How to get there:
At N36.427, E004.2062, fork sharply right and continue on a good
dirt road until location N36.424735. E004.232894, elevation
about 1350 meter. Park here.
Route description:
There are two routes, one from the north and one from the south. This description
covers the south route.
The south route has a very well built trail essentially all the way from the road
to the summit. Quite a surprise. It must have been a pretty big project with a large
number of workers. In many locations
the trail has been
supported by stone walls, all
very well made.
Finally, you gain the main crest and get an impressive view north. From here,
a short ascent
to the summit ridge, then a shott,
pretty horizontal section before
arriving at the summit marker. Comments:
After a long drive with police escort from the trailhead of Djebel Chelia, we
stayed at Residence Hotel the previous night. We where ready around 0800, but as always, there were
various smaller issues that caused a slight delay in our departure.
Our trip guide, Soufiane, had hired a young local guide that also came along.
We were at the trailhead by 1030 and started walking by 1040.
I was surprised by the quality of the
trail, this was obviously man-made and a considerable effort had been invested.
Per was moving well, I had decided that we
should try to walk a bit slower than yesterday.
The ascent was long, but nice.
We did make several short-cuts in the upper part of the route.
Thus, leaving the trail and going more directly up the slope until just before a final step
to gain the main crest.
We arrived at the summit at 1340, so 3 hours up.
It was breezy, but overall pretty good visibility.
We stayed 10 minutes, allowing for the normal summit photos.
Descending, I decided that Per should
follow the trail and avoid
the slightly steeper short-cuts that we had taken on ascent.
This varition provided some areas of good views
that we had missed on our ascent.
We descended at a steady pace, then quite low down and without any warning, Per
stumbled, most likely due to a piece of wood that extended from the side out into
the trail. He fell forward, then
rolled off the trail onto the slope below. Soufiane
was right behind and I was right in front, but there was really nothing we could do
at the moment. Fortunately, Per seemed unhurt. He got up and walked back up onto the trail.
Obviously, Soufiane and myself were shocked, but then relieved to see that this had
not caused any serious injury.
Back at the car by 1610. Per was tired while descending the last 100 meter and obviously
a bit shaken after the fall he had somewhat higher up.
We next drove to a restaurant and had a good dinner. Then off to the airport in Alger in order
to catch an evening flight to Tasmanrasset. We ended up in a pretty massive traffic jam, road work
had forced the 3 lane highway to merge and this caused traffic to stop completely.
For a while, we worried that it would be little time left for the flight check-in, but it
all worked out fine. It actually turned out that our flight would be delayed so we would
have made it even with a worse situation on the highway.
