Blog Archives

11 reasons to go rafting in Morocco

7/20/2017

Rafting in Morocco is growing as a great holiday activity, whether you choose a halfday trip onto your holiday or do a multiday rafting trip through the High Atlas, there are plenty of reasons to go whitewater rafting. Here’s our top 11 reasons to go rafting in Morocco.

1. It's only a few hours from Europe

Marrakech is only a few hours from Europe and you are in a different world.

2. Spectacular scenery

In winter it is full of snow and summer are formed from the melt water, few large rivers. This bright, blue, icy winds its whitewater below a temperature of up to 30 degrees way through the red-colored mountains. It is an ideal combination of desert and mountainous landscape

3. It's for families and adults

Whitewater rafting is the perfect team building activity to do with a group of mates or a family. When your in a raft together taking on river rapids, you are forced to work as a team. It’s also a lot of fun that it’s bound to bring you closer as a family or group of friends. And it’s not just the rafting, spending the evening telling stories around the campfire of the fun you had that day is a great bonding experience. Do something new and exciting with your family.

4. The weather

Most of the time you will find sunshine in Morocco but the best time is in March, April and May. It can be hot but the water will cool you down. No matter the weather, we can raft! There’s no such thing as bad weather, just bad equipment.

5. The Berber hospitality

Waking up in a beautiful Bedouin tent with the smell of Berber Whiskey lingering in the air by the river is one of the main reason we love this place. The Berbers are so friendly and helpful that you feel at home all the time.

6. Professional guides

Another great reason to go rafting in Morocco are our guides are great, of course they are otherwise we wouldn’t employ them. All of our guides and safety kayakers hold International Rafting Federation certification. But not only are they fantastic at their jobs, they are a great bunch of people to spend time with and share stories around the campfire.

7. It's fun

We can’t think of a better way to spend our days outside in nature, with a great group of people, getting our hearts pounding with adrenaline as we crash through the waves and ending the day around a camp fire.

8. It's an adventure

Bored of the usual holidays? Looking for something new and exciting? A whitewater rafting holiday in Morocco will see you paddling rapids, exploring canyons similar to the Grand Canyon. Away from technology for a week and just the simplicity of camping and rafting. Push yourself out of your comfort zone and try something new, you won’t regret it.

9. The food

The food is great. After a long day in the raft, you are bound to have a large appetite and we are sure to not let you go hungry. We’ll serve you a traditional Tajine with a fresh salade with vegetables from the local's garden.

10. The Berber whiskey

There's always time for a mint tea. At the end of our multiday rafting trip you just enjoy that moment of breathing pure mountain air and the campfire with your cup of mint tea or a glass of wine.

11. The stars

There’s nothing quite like the night skies from the banks of the rivers in Morocco. With no light pollution it’s an ideal place to stare up and gaze at the spectacle. It’s not uncommon to see the milky way on clear nights. Because sleeping under a tent is optional, you can spend the whole night gazing up at the delights above.

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IRF & Rescue3 Workshop Morocco 2017

7/1/2017

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Adventures in the High Atlas mountains

The Morocco 2017 workshop took place this year on the Ahansal river in the High Atlas mountains of Morocco. This was to be the 3rd workshop I have ran in conjunction with Berber rafting adventures.
Each year this is one of first workshops I run in early spring to coincide with the paddling season in the High Atlas. Demand for the course has been successfully rising year on year. This year we had participants from. Finland, Latvia, France & Denmark.
For 2017 Both myself and Yann from Berber rafting had decided to up the offering and include a Rescue 3 Whitewater rescue technician PR certification alongside the IRF workshop. This meant that the students could spend 3 days working through the WRT syllabus learning & Practicing new rescue skills before putting themselves forward for the IRF assessment.
During my travels I very rarely see guides that are 100% prepared & equipped with the necessary skills to pass an IRF assessment straight away . Normally throw bagging & Ropework are the areas where guides need a little coaching before the IRF assessment. By including the WRT aspect before the IRF workshop we are able to identify any knowledge gaps.
After the drive from Marrakech we settled into our amazing new accommodation provided by our local Berber host Mohammed or as he like to be called Mo.

Mo and his team are all Nomadic Berber people who work each year to accommodate groups of paddlers who travel to the Ahansal river. For the past 2 years Mo has been building his own guest house I was looking forward to seeing his project 1 year on and I was not disappointed. Our students this year had really nice facilities.

We kicked off the course after dinner on the first evening. After some brief introductions and expectations we started to work through the WRT theory sections in order to lay down a solid safe working platform for the rest of the week.
Our plan was to spend the first 3 days of the course based on the one day commercial section of the Ahansal working through the WRT syllabus. We would then spend the final 2 days running the multiday section of the Ahansal focussing on guiding & river running skills. We would also be looking at how a multiday trip operates.

The one day commercial section of the Ahansal presented us with some great teaching venues for the WRT syllabus. This years water levels were on the medium low side so we were able to take full advantage of our environment.

As Berber rafting operate multiday trips we planned to carry out some night exercises looking at some basic rescues and poor visabilty search exercises that could be encountered on a multiday trip.

The Final 2 days were spent on the multiday section of the river. During the multiday section we got to concentrate on river running skills and communication. The group got to practice some lining skills as a few of the rapids had low lying Berber bridges on them which meant we were in able to paddle underneath them.

The Ahansal is a low volume technical river. To make our trip run a little easier we opted to paddle light rafts and send our multiday equipment to the camp by mules. It was nice to arrive at camp and have it already set up. This gave us the chance to unwind have some food and enjoy our surroundings.

As we made our way down the river we had the time to work on the IRF safety craft certificate for our kayakers. We also stopped off and ran some group rescue scenarios. The workshop was finished off with the flip drill test before the drive back to Marrakech for food and cold beers.

Congratulations to all

Mark Hirst