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Looking east along the north slopes of Saïd ou Ali

We trailed up the unexciting Oued Ikkis valley (friendly old shepherds) and camped short of the tizi to be sure of water. Our muleteer was feckless and Ali did everything for him. There was a lot of rain overnight. Next morning we had to wait an hour on the Tizi n’ Ikkis (2830m) before man and beast caught up. We headed up a ridge from there only to have the muleteer refuse to go any further. We damned him, sent him off, ate all the heavy food items and shouldered our packs. The long 700m climb to the snowy crest gave us a display of every type of scree; hard grafting. A dip and on led to the first major top, Ali ou Aïssa (3686m), which had a Toubkal-style trig. Continuing, the highest point of all, Ichichi n’ Boukhlib (3747m), proved nothing but a shale tip. The weather was looking bad. We left our rucksacks at the next dip to go on to what is considered the finest summit, Saïd ou Ali (3727m), to which northern approaches aim and from which Domenech shows a variety of ski descents. The ridge rolled away westwards for ever it seemed, but, having traversed the highest trio, we felt excused further effort. In fact, with thunder around, all we wanted to do, was run – down. The down was on 2000m. Poor old knees.