3 Close Ones

While generally the conquering of the Middle Atlas on a snowboard is going well, in the past 10 days I have had some, well, hang-ups. This is all part of winter mountaineering and snowboarding. Neither of these activities are inherently safe but if you live where I live safety becomes a relative term. So if you are reading this don’t freak out and get all “Be safe, Casey blahaah!”

But seriously Mom don’t read this.

January 14th
My birthday present to myself was to teach a health lesson in my school in the morning (which I love) and in the afternoon make my way up to the closest big mountain to snowboard. I took my snowboard to class (which caused quite a stir) and when I was finished walked straight up. After a 3-4 hour hike I was standing on the drop-in of the 5th highest mountain in the Middle Atlas and about to become the first person to ride it. Happy Birthday.

The drop was gnarly, and on most days I would chose a different line. Still I had to bag this line. So after pointing it down the drop I made a slow lean which turned into a huge, deep, unbelievable turn in chest-deep powder. I was charging so the spray was massive and blocked my vision from 3-oclock on. When it cleared and I leaned back to the fall line and I saw what my huge, deep, unbelievable first turn had done; avalanche. I have never seen a slope let go that quickly and that evenly. It was like watching a bead curtain in a hippy’s doorway fall to the shag carpet below; the snow slid and balled up in perfect lines. It was amazing.

Upon seeing what I had done I figured the snow below me would give way with it, but it didn’t. I rode right along the edge of the slide for about 35 metres and then ducked in behind a large cliff totally safe. I watched 6-foot diameter blue ice balls rumble down the slope and finally come to a stop and I felt totally disconnected from the incident. I watched it as if someone else had triggered it. But yea it was me. I sat there not thinking about how close that was to being really bad, but instead about how I had probably never caused anything that large to happen in my life. Think about it: what is the largest force of nature that you have triggered? For me it was either when we cut down a huge tree in my backyard when I was in high school or in Franconia Notch in New Hampshire when I triggered a rock fall which took out a pine tree. That is, until this avalanche.

January 24th
Big snow on the 23rd guaranteed two things: I would be stuck in Talzemt for the weekend and I would be snowboarding.

I went back to Tissidel but this time I wanted to try another line that was higher on the fun factor and lower on the risk factor. I got up at 5 and walked to Arik’s house (my sitemate) where I grabbed my gloves that I had left on my birthday. The snow hadn’t stopped but I figured it wouldn’t continue much longer. He warned me that it might and I assured him that I would gain the ridge, and if the weather didn’t let up I would come back down right away.

I gained the ridge and started the walk towards Tissidel. The wind slowly let up and the snow stopped stinging my face. Within the hour the clouds gave way and there was some sun. I was stoked because this is exactly what I wanted to do; get up there with good weather and bag the powder before the sun killed it. Great.

About halfway to Tissidel summit my fortunes turned. I looked North up the ridge and saw a wall of grey sweeping up the valley like a frozen sheet. I knew I was in for it.

When the sheet hit the ridge there was no snow in the wind. The wind was cold and fast, probably about 40mph. It made walking really tough, especially along the edge of a ridge with my snowboard acting like a sail on my back. I know the ridge well and knew I would be coming up on a chute that would take me back down and out of the worst of it. 5 minutes after the wall hit the windspeed cranked; 50mph+ and hard snow blowing in any crevice. 5 minutes later 60mph+. 3 minutes later it was out of control. I have been in 70mph winds before and this was worse. I just hit the deck and started crawling, knowing if I stood I could get blown clear off the ridge. I remember I had my Ipod on and the volume was turned to the maximum, but all I could hear was the wind. It was a shitty situation but I was in good spirits, I don’t know why.

Like I said I know the ridge pretty well and after about 30mins of flat-on-my-stomach crawling I peeked over the edge and saw a familiar tree. This tree is straight out of Dr. Suess and I took a nap under it once last summer when I was hiking. I knew that nearby that tree was a large rock overhang so I crawled to the edge and felt my way down. The visibility at this point had deteriorated so badly that if I hadn’t been on a spot I knew well, it wouldn’t have been safe to move.

I was happy to discover that the snow blowing up the ridge had created a formidable wall against the outer edge of the overhang, and there was a perfect spot to sit underneath it. I used my snowboard’s sharp edge to cut sturdy blocks of hardened snow and built a wall that plugged the wind alley through the overhang. Then I put my snowboard down, laid on it and piled snow around me and put my backpack on my chest. I decided I would wait out the storm there.
After an hour of waiting I got really bored and started playing Snake Xensia on my phone under my jacket. I got a bunch of messages from my friends in Immouzer, including Arik, being all worried and scared that I was frozen on the ridge. I let them know that it was a bad situation but it would be fine.

