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Trek in the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco
What exactly is it enjoy walking inside the High Atlas mountains of Morocco? In June 2010 a small grouping of us discovered once we did a 7 day trek from Imlil and among Toubkal-Trekking.com guides, whose name is Jamal. It had been our first connection with a "guided trek" so we had no regrets at the conclusion.
First of all, we encounter they that is made up of the guide, a cook, and mules and muleteers. The mules perform the effort of carrying the camping equipment, the majority of the food required for the trek and our heavy luggage, preferably packed in the rucksack. Surprisingly, they will use only female mules as his or her temperament is better suitable for the job. They begin dealing with light loads around 12 months this will let you working life of 27 - 3 decades. Good mules may cost around 950 and can carry up to 140kg.
Accommodation around the trek varied from camping, refuges or staying in a Berber village house. The camp ground sites were often idyllic, usually from the side of a stream or river - perfect for summer swimming - and included a dining tent which provided defense against the heat of the sun and also in the night shelter in the cold as well as occasional rain. In June, as we learned, will still be cold through the night even as camped above 2,000m.
We stayed a night within the Toubkal refuge which at 3207m is about 1000m underneath the summit of Toubkal (4167m) It is a large, modern refuge with dormitories of varying sizes, good showers plus a large communal area with roaring fire - essential when we found its way to a snow storm! Our food here was still made by our cook, though we could also buy snacks from the refuge shop. There are stunning views from the refuge up towards the Toubkal summit and back down the valley.
One evening 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 made 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 just about any house features a large white satellite dish about the flat roof, clearly visible as you approach the village.
On another occasion, due to rainwater Jamal arranged for people to sleep in a pilgrims' hostel on the shrine of Sidi Chamarouch. This is an odd experience as the shrine attracts many pilgrims who arrive when walking or mule and turn into the evening. The shrine itself is barred to non-Muslims, but fortunately the hostel isn't! Because always we used the floor on comfortable sleeping mats that the mules carried. We simply needed to provide our own sleeping bags - so we were glad there were brought warm ones. At altitude it is always cold during the night. Sidi Chamarouch, as a result of pilgrims and trekkers who go through, is stuffed with small stalls and shops selling snacks, sodas and souvenirs. It absolutely was almost surreal following your barrenness on most with the trek.
trekking atlas mountains
Our three mules carried our food that has been supplemented with fresh food, particularly eggs, fresh bread and meat, bought inside the villages on the way, 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 earlier meal and consisted of a fashionable drink (tea, coffee with dried milk), bread, jam, chocolate and cheese spreads and honey. This is enough to handle at 6.30 in the morning! Then we trigger for that morning's trek.
After our departure the muleteers packed everything up, loaded the mules and would overtake us around the trail and stay able to welcome us, around midday, with mint tea accompanied by a freshly prepared picnic lunch - detailed with blankets to take a seat on! Lunch was 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.
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! Then we had the capacity to relax, explore or talk, often with Jamal about the Berber life-style. The evening meal was usually soup plus a meat or vegetable tajine prepared from the basic ingredients (potatoes and carrots were peeled from the cooks) and cooked very efficiently on a small gas stove. Whenever you can there is fresh fruit (melon, oranges). No alcohol though, unless you sneak some together with you.
A lot of the walking we did was along narrow stony tracks, sometimes very faint and barely waymarked. Without a guide it might are already very easy to get lost - yet we would meet young boys herding goats in remote valleys or on high peaks, miles from any village. On one occasion a young boy aged about 14 saw us from his village inside the valley heading for a pass at 3,500m coupled with climbed up over 1000m to meet us at the top. Whenever we arrived in a biting wind at the summit he previously beaten us and set up in a row the six bottles of Coke he had carried on top 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 off again along the valley in the Wellingtons.
As we approached the villages we got 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. Small children were herding goats or travelling to school, women were carrying heavy bundles of fodder cut from the fields for that cattle, men were tilling the fields. If we saw a huge tipper lorry carrying about forty workers to their villages. Bit by bit the original Berber way of life is evolving as tracks are widened and turn into passable to trucks, holes are prepared for electricity pylons and much more villages are linked to a mains supply.
But June remains to be the duration of the transhumance for many in the mountains, the moving up of whole villages from the valleys for the high summer pastures. We had empty villages being prepared for summer occupation. These