How to get there:
A good point of reference is the city of Batna.
Drive south-east, the trailhead
is located at the end of a small side road, location
N35.29971, E6.61771, elevation near 1750 meter.
Route description:
Continue up the valley on a good forest road.
This road runs all the way to the summit.
However, considerable time and distance may be saved by doing several short-cuts where
this road makes quite long zig-zag curves. Another variation is to stay near the valley
floor in the beginning, the route will then follow a trail instead of the road, then
connect to the road much higher up in this valley.
Comments:
We stayed in a hotel in Batna.
Breakfast at 0700, departure agreed at 0730. However, not very surprising,
we were told that we would have police escort to the mountain.
The police, of course,
would not show up at 0730. We left around 0800, but this was not the end of delays.
For unknown reasons, the police wanted to escort us a long way, first east then south
of the mountain. Then at every local municipality
border the escort needed to change.
In conclusion, the drive took a full 3 hours.
We finally started hiking shortly after 1100. We did take a couple of short-cuts, but stayed
mainly on the road. Arrival at the top
by 1245. My friend Per was a bit tired, but happy
to succeed in reaching the summit.
We rested and took several pictures before heading back down at 1300. This time we saved
more distance by cutting curves for a total descent time of 1:10.
We had planned to drive north towards the base of our next mountain in the afternoon.
Unfortunately, due to the late start, and yet another police escort, we did not arrive
until well after dark.