2 hours passed and the wind had let up a little bit but the visibility had gone from abysmal to no longer reasonably called “visibility” at all. A better term would be whiteness. I got up and made my way along the rock ledge where I knew of one spot I could descend. I moved away from the ledge and stepped onto some deeper snow which let go underneath me and I went with it for about 10metres. Up until this point, I had not been scared or nervous about the situation, just cold and surprised. But now, being away from the guiding rock ledge with no way to climb safely back up and with no bearings except for up and down, I was nervous.

With no options, I just dug a hole. I sat in my snow hole and waited. There was no other solution. Below me was a passable slope, but it was steep and I knew of 3 large cliffs between me and the bottom. Thus, I sat in my hole. The wind whipped over the top but in the hole it was fine. I spit in the palm of my glove and stuck it out of the hole to see how fast it would freeze. This was good fun.

The hole was not warm like the fort that I had built above and I was really mad at myself for prematurely leaving the fort. The hole was OK but if everything went bad and I had to try to wait out the night up there, the hole wasn’t going to work. So I waited some more and spit in my glove a couple more times.

I began to devise a plan to descend to the first cliff and hurl myself off of it into the snow on my back. From there I would roll into the cave. You see, the snow was deep deep deep and walking in it just meant getting stuck. Walking upward meant risking compromising the slope and having it come down on me, which would wash me over the cliff. In my plan I would be able to go down and over the cliff on my own terms. I had to go down no matter what.

Just when I put my admittedly non-ideal plan into action and started moving down the slope the visibility broke. I got so excited I ripped off my gloves and began to strap on my snowboard. Strapped in and ready to go I went to pick up my gloves and one fell out of my hand. I looked at my hands and didn’t recognize them as my own. They were pink and frozen. Taking gloves off is a no-no in these conditions but whatever I was psyched.

I put my icicles into my gloves and pointed my board at the first cliff. I floated it and landed in what could have been 8 metres of drifted snow. Crazy. I made a couple conservative turns and then pointed at the second cliff and landed the same. Upon landing I saw nothing but snow and the last cliff, and I saw no reason to turn or check my speed. I was elated that after being worried that I wouldn’t be able to get down at all, now I was doing so in style. I floated the last cliff and landed uniformly, with really clean speed I just put my arms to the side to feel the wind. It was fast and fun and I was ok.

I rode it down to the village below and the first house I came to was a guy I had met in the bus a few days before. He just looked at me like he was thinking…how?

“Salaam u aleikum” I said.

January 25th
So I was super wiped out from the 24th and I went to bed at like 7pm. I woke up in the middle of the night and made some food. As I sat there eating it I was thinking; I should definitely go back up tomorrow. The weather was going to be a lot better and I could get some good snow so why not?

I met up with my transport guy at 6 near my house. He drove me out to Ait Benhaissa, the village where I spent the first 4-5 months of my service.

I planned on bagging Ish Ayurzi, a 2350 metre peak with a beautiful chute down the center that is lined with cedars. I started walking to the base and when I got close to the river that separates the mountain from the village I realized that the warming temperatures over night had taken their toll and melted a fair amount of snow upland. The river was raging a mean brown with the low rumble that indicates moving rocks. There was no safe place to cross so I decided to make my way upstream towards where the river joins a smaller stream.

I looked and looked and found only sketchy crossings. Usually I am pretty daring crossing rivers but this was different because it was winter and I had a bag and snowboard strapped to me.
I found one spot to jump across but it was a big gap. I had to think about it for along time before I decided to do it. I went for it and everything turned out fine except for the part where I fell into the river. I had come up short and slid down the rock into the icy snowmelt and was immediately swept along. Luckily, I got washed up on some rocks only about 5 meters downstream. Still, I had taken a quick beating on the rocks. I pulled myself up and slowly regained composure. When my wits came back I realized how close that really was. I experience dangerous stuff often but I am usually in control. Being in that river and being at the mercy of the current was a moment of complete surrender. It was awful and I will never be at peace with that feeling.

At that point I realized now I was in a much worse situation than I was just minutes before; now I was on the other side of the river which I found out with my attempt one cannot safely cross.
After some deliberation I decided to make my way up the mountain and away from the river. From higher up I could make my way back to the village where I could summon a donkey if need be to cross. I was wet, shaken, but not that cold. In all honesty, I was just worried about my camera and Ipod.

