Gina667
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Trek inside the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco
The facts really like walking in the High Atlas mountains of Morocco? In June 2010 a group of us learned when 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.
To start with, we connect with the team that is made up of the guide, a cook, and mules and muleteers. The mules carry out the effort of carrying the camping equipment, most of the food necessary for the trek and our heavy luggage, preferably packed inside a rucksack. Surprisingly, they will use only female mules his or her temperament is much better suitable for the work. They begin working with light loads at approximately twelve months and also have a working duration of 27 - 30 years. Good mules can cost around 950 and will carry as much as 140kg.
Accommodation around the trek varied from camping, refuges or residing in a Berber village house. The camping ground sites were often idyllic, usually from the side of your stream or river - well suited for summer swimming - and included a dining tent which provided defense against the warmth from the sun as well as in the evening shelter in the cold and also occasional rain. In June, once we learned, it is still cold through the night once we camped above 2,000m.
We stayed an evening within the Toubkal refuge which at 3207m is approximately 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 - much needed once we arrived at a snow storm! Our food here was still being served by our cook, though we could also buy snacks from your refuge shop. You can find stunning views from the refuge up on the Toubkal summit and down again the valley.
One evening we stayed in a Berber village house in Amsouzerte Village. This village, like many about the trek, doesn't have electricity, so lighting and heating (for the showers) was by bottled gas. Again our food was served by our very own cook - a tasty chicken tajine - the chicken being bought inside the village. Incidentally, you can easily spot the villages with electricity as nearly every house has a large white satellite dish about the flat roof, clearly visible while you approach the village.
On another occasion, because of weather Jamal arranged for all of us to settle a pilgrims' hostel in the shrine of Sidi Chamarouch. This is an odd experience as the shrine attracts many pilgrims who arrive by walking or mule and turn into the night. The shrine is barred to non-Muslims, but fortunately the hostel is not! Here as always we used a floor on comfortable sleeping mats which the mules carried. We only needed to provide our own sleeping bags - and we were glad we had brought warm ones. At altitude it will always be cold during the night. Sidi Chamarouch, due to the pilgrims and trekkers who pass through, is filled with small stalls and shops selling snacks, soft drinks and souvenirs. It was almost surreal following your barrenness on most with the trek.
trek atlas mountains
Our three mules carried our food which was supplemented with fresh foods, particularly eggs, fresh bread and meat, bought in the villages along the way, even though there aren't shops as you may know them within 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 only Lahcen spoke some French.
Breakfast was an earlier meal and contained a warm drink (tea, coffee with dried milk), bread, jam, chocolate and cheese spreads and honey. It was enough to face at 6.30 each day! We then set off for your 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 then a freshly prepared picnic lunch - filled with blankets to sit on! Lunch was obviously a cold buffet, typically pasta, sardines (Morocco can be a major world producer), tuna and salad, and also - 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, i was always offered mint tea. After the trek our initial enthusiasm for mint tea had waned! Only then do we had time to unwind, explore or talk, often with Jamal concerning the Berber life style. The evening meal was usually soup along with a meat or vegetable tajine prepared in the basic ingredients (potatoes and carrots were peeled from the cooks) and cooked very efficiently on a small gas stove. Whenever feasible there is fresh fruit (melon, oranges). No alcohol though, unless you sneak some along with you.
The majority of the walking we did was along narrow stony tracks, sometimes very faint and barely waymarked. Without a guide it could are already quite simple to get lost - yet we might meet young children herding goats in remote valleys or on high peaks, miles through the village. On one occasion a new boy aged about 14 saw us from his village in the valley at risk of a pass at 3,500m together climbed up over 1000m to meet us at the top. Once we found its way to a biting wind on the summit he previously beaten us and set up in a row the six bottles of Coke he'd carried track of him that they hoped we would buy. We did but higher productivity of popularity of his toughness and entrepreneurial spirit than desire for 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 had the tiny cultivated fields, with crops of potatoes, maize, tomatoes and oats and wheat. In the fertile valleys were orchards of cherry, walnut and apple. Young kids were herding goats or approaching school, women were carrying heavy bundles of fodder cut from your fields for your cattle, men were tilling the fields. Once we saw an enormous tipper lorry carrying about forty workers returning to their villages. Piece by piece the standard Berber life-style is evolving as tracks are widened and be passable to trucks, holes have decided for electricity pylons and more villages are linked to a mains supply.
But June remains the period of the transhumance for most in the mountains, the moving up of whole villages from the valleys towards the high summer pastures. We had empty villages being prepared 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 previously apparently tripped a week or so too quickly and was now needing to return along the valley!
We carried only day packs so when we knew we would get closer the mules again at lunchtime, we carried only essential items: water (purified stream water), snacks (brought along with us from England) and additional clothing as it can be snowy at altitude. Walking poles are incredibly useful and good boots required for not a day trek from Imlil. The walking is simple enough and Jamal ensured that people maintained a leisurely pace, allowing plenty of time for stops, photo opportunities and scenery gazing. He also took pride and pleasure in trying to explain to us the Berber life style. We learned a lot about their language, culture, religion, agriculture, family life - and mules! 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 - a minimum of once we were there!
Most of us suffered to some extent with altitude sickness throughout the initial few days. I was glad that when we reached the Toubkal refuge we'd acclimatised, helped by almost daily climbs over passes in excess of 3000m and also 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 approximately 1500m. They were not experienced or very fit and were struggling with sore feet and altitude sickness. They designed to climb Toubkal these morning, but because we discovered, they were not fit or well enough and had to descend.
