Cecily557
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Trek in the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco
The facts really like walking inside the High Atlas mountains of Morocco? In June 2010 a group of us discovered when we did a 7 day trek from Imlil with one of Toubkal-Trekking.com guides, whose name is Jamal. It had been our first connection with a "guided trek" and we didn't have any regrets at the conclusion.
To begin with, we connect with the team which is consists 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 the rucksack. Contrary to popular belief, they'll use only female mules as his or her temperament is best fitted to the task. They start working together with light loads at about 12 months and also have a working duration of 27 - Thirty 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 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 warmth with the sun and also in the night shelter in the cold and also occasional rain. In June, once we learned, will still be 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 beneath the summit of Toubkal (4167m) It's a large, modern refuge with dormitories of varying sizes, good showers and a large communal area with roaring fire - essential once we arrived in a snow storm! Our food here was still prepared by our cook, though we might also buy snacks from the refuge shop. You can find stunning views from the refuge up for the Toubkal summit and back the valley.
Recognized we stayed in the Berber village house in Amsouzerte Village. This village, like many about the trek, doesn't have electricity, so lighting and heating (for that showers) was by bottled gas. Again our food was prepared by our personal cook - a tasty chicken tajine - the chicken being bought in the village. Incidentally, you can easily see the villages with electricity as just about any house has a large white satellite dish around the flat roof, clearly visible as you approach the village.
On another occasion, due to rainwater Jamal arranged for people to settle in a pilgrims' hostel on the shrine of Sidi Chamarouch. This is an odd experience because the shrine attracts many pilgrims who arrive when walking or mule and turn into the night time. The shrine itself is barred to non-Muslims, but fortunately the hostel is not! Because always we slept on the floor on comfortable sleeping mats that your mules carried. We simply needed to provide our very own sleeping-bags - and we were glad we'd brought warm ones. At altitude it is always cold at night. Sidi Chamarouch, as a result of pilgrims and trekkers who go through, is filled with small stalls and shops selling snacks, carbonated drinks and souvenirs. It absolutely was almost surreal after the barrenness on most with the trek.
atlas mountains trekking
Our three mules carried our food which was supplemented with fresh food, particularly eggs, fresh bread and meat, bought in the villages in route, though there aren't shops as we know them within 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 hot drink (tea, coffee with dried milk), bread, jam, chocolate and cheese spreads and honey. This is enough to face at 6.30 each morning! Then we set off for the morning's trek.
After our departure the muleteers packed everything up, loaded the mules and would overtake us about the trail and be prepared to welcome us, around midday, with mint tea then a freshly prepared picnic lunch - filled with blankets to take a seat on! Lunch was obviously a cold buffet, typically pasta, sardines (Morocco is really a major world producer), tuna and salad, and also - Lahcen's speciality - a warm dish of potato, tomato and chick peas or even a Moroccan omelette.
Whenever we finished our day's walk, usually mid afternoon, we were always offered mint tea. By the end of the trek our initial enthusiasm for mint tea had waned! We then had time to wind down, explore or talk, often with Jamal in regards to the Berber life style. The evening meal was usually soup plus a meat or vegetable tajine prepared in the basic ingredients (potatoes and carrots were peeled through the cooks) and cooked very efficiently over a small gas stove. Whenever you can there was berry (melon, oranges). No alcohol though, until you sneak some together with you.
The majority of the walking we did was along narrow stony tracks, sometimes very faint and barely waymarked. Without a guide it would happen to be quite simple to acquire lost - yet we might meet young children herding goats in remote valleys or on high peaks, miles through the village. On one occasion a boy aged about 14 had seen us from his village in the valley at risk of a pass at 3,500m and had climbed up over 1000m to satisfy us towards the top. Once we arrived at a biting wind in the summit he'd beaten us and hang in a row the six bottles of Coke he previously carried up with him that they 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 hang up off again down the valley as part of his Wellingtons.
Once we approached the villages we saw the little 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 travelling to school, women were carrying heavy bundles of fodder cut in the fields for that cattle, men were tilling the fields. Once we saw a massive tipper lorry carrying about forty workers back to their villages. Little by little the original Berber way of life is beginning to change as tracks are widened and be passable to trucks, holes have decided for electricity pylons and 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 upgrading of whole villages from the valleys to the high summer pastures. We had empty villages being prepared for summer occupation. They were surrounded by mountain pastures and extensive, old networks of irrigation ditches. One shepherd we met wondered where everybody else was: he'd apparently trigger weekly roughly too quickly and was now having to return on the valley!
We carried only day packs so that as we knew we might catch up with the mules again at lunchtime, we carried only essential items: water (purified stream water), snacks (brought around from England) and additional clothing as it can be cold at altitude. Walking poles are extremely useful and good boots needed for anything but each day trek from Imlil. The walking itself is not so difficult and Jamal made sure that people maintained a leisurely pace, allowing sufficient time for stops, photo opportunities and scenery gazing. He also took pride and pleasure in explaining to us the Berber way of life. We learned a lot regarding 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 that it's freezing for snakes and scorpions - a minimum of whenever we have there been!
Most of us suffered to varying degrees with altitude sickness through the initial few days. I was glad that when we reached the Toubkal refuge we had 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 who'd walked up from Imlil in one day, a height gain of about 1500m. They were not experienced or very fit and were struggling with sore feet and altitude sickness. They meant to climb Toubkal the next morning, but as we discovered, they weren't fit or well enough coupled with to descend.