I started gaining elevation and I hit a nice rhythm. I was walking along and there were some of my summertime friends; the monkeys that hang out here and down by the river in the caves. Before I knew it I was nearing the top of the piste and thinking that since I had now invested a 5am wake-up, a hike, a ND experience, and more hiking, then I might as well finish the piste and get some snowboarding out of it. So that is what I did.

I dropped in and was banking smooth turns in deep, corn snow and watching cedars fly past me. It was awesome. I made about 15 good turns and had a lot of speed. I came off of one turn planning to pop up onto a snowdrift when either 2 or 3 monkeys sprinted out from behind the drift. I veered with a lot of speed to avoid them and hit what I think was a thorn bush. Whatever it was it had enough root structure to throw me into a high-velocity cartwheel.

Yard sale, everything goes.

It would have been an awesome wipeout to watch because it was so ridiculous. By itself it was pretty good but with the monkeys it was priceless. Unfortunately, Middle Atlas ski pioneering, like most of my activities, are undertaken solo. I guess I kind of got to see it.

Nonetheless, I gathered my scattered belongings and made my way back down to the base. That incident was this morning, and even though I had to deal with the impassable river again, I don’t think I have stopped smiling since. The camera has gained back its function as of 5oclock. The Ipod doesn’t look good. Worth it? Eh.

CONCLUSION
I don’t know who reads this, and I doubt any PCV’s do, but if anybody is in the neighborhood of North Africa and wants to get in on some snowboarding and winter mountaineering let me know. I hate that I have to do this stuff alone. It actually boggles my mind that there is not anyone else out here doing it. Self-motivating for these kind of activities is exhausting.

It is difficult enough to try to get the Americans around here to even hike in the summer. Everybody is from SoCal and some of them don’t see snow until they come to Morocco. A lot of the lines I want to ride out here are just too much to do alone. I am down to push the limits but spots like Bou Iblane and Bou Naceur are too big, too deep, and too far out for solo.

So far the only people I have convinced to ski with me were French X-Country guys who live in Casablanca. They agreed that it was sick that I lived in a place like this, but it comes to a point where if there isn’t anyone to share these experiences with then memories just stay yours and stay with you and if you recount them you sound stupid. If you share them with someone you double the memory assets; equal amounts in different banks.

So yea if anyone reading this has some time and a winter sports itch please come scratch it in MARMOUCHA.

First Descents and the History of Skis in the Middle Atlas Region

One of the most exciting parts about living out here in the middle atlas is knowing that soon this area will inevitably be discovered by tourists, like the rest of Morocco. Granted it will take a different type of tourist than the tour bus crowd to explore these mountains, it will one day no longer be undiscovered. Being here when almost everything is new, uncrossed, undocumented, and most importantly for me, unskied, is invaluable.

The week of my birthday was dedicated to firsts. My first time snowboarding in Africa in Oukaimeden near Marrakech, and my first experience with unskied terrain here in the middle atlas.

Skiing and snowboarding in the middle atlas region has understandably been limited in the past to three centers; Mischliffen, the ski randonee (cross-crountry or nordic) area of Jebel Hebri, and Bou Iblane. Mischilffen and Jebel Hebri both to this day have operational ski lifts with limited capacity and even more limited usage. Nonethless, it is fun and the snow is good. It is also exceptionally cheap. The clientele can be described as primarily Moroccan day-trippers interested in riding the lift to the top without skis and returning the same way. A spattering of Moroccans skiers from cities (native Middle-Atlas skiers are very rare) and a few tourists interested in the simple novelty of skiing in Africa. There are a few events put on by FRMSM, or in English the Royal Moroccan Ski Federation, but those have died off in the past few years. To be fair to Mischiliffen, the terrain is beautiful, and can be likened to a small eastern United States ski resorts with the added bonus of skiing among massive cedar trees and monkeys. It is unique, cheap, fun, and can offer a serious skier a few very nice, solitary turns.

The east face of Bou Iblane Massif is home to the skeleton of an old French lift that has long since been disassembled and cannibalized for scrap by crafty locals. The French built the lift as a home comfort during colonial times and after Morocco’s independence had no incentive to maintain it. Nonetheless, early French ski pioneers were able to explore the majority of the 30km-long massif and claim most of the difficult lines. Still, ski exploration was limited to the route between Bou Iblane and Jebel Tazzeka near Taza, and the Massif itself. There are no locally or officially confirmed reports of the highest peak in the region, Bou Naceur, ever being attempted. Nonetheless in all of this there is the chance that a stray French soldier has at one time journeyed there with skis.

