Jeromy262
De BISAWiki
Trek inside the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco
What is it enjoy walking inside the High Atlas mountains of Morocco? In June 2010 several us learned whenever we did a 7 day trek from Imlil using one of Toubkal-Trekking.com guides, whose name is Jamal. It was our first experience with a "guided trek" so we had no regrets at the conclusion.
First of all, we encounter the team that's composed of the guide, a cook, and mules and muleteers. The mules do the effort of carrying the camping equipment, most of the food needed for the trek and our heavy luggage, preferably packed in the rucksack. Contrary to popular belief, they use only female mules as his or her temperament is much better suited to the job. They start dealing with light loads around 12 months and also have a working life of 27 - Thirty years. Good mules can cost around 950 and can carry as much as 140kg.
Accommodation about the trek varied from camping, refuges or remaining in a Berber village house. The camp sites were often idyllic, usually through the side of your stream or river - well suited for summer swimming - and included a dining tent which provided protection from heat from the sun and also in the night shelter from your cold as well as occasional rain. In June, even as learned, it is still cold during the night as we camped above 2,000m.
We stayed an evening inside the Toubkal refuge which at 3207m is approximately 1000m below the summit of Toubkal (4167m) It is a large, modern refuge with dormitories of varying sizes, good showers along with a large communal area with roaring fire - essential once we arrived at a snow storm! Our food here was still prepared by our cook, though we might also buy snacks in the refuge shop. There are stunning views from the refuge up for the Toubkal summit and down again the valley.
Recognized we stayed in the Berber village house in Amsouzerte Village. This village, like many around the trek, has no electricity, so lighting and heating (for that showers) was by bottled gas. Again our food was made by our own cook - a tasty chicken tajine - the chicken being bought in the village. Incidentally, it is possible to see the villages with electricity as just about any house has a large white satellite dish about the flat roof, clearly visible while you approach the village.
On another occasion, as a result of rainwater Jamal arranged for all of us to settle a pilgrims' hostel in the shrine of Sidi Chamarouch. This is an unusual experience as the shrine attracts many pilgrims who arrive when walking or mule and turn into the evening. The shrine is barred to non-Muslims, but fortunately the hostel is not! Here as always we used a floor on comfortable sleeping mats that the mules carried. We simply necessary to provide our own sleeping bags - and that we were glad we had brought warm ones. At altitude it is always cold through the night. Sidi Chamarouch, because of the pilgrims and trekkers who go through, is full of small stalls and shops selling snacks, soft drinks and souvenirs. It absolutely was almost surreal after the barrenness of many with the trek.
atlas mountains trekking
Our three mules carried our food that was supplemented with fresh produce, particularly eggs, fresh bread and meat, bought within the villages in route, even though there aren't shops as we know them inside the High Atlas villages. Every one of the food was cooked by Lahcen, our cook. Unlike Jamal who spoke excellent and colloquial English, the muleteers spoke no English and just Lahcen spoke some French.
Breakfast was an earlier meal and was comprised of a warm drink (tea, coffee with dried milk), bread, jam, chocolate and cheese spreads and honey. This is enough to manage at 6.30 in the morning! Only then do we set off for the morning's trek.
After our departure the muleteers packed everything up, loaded the mules and would overtake us around the trail and be ready to welcome us, around midday, with mint tea followed by a freshly prepared picnic lunch - filled with blankets to take a seat on! Lunch would be a cold buffet, typically pasta, sardines (Morocco is a major world producer), tuna and salad, as well as - Lahcen's speciality - a fashionable dish of potato, tomato and chick peas or a Moroccan omelette.
Once we finished our day's walk, usually mid afternoon, we were always offered mint tea. After the trek our initial enthusiasm for mint tea had waned! Then we had time to relax, explore or talk, often with Jamal in regards to the Berber way of life. Supper was usually soup and a meat or vegetable tajine prepared from the basic ingredients (potatoes and carrots were peeled from the cooks) and cooked very efficiently over a small gas stove. Whenever feasible there was clearly berry (melon, oranges). No alcohol though, if you don't sneak some together with you.
The majority of the walking we did was along narrow stony tracks, sometimes very faint and rarely waymarked. With out a guide it could happen to be very easy to get lost - yet we would meet young boys herding goats in remote valleys or on high peaks, miles from the village. One time a young boy aged about 14 saw us from his village inside the valley at risk of a pass at 3,500m together climbed up over 1000m to fulfill us at the top. When we arrived at a biting wind on the summit he'd beaten us and set in a row the six bottles of Coke he had carried up with him that they hoped we'd buy. We did but more out of popularity of his toughness and entrepreneurial spirit than wish to have a fizzy drink. He packed away the empties and hang up off again along the valley in his Wellingtons.
Even as approached the villages we got the small cultivated fields, with crops of potatoes, maize, tomatoes and oats and wheat. Inside the fertile valleys were orchards of cherry, walnut and apple. Young kids were herding goats or travelling to school, women were carrying heavy bundles of fodder cut in the fields for your cattle, men were tilling the fields. If we saw an enormous tipper lorry carrying about forty workers back to their villages. Little by little the standard Berber life-style is beginning to change as tracks are widened and turn into passable to trucks, holes have decided for electricity pylons and much more villages are attached to a mains supply.
But June remains to be the time of the transhumance for many out in the wild, the moving up of whole villages in the valleys towards the high summer pastures. We got empty villages being gotten ready for summer occupation. These folks were encompassed by mountain pastures and extensive, old networks of irrigation ditches. One shepherd we met wanted to ask where everyone else was: he'd apparently trigger weekly roughly too quickly and it was now being forced to return on the valley!
We carried only day packs so that as we knew we might meet up with the mules again at lunchtime, we carried only essential items: water (purified stream water), snacks (brought along with us from England) and further clothing as possible cold at altitude. Walking poles are incredibly useful and good boots required for not per day trek from Imlil. The walking itself is not so difficult and Jamal made certain that we maintained a leisurely pace, allowing the required time for stops, photo opportunities and scenery gazing. Younger crowd took pride and pleasure in explaining to us the Berber way of life. We many userful stuff here regarding language, culture, religion, agriculture, family life - and mules! Additionally we discovered that the indigenous fauna from the area includes foxes, rabbits, wild goats and squirrel, but were assured it is too cold for snakes and scorpions - at least once we have there been!
Most of us suffered to varying degrees with altitude sickness through the first couple of days. I was glad that by the time we reached the Toubkal refuge we had acclimatised, helped by just about every day climbs over passes of more than 3000m and by camping at altitude. In the refuge we met another party of walkers that had walked up from Imlil in a day, a height gain of about 1500m. They were not experienced or very fit and were battling with sore feet and altitude sickness. They meant to climb Toubkal the following morning, speculate we discovered, they were not fit or sufficiently and had to descend.
