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Trek inside the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco
What is it really like walking in the High Atlas mountains of Morocco? In June 2010 several us found out whenever we did a 7 day trek from Imlil using one of Toubkal-Trekking.com guides, whose name is Jamal. It absolutely was our first connection with a "guided trek" and we had no regrets at the end.
First of all, we meet up with the team that is composed of the guide, a cook, and mules and muleteers. The mules perform the effort of carrying the camping equipment, a lot of the food required for the trek and our heavy luggage, preferably packed in a rucksack. Contrary to popular belief, they use only female mules as his or her temperament is best suitable for the task. They start working with light loads at approximately twelve months and have a working duration of 27 - 3 decades. Good mules may cost around 950 and can carry approximately 140kg.
Accommodation about the trek varied from camping, refuges or staying in a Berber village house. The camp sites were often idyllic, usually from the side of the stream or river - well suited for summer swimming - and included a dining tent which provided protection from the heat with the sun and also in the night shelter from the cold and also occasional rain. In June, even as learned, it's still snowy during the night even as camped above 2,000m.
We stayed an evening in the Toubkal refuge which at 3207m is all about 1000m below the summit of Toubkal (4167m) This is a large, modern refuge with dormitories of varying sizes, good showers plus a large communal area with roaring fire - essential whenever we arrived at a snow storm! Our food here had been served by our cook, though we could also buy snacks from your refuge shop. You will find stunning views from your refuge up towards the Toubkal summit and back the valley.
One night we stayed inside a Berber village house in Amsouzerte Village. This village, like many around the trek, does not have any electricity, so lighting and heating (for that showers) was by bottled gas. Again our food was made by our personal cook - a tasty chicken tajine - the chicken being bought inside the village. Incidentally, you can easily spot the villages with electricity as just about any house includes a large white satellite dish around the flat roof, clearly visible when you approach the village.
On another occasion, due to rainwater Jamal arranged for people to sleep in a pilgrims' hostel at the shrine of Sidi Chamarouch. This was an unusual experience because the shrine attracts many pilgrims who arrive on foot or mule and stay the night. The shrine is barred to non-Muslims, but fortunately the hostel isn't! Here as always we used the floor on comfortable sleeping mats which the mules carried. We simply required to provide our own sleeping bags - and we were glad there were brought warm ones. At altitude it will always be cold through the night. Sidi Chamarouch, due to the pilgrims and trekkers who move through, is full of small stalls and shops selling snacks, soft drinks and souvenirs. It absolutely was almost surreal following your barrenness of most of the trek.
atlas mountains trekking
Our three mules carried our food that was supplemented with fresh food, particularly eggs, fresh bread and meat, bought within the villages along the way, though there aren't shops as we know them inside the High Atlas villages. All of the food was cooked by Lahcen, our cook. Unlike Jamal who spoke excellent and colloquial English, the muleteers spoke no English and only Lahcen spoke some French.
Breakfast was an earlier meal and was comprised of a fashionable drink (tea, coffee with dried milk), bread, jam, chocolate and cheese spreads and honey. It was enough to face at 6.30 in the morning! We then trigger for your morning's trek.
After our departure the muleteers packed everything up, loaded the mules and would overtake us around the trail and become prepared to welcome us, around midday, with mint tea accompanied by a freshly prepared picnic lunch - detailed with blankets to sit on! Lunch would be a cold buffet, typically pasta, sardines (Morocco is a major world producer), tuna and salad, and also - Lahcen's speciality - a hot dish of potato, tomato and chick peas or perhaps a Moroccan omelette.
When 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! Only then do we had the capacity to relax, explore or talk, often with Jamal about the Berber life style. Supper was usually soup along with a meat or vegetable tajine prepared from your basic ingredients (potatoes and carrots were peeled through the cooks) and cooked very efficiently over a small gas stove. Whenever feasible there is fresh fruit (melon, oranges). No alcohol though, if you don't sneak some along with you.
Most of the walking we did was along narrow stony tracks, sometimes very faint and infrequently waymarked. With out a guide it might have been super easy to get lost - yet we would meet young boys herding goats in remote valleys or on high peaks, miles from the village. On one occasion 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 very top. When we arrived in a biting wind on the summit he previously beaten us and set up in a row the six bottles of Coke he previously carried up with him that they hoped we would buy. We did but higher productivity of popularity of his toughness and entrepreneurial spirit than desire to have a fizzy drink. He packed away the empties and set off again along the valley as part of his Wellingtons.
As we approached the villages we saw the tiny cultivated fields, with crops of potatoes, maize, tomatoes and oats and wheat. Inside the fertile valleys were orchards of cherry, walnut and apple. Small children were herding goats or walking to school, women were carrying heavy bundles of fodder cut in the fields for your cattle, men were tilling the fields. Once we saw a huge tipper lorry carrying about forty workers to their villages. Bit by bit the original Berber way of life is beginning to change as tracks are widened and turn into passable to trucks, holes have decided for electricity pylons plus more villages are connected to a mains supply.
But June remains the period of the transhumance for many out in the wild, the upgrading of whole villages in the valleys to the high summer pastures. We got empty villages being gotten ready for summer occupation. These were encompassed by mountain pastures and extensive, old networks of irrigation ditches. One shepherd we met was wondering where all others was: he had apparently set off weekly or so too soon and was now needing to return along the valley!
We carried only day packs so that as we knew we would get closer the mules again at lunchtime, we carried only essential items: water (purified stream water), snacks (brought around from England) and additional clothing as possible cold at altitude. Walking poles are extremely useful and good boots required for certainly not per day trek from Imlil. The walking itself is not so difficult and Jamal ensured that we maintained a leisurely pace, allowing the required time for stops, photo opportunities and scenery gazing. Also, he took pride and pleasure in explaining to us the Berber life-style. We many userful stuff here about their language, culture, religion, agriculture, family life - and mules! Additionally we found that the indigenous fauna with the area includes foxes, rabbits, wild goats and squirrel, but were assured that it's freezing for snakes and scorpions - at least once we were there!
The majority of us suffered to some extent with altitude sickness through the first few days. We were glad that once we reached the Toubkal refuge there were acclimatised, helped by just about every day climbs over passes of more than 3000m and also by camping at altitude. Inside the refuge we met another party of walkers that had walked up from Imlil in a single day, a height gain of approximately 1500m. They were not experienced or very fit and were struggling with sore feet and altitude sickness. They meant to climb Toubkal the following morning, speculate we discovered, they weren't fit or sufficiently together to descend.