In the Marmoucha-Tamgilt-Ribat el-Khair sector, there are a number of large peaks that were simply too remote for ski pioneers up until the paving of the sector’s roads. Now, even after large snowfalls, local transportation is available between 3 and 5 days after the weather events. Being uniquely positioned (speaking the very specific local dialect, having all-access permission from local authorities, and holding many Nuqql owners (small buses) as my closest friends, and living within walking distance of all of it) I am now in a position to claim all of these peaks on my snowboard.

The first on my schedule was the high-point of a long ridge which can be located locally by using the name “Tissidel”. Tissidel is the bearing point for most nomadic herders in between Ait Hassan, Ouled Ali, Tazemourt, and the edge of Ouaoualzemt, where herders who are not from the valley should consider making way back towards their own land because of tribal tensions dating back thousands of years. This peak is the edge of Marmoucha, and an unofficial ethnic border. The peak itself rises to 2600 meters and is the southern-most of what can be considered the “rooftop” of the middle atlas.

The hike for me from my front door took six hours with the last 3 in snow to waist. Even the sun-exposed ridge forces hikers into deep snow because of unstable cornices on the ridge’s edge. The descent I estimated at 1100 meters with the fall line, with the option of descending another 300 with good snow and 500 on cross-country skies. The take off is impossible without significant recent snow, as a 30 meter drop faces afternoon sun with no collection point because of its steepness, but the rest is a very challenging, and very rewarding 38 degree slope with chest deep powder.

On Wednesday I will hopefully be completing a small first-timer called Ish Ayurzi in Ait Benhaissa in the Northern reach of Talzemt commune. This 2540 meter peak is home to some of the highest altitude cedars in the region and contains a due North-northeast chute. I will be completing this peak before 9am as the only hour for good light is sunrise with reflective light off of the opposite snowfields on Ish Nfadna. Later in the day attempting this peak would be too dangerous.

To Be Fair

So after my last entry I felt I should clarify some things about life here. People sent me messages like; “Oh Peace Corps sounds so hard,” and “Do you hate it there?” I don’t know where people picked up this sentiment but I want to be clear; I have yet to hate anything about this place or my time here, and while Peace Corps can be tough sometimes it is mostly because of where I live; I got placed in a really difficult part of the country. I asked our programming staff for exactly this: put me in the highest, coldest, most remote place you have just don’t put me in the Sahara or somewhere there is a lack of work.

The fact is while life can be really challenging where I live, those who know me are aware that I love challenges. Having obstacles to getting things done everyday motivates me to go and do them. Little challenges turn everyday tasks into adventures.

Just yesterday I was looking for the local school superintendent, so naturally I went to his office in the school. Not there. Where is he I asked? Somewhere in Immouzer one teacher answered. I spent the rest of my morning tracking down this guy like a detective. Went to his house, his favorite coffee joint, the Youth Center, the Youth Center manager’s house, walked the main drag a few times, and talked to everyone I knew on the street asking them “wesh tshuft Mimoun, lmudir dial mdrasat n Talzemt? La? Safi shukran asidi.” All along this way I am getting invites for tea, late breakfast, offers to help, invites for the Prophet’s birthday, congratulations Obama speeches, everything.

Nobody is disrespectful or doesn’t want me around. People seem to love talking to me and asking me questions. On the street everybody waves and yells my name. I have never had more people know my name and know things about me concentrated in one place. I am not embarrassed to ask for help so everyone now is looking for Mimoun the superintendent. We end up finding him and the villagers rejoice. I meet with Mimoun for about 10 minutes about designing a new health curriculum for our schools. He agrees quickly and we conclude our business.

Even though Marmoucha is a small world, I learn tons of new things on these adventures.
“Hey Casey did you know your neighbor had a baby this morning?”That woman was pregnant?
“Hey Casey did you know that tomorrow a bunch of us are leaving with our families to live in tents and herd sheep until spring comes?Isn’t spring 4 months from now?

Sounds lame but my favorite thing to do is learn new and random things about people and places. The fun little tidbits that come out about my village and the people are what make the little everyday adventures memorable. In the states my everyday was usually fun and interesting, whether it be with work or school or going out in DC or surfing or whatever. Here it is incomparable. The things that I eat, do, hear, say, drink, ride, buy, look at, wonder about, and experience are so far from what I ever expected my life to include that sometimes I question whether I really lived in the states a year ago or whether I really live here now.