'Euskal Dantza' added to Jebel Oujdad in Taghia (Morocco) by Ion Gurutz Lazkoz & Iker Pou

Taghia keeps calling us back — its walls, its vibe, its people. There's magic in those canyons that keeps the new lines flowing.

After putting up Agur (8a+, 400m) in 2018, Honey Moon (7b+, 330m) in 2019, and Bihotz Handi (7c, 350m) in 2024, this year we came back for more. In April 2025, together with my friend Ion Gurutz Lazkoz, we opened a new route: Euskal Dantza (8a, 320m) on the south face of Oujdad.

Like always, it was ground-up — no shortcuts. We spent four days bolting it on lead, and came back for a fifth to send it free. It wasn’t without drama: during the redpoint push, Ion took a whipper of around 15 meters, cracking a rib and banging up his knee pretty bad. But true to form, he shook it off, and we topped out with the job done.

The line is a stunner — it takes on the steepest part of the face, following an obvious and aesthetic feature. But don’t be fooled — it's a serious pitch: mental and pumpy, with sparse bolts, so heads-up climbing is mandatory. The rock’s mostly bomber, though there's a couple of spice sections with more delicate stone. Rack beta: you’ll want a set of cams from 0.0 to 2. We hope future teams dig it as much as we did — we had an absolute blast, and felt like kids again on the wall!

To top it off, on one of Ion’s forced rest days, I went full solo mode and self-belayed La Mano de Maroc (7b+, 350m) — because, why not? And on the way out, early in the morning before leaving for Marrakech, we managed to onsight the new route À côté de moi (7c, 190m) put up by Joseph Harris and Chloé Yvroux — props to them, it’s a mega classic in the making.

- Iker Pou