It was the last climb of the trip and myself and Will Goldsmith had decided on a seemingly easy classic route to have a go at. We had been climbing in Morocco for the past 2 weeks, interchanging between the granite outcrops around the town of Tafrout and the more adventurous cliffs to the North.
Sungold is a 6 pitch E2, located on The Thumb. A 300m tall quartzite face that lies to the North of Tafraout in Morocco above the small village of Assldrar. We knew it would be a long day and even in November it can get unbearably hot in the Sun. Deciding for an early start we arrived at the base in our rented 4×4. We parked in what was a typical Anti-Atlas village, they all have a seemingly large number of mosques compared to the size of the village. The morning call to prayer had just begun, with one Imam on speakers from one side of the town, and another from the other. This and the sound of goats were the only sound.
We had a vague description of the climb from our topo and UKC. Starting up the first pitch, a stiff 55 metres long E2 5c by headtorch we were unsure whether we were on the right line. The sun was just rising from across the desert and we had yet to see the full cliff. After finding a vague ledge I built a belay, the rock wasn’t ideal but it would suffice. As Will joined me at the belay I handed him the rack and we tried to find where we were on our topo and where to head next. We knew we had to go up and right, but with no defining features we just decided to follow the easiest line.
Will headed off, it didn’t look promising, complaints of loose rock, unsure of where to go and poor gear. After 50 metres he had pretty much used the rack, 20 quickdraws, 25 cams, and a triple set of nuts along with most of the slings. I joined him, under a steep hand crack. It seemed we were on route, the hand crack was just my thing. Hard and well protected, I was happy to get some solid gear before going on another spirit quest into the choss.
A couple of more pitches and faff after going up “the wrong vegetated gully” Will made a belay. The pace had slowed and he had worked himself up to the bottom of a large crumbly offwidth. This wasn’t part of the route. I came up and joined him with the large cams for the inevitable struggle coming up. His belay mainly consisted of himself wedged into a crack. He had decided to belay in a huge birds nest full of shit, tying off a selection of manky gear that he had left when he had down climbed to the nest. We laughed at the situation and how lost we had become. It became obvious why he had stopped. The next pitch was wide and loose! R.I.P was scratched onto the rock with the nut key, for the next climbers which would inevitably mistakenly venture this way.
Taking the number 5 and 6 cam I squirmed up above Will through the shit. Bumping the cams through choss, carefully climbing, worried about dislodging rock on him directly below. Booming flakes and precarious footholds abound. Appearing above the offwidth onto the ledge above, I found myself below a steep corner crack. This was it, we were back on route. Will led through the corner, forgetting the nuts at the belay he managed to flap all his 6 foot 5 inches to the top of the pitch.
From there it was more tentative choss climbing and a sketchy descent. We were happy it was the last day climbing and drove to the beach. Ending up in a surf hostel it felt like a different country, and when asked “wow dude, you climb? Rad.” we just nodded.
The Climbing Adventures of Will 