to October 2023, at least. Previously the first northbound (from In Salah) CP was at Fort Mirabel here: https://maps.app.goo.gl/Zj7rztMQmrPTzyRy9.

Read into that what you will! Could be just natural rotation of things, particularly given the dodgy nature of the Tademait plateau to the north.

Ed

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Where Next Barney? / Trans Morocco Trail

The one you mention is still there, and pretty shonky. The one I describe is a town periphery checkpoint. A chicane and a few sandbags but AKMs not pistols.

Just back from a week or 2 there: cancelled plane meant 3 very long days on the TSH Alg to Tam, then Tazrouk across to Djanet and beyond, then up the Fadnoun road and Afra piste/x-country back to TSH at Moulay Lahcene and plane from In Salah.
We were sat in agency TLCs from Ghardaia onwards and passed a couple of unescorted foreign motos northbound south of In Salah. Don't know whether they also dodged checkpoints but I got the feeling the Gendarmerie find foreign motos too insubstantial to bother with. As suggested, the whole highway escort thing is flakey/arbitrary.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned migrants on the southern TSH and Djanet road. I suspect CPs are more concerned with suppressing their progress (plus general population surveillance along main axes) than us tourists.
I'd say half the traffic on the southern TSH was twin cab Hiluxs bombing north with 20+ pax barely disguised under a sheet, then dashing back empty for the next batch. They cover the TSH in relays and certainly dodge Arak via the west. Before IS they then take Ain el Hadhadj climb onto the eastern Tademait (a Dakar route from the early 80s, south of the Fort Mirabel / Chebaba. Fyi the 'Mirabel' ID'd on Google alongside the TSH is 200km to the south and mislabelled, unless they've reused the French name).
On the Djanet road it's dead easy to dodge Serouenout and BeH all the way to Niger. Walking around BeH I got the impression migrants congregated here for the run north. Saw very few in touristy Djanet.
Those who can't afford a Hilux walk the TSH/Fadnoun with a pair of water bottles strapped to their belts. Hundreds of kms of nothing with hopeful waves at passing traffic.
As it happens I recall seeing similar just south of Illizi way back in 2002, though had the feeling they'd been just dumped from a car. And same era, others were openly walking with us up to Jabbaren but carrying on to nearby Ghat.
These days we were told fortnightly convoys from some point up north ship them all back to In Guezzam where some try again. Maybe cool Jan is high season for walkers, but I've always understood Algeria was a much tougher transit than say Libya, while in Morocco they struggle to get north of Dakhla.

Anyway, the CP north of In Salah that Ngirienroute mentions was a serious one (mother's maiden name, etc) and where green & white gendarmerie escorts started for us, even with agency Ordre de Mission permit. No CP of substance noted IS southside on the TSH. Despite the mapping above, IS is what I've long understood to be the 'Grand Sud' frontier on the TSH and where restrictions can intensify (Tom Shepperd was outraged at being thwarted here way back in the Nougnties - as described in his QFAT book).

Tbh on TSH escorts weren't a huge problem for us pax as gendarmerie car swaps in Arak and In Amguel (escort ended) were fairly quick and breaks for us anyway. In your own vehicle will be different. Our agency and drivers were long practised in negotiating their way out of these but knew when it was a lost cause. The gendarmerie seem to overrule wilaya authorisations/assurances. East of Tam via Tahifet (very nice) to Ideles and BeH no CPs bar Serouenout.
In Djanet and around I don't recall seeing any green & whites at all – just blue cops who waved us though. But there may have been a fair amount of telephoning with local authorities by our driver to approve our onward passage on the road to Tin Alkoum.
As always, on the piste no CPs to be seen, and rejoining the TSH at Moulay Lahcene, not imposed all the way back to IS - but may have been negotiated too.

I have updated my Algeria page with prices, plus will do state of full TSH extent of the Djanet road etc over the next few days.
Some pix here; more later.

If you get in with your own vehicle, my advice in the Grand Sud would be get off the highways and stay off as long as you can (or at known CPs), unless you want to get bogged down like Nata woman. But in Alg that is a serious proposition, especially on a moto and, along with all the other stresses of remote desert travel, the whole cloak and dagger thing might get wearisome.

Fyi, one of us was half-arsedly asked for GPS at In Salah airport scanner.
Others have mentioned GPS is not allowed though I was told it seems to be limited to hand portables. Perhaps something like a big Garmin 700 clamped to the vehicle may pass? Otherwise best hidden.

I discovered the novelty of live offline sat map navigation for the first time with GaiaGPS on a tablet. Handy to weave among outcrops off piste and a great OSM-based topo map, but for reliable/easy/quick recording of tracks/wpts, I'll stick with my Garmin 680, despite small/dull screen.

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Morocco Overland 4 (2025) • Trans Morocco Trail

Not having your experience down there I now realise that I saw what you saw in Djanet (locals and tourists) and BEH (no tourists and way too many young men for a bled of that size).

On the TSH I counted, very arbitrarily, on one 400KM section 40 walkers = 4 walkers every 10KM so over winter for the 2000km of the TSH = 800 blokes on the move at any one moment. Sometimes getting lifts and sometimes trudging. When I saw their bottles were empty and I had a superflous bottle I would hand it over.

Interesting - the southern In Salah CP was local (blue) police rather the Gendarmerie last year, so that makes sense in terms of it being less serious.

A lot migrants also walking in late 2023, just as you described. Chatted to one by the side of the road at the stop north of the RN54/RN1 junction who told me the Gendarmes stop the buses, ask for papers and then just turf people off the buses on the spot if they're not meant to be there, wherever that may be.

The Gendarmes also had one or two 'working' for them at the CP at BEH cleaning etc, and there was a huge migrant emcampment just 1km from the piste down to Essendilene.

Ed

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Where Next Barney? / Trans Morocco Trail