Quick Maroc Topo Map Question

[Farmboy]

Trying to plan my route through Morocco, I take it I can plan the route on the Maroc topo map and save it all. then when i get on the ferry I can switch over my card in the Garmin to use the maroc map instead of the European one.

When travelling on the pistes is it enough to Use a waypoint at the start and then say one everytime there is another junction to keep me right, or are the pistes harder to follow than that, I have waypointed the main roads for example with " keep left on N13 " then the next waypoint some 50 miles later with " turn right onto Medilt Piste " would this be sufficient

I have also dobbed all the pistes in today using the routing tool but took forever and i wondered if it was really required.

Just trying to get it all loaded up and sorted so I dont get horribly lost on the wrong piste on the wrong bike

Cheers Chris

 

[davidgibson999]

if you want to send my your email address by PM i'll be happy to mail you a sample route from mapsource from last year which would give you an idea of how many waypoints you might want.

 

[Fanum]

T

When travelling on the pistes is it enough to Use a waypoint at the start and then say one everytime there is another junction to keep me right, or are the pistes harder to follow than that, I have waypointed the main roads for example with " keep left on N13 " then the next waypoint some 50 miles later with " turn right onto Medilt Piste " would this be sufficient

I have also dobbed all the pistes in today using the routing tool but took forever and i wondered if it was really required.


Cheers Chris

Chris...If you're not familiar with a piste then use a combination of the two methods you describe above.....ie 'dob in' the route for a mile up to and a mile after the turnings, and fill in the bits in-between quite often as well.

You'll find that there are many hundred more pistes and tracks that there are marked on the Topo map and if you can't see which way a piste goes on the ground, having some more 'dobbed in' points quite close by can help identify a wrong turn quite quickly.

Also be prepared to backtrack and use common sense when following your prepared routes- one good example is the R104 from just south of Tafraoute on the way to Igherm......The R104 isn not a tarmac road and never has been- it's a quite gnarly track now and it's actually impassible on a GS at around the point I've marked with a blue flag here.......there's a big washout that's been there several years and you can just squeeze a pogo type bike through against the rockface above a 10 footdrop into the Oued.....you actually have to backtrack to where I've marked the green triagle where there is a triple split in the R104....you go left (which isn't even marked on the TOPO as a 'trail' or anything) and follow it up to the white road which is in fact t he main, fully tarmacced road to Igherm.

The R104 did use to come out just above the big switchback at the head of the valley (marked as a red circle) but because it has't ben used for several years, it's a very rough piste.

Do allow for things like that in your plans- if you didn't know about it, it's 30 mins moderately fast riding to get to the impassable point then the same back to the point where you have to take the unmarked track, then another 45 mins to make it back up the the road, which you might be worried about taking anyway because it's marked as being a lesser raod than the R104 which you'd just found was a gnarly track IYSWIM

 

[Paul G (BHT)]

......The R104 isn not a tarmac road and never has been- it's a quite gnarly track now.....

R104

...... it's actually impassible on a GS at around the point I've marked with a blue flag here....there's a big washout that's been there several years and you can just squeeze a pogo type bike through against the rockface above a 10 footdrop into the Oued.....

Washout on the R104

 

[Farmboy]

Those photos say it all, not really what i want on a fully laden Africa Twin

Thanks for the help guys, looks like I have overdone the dobbing in bit, I have virtually mapped the whole route turn by turn which took me all day

Looks like I have things covered in theory anyway. I did originally plan 7 days in Morocco but the ferry times mean I now can have at least 1 maybe 2 days extra so hopefully I can easily turn around at any point if the going gets too bad. I have tried to use pistes as mentioned in other threads that others have done and I will be self sufficient so if its all goes a bit Pete Tong I can jsut get my tent out and gaze at the stars or the Local Kids whichever comes first

Thanks again boys

 

[purds]

waypoints

if you want to send my your email address by PM i'll be happy to mail you a sample route from mapsource from last year which would give you an idea of how many waypoints you might want.

David

Would you please be kind enough to send the same info to me?
Have pm'ed you.
Thanks

 

[davidgibson999]

David

Would you please be kind enough to send the same info to me?
Have pm'ed you.
Thanks

Will do.

 

[purds]

Thanks David - much appreciated.

It's pretty much what I have been doing in Mapsource - nice to have confirmation as I'm new to Mapsource, Garmin and Maroc!!

 

[Farmboy]

I Give Up

Put my 1GB card into the 2610 Garmin tonight. Loaded up the Maroc maps no problems, I also loaded 59 waypoints and 4 routes of some pistes.

When I came to check the sat Nav it only loaded 30 waypoints and only the first half of the 4 routes,

tried loading a 2Gb card but still the same, have cleared out all the old tracklogs and waypoints so I dont know why It doesnt load up properly.

Anyone any ideas as I am out of ideas


This was the fun part until I started loading onto the Sat Nav

Chris

 

[davidgibson999]

Put my 1GB card into the 2610 Garmin tonight. Loaded up the Maroc maps no problems, I also loaded 59 waypoints and 4 routes of some pistes.

When I came to check the sat Nav it only loaded 30 waypoints and only the first half of the 4 routes,

tried loading a 2Gb card but still the same, have cleared out all the old tracklogs and waypoints so I dont know why It doesnt load up properly.

Anyone any ideas as I am out of ideas


This was the fun part until I started loading onto the Sat Nav

Chris

You may need to split each route into a few smaller routes as there is a maximum number of points for each route allowed...
Not sure what that is for your GPS but Garmin were able to tell me what it was for the zumo (I've forgotten that too...)

 

[Farmboy]

Cheers Dave,

Might help if I try and load it all onto my Card using the card reader I just remembered i had

Last night I was loading it onto the sat nav itself, Will start afresh tonight failing that I will get me big hammer out and force it all in

 

[Timolgra]

I have a 2650 which is essentially the same GPS and find it pretty useless for tracks, it just won't hold enough data in that form even if you reduce the number of points in Mapsource of each track..

A great GPS otherwise but it's why I also bought a Colorado which holds a lot of tracks and more importantly shows them as a thick pink line which is much easier than the breadcrumb on many others.

Having said that I never use tracklogs in Morocco anyway, my first trips used a few waypoints, map and a bit of common sense, much more fun.

 

[Farmboy]

finally got it sorted out to a point.

Used Tim Culliss`s advice and used two waypoints then via points in the middle to plot the rough route. Only used it for the major pistes without knowing the terrain etc i dont want to find myself sat at a junction of 20-30 tracks all leading off in different directions in the middle of the mountains.

the rest will just be maps, common sense and general pointing and scratching of heads.