Panorama Photo

The name of this place means "the pass of the heart". It connects the little town of Toundout to the little village of Amezri, which at 2250 m is the southern door to the M'Goun massif. After Toundout, the village where you leave the valley (fording the river the last of many times) and begin the steep phase of the ascent bears the name Imi-n-Ouloun, which means "the mouth of the heart".
The pass is 11 m higher than the Stilfserjoch and 1 m lower than the Col de l'Iseran, but is is by no means comparable to them, since here you find only a red stony piste carved in the rock.
When I arrived with my bicycle at Amezri I was encircled by a crowd of enthusiast and loudly shouting youth, who accompanied me to the gîte d'etape where I left the bicycle for all the duration of the M'Goun climb. In the confusion somebody robbed me the old Yashica 5030, my first digital camera, that I had carried as a spare. Sometimes you truly need to find a thief to get rid of old objects that you don't have the courage to throw away!
In some future tour to Morocco I must return to Amezri in order to discover if it can be reached by road also along the valley, starting from the (very harshly) asphalted road Demnate-Skoura. The valley is called "red valley of the Tessaout"; why red should be evident from the image. In any case, the village has its stock of food, and is prepared to remain isolated for several months in wintertime.
Life is not easy in these places. After leaving the bicycle, I used the two or three light hours remaining to go up, and then I threw my sleeping bag on the steep flank of the mountain. My surprise was great when, as darkness completed its descent, I realized that at maybe 200 m from me, on a no less steep flank, there was a little fire, witnessing the presence of a shepherd's bivouac, at 2800 in full winter.