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Trek within the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco
What exactly is it really like walking in the High Atlas mountains of Morocco? In June 2010 several us learned once 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 didn't have any regrets at the conclusion.
First of all, we meet up with the team which is consists of the guide, a cook, and mules and muleteers. The mules carry out the work of carrying the camping equipment, the majority of the food necessary for the trek and our heavy luggage, preferably packed inside a rucksack. Surprisingly, they will use only female mules as their temperament is much better fitted to the job. They begin working together with light loads at approximately twelve months and have a working lifetime of 27 - 3 decades. Good mules could cost around 950 and may carry up to 140kg.
Accommodation about the trek varied from camping, refuges or residing in a Berber village house. The camp ground sites were often idyllic, usually through the side of the stream or river - perfect for summer swimming - and included a dining tent which provided defense against heat from the sun as well as in the evening shelter in the cold and even occasional rain. In June, even as learned, will still be cold through the night as we camped above 2,000m.
We stayed an evening within the Toubkal refuge which at 3207m is about 1000m underneath the summit of Toubkal (4167m) This is a large, modern refuge with dormitories of varying sizes, good showers along with a large communal area with roaring fire - necessary when we arrived at a snow storm! Our food here was still made by our cook, though we're able to also buy snacks in the refuge shop. There are stunning views in the refuge up for the Toubkal summit and back down the valley.
One night we stayed in a Berber village house in Amsouzerte Village. This village, like many on 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 very own cook - a tasty chicken tajine - the chicken being bought inside the village. Incidentally, it is easy to spot the villages with electricity as nearly every house features a large white satellite dish around the flat roof, clearly visible when you approach the village.
On another occasion, due to weather Jamal arranged for all of us to sleep in a pilgrims' hostel on the shrine of Sidi Chamarouch. This is an unusual experience since the shrine attracts many pilgrims who arrive when walking or mule and stay the night time. The shrine itself is barred to non-Muslims, but fortunately the hostel just isn't! Here as always we used the floor on comfortable sleeping mats that your mules carried. We just required to provide our personal sleeping-bags - so we were glad we'd brought warm ones. At altitude it is always cold at night. Sidi Chamarouch, because of the pilgrims and trekkers who move through, is filled with small stalls and shops selling snacks, carbonated drinks and souvenirs. It had been almost surreal after the barrenness of most of the trek.
trekking atlas mountains
Our three mules carried our food that has been supplemented with fresh produce, particularly eggs, fresh bread and meat, bought in the villages along the way, even though there aren't shops as you may know them in the High Atlas villages. All 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 early meal and consisted of a warm drink (tea, coffee with dried milk), bread, jam, chocolate and cheese spreads and honey. It was enough to handle at 6.30 each day! We then trigger for the morning's trek.
After our departure the muleteers packed everything up, loaded the mules and would overtake us about the trail and stay able to welcome us, around midday, with mint tea accompanied by a freshly prepared picnic lunch - complete 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, and in addition - Lahcen's speciality - a fashionable dish of potato, tomato and chick peas or a Moroccan omelette.
When we finished our day's walk, usually mid afternoon, i was 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 about the Berber life style. Supper was usually soup plus a meat or vegetable tajine prepared from the basic ingredients (potatoes and carrots were peeled through the cooks) and cooked very efficiently on a small gas stove. Whenever possible there was berry (melon, oranges). No alcohol though, if you don't sneak some with you.
A lot of the walking we did was along narrow stony tracks, sometimes very faint and infrequently waymarked. With no guide it might are already super easy to obtain lost - yet we would meet young boys herding goats in remote valleys or on high peaks, miles through the village. On one occasion a young boy aged about 14 had seen us from his village inside the valley heading for a pass at 3,500m together climbed up over 1000m to meet us towards the top. Whenever we arrived in a biting wind in the summit he'd beaten us and hang up up in a row the six bottles of Coke he'd carried up with him that she hoped we'd buy. We did but higher productivity of admiration for his toughness and entrepreneurial spirit than desire for a fizzy drink. He packed away the empties and set off again down 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. Within the fertile valleys were orchards of cherry, walnut and apple. Young kids were herding goats or walking to school, women were carrying heavy bundles of fodder cut from the fields for your cattle, men were tilling the fields. Once we saw an enormous tipper lorry carrying about forty workers returning to their villages. Little by little the standard Berber way of life is changing as tracks are widened and become passable to trucks, holes are prepared for electricity pylons and more villages are linked to a mains supply.
But June remains the period of the transhumance for many in the mountains, the moving up of whole villages from the valleys towards the high summer pastures. We got empty villages being prepared for summer occupation. These were flanked by mountain pastures and extensive, old networks of irrigation ditches. One shepherd we met wondered where all others was: he had apparently trigger weekly approximately too soon and it was now needing to return down the valley!
We carried only day packs so when we knew we'd meet up with the mules again at lunchtime, we carried only essential items: water (purified stream water), snacks (brought with us from England) and extra clothing as they can be snowy at altitude. Walking poles are extremely useful and good boots essential for not a day trek from Imlil. The walking itself is not so difficult and Jamal ensured that we maintained a leisurely pace, allowing plenty of time for stops, photo opportunities and scenery gazing. Younger crowd took pride and pleasure in trying to explain to us the Berber way of life. We many userful stuff here regarding their language, culture, religion, agriculture, family life - and mules! We also found that the indigenous fauna of the area includes foxes, rabbits, wild goats and squirrel, but were assured it is too cold for snakes and scorpions - a minimum of when we have there been!
Many of us suffered to some degree with altitude sickness during the first couple of days. We were glad that when we reached the Toubkal refuge we had acclimatised, helped by just about every day climbs over passes greater than 3000m and by camping at altitude. Within the refuge we met another party of walkers that had walked up from Imlil in one day, a height gain around 1500m. They weren't experienced or very fit and were struggling with sore feet and altitude sickness. They meant to climb Toubkal the following morning, but because we discovered, they were not fit or sufficiently coupled with to descend.
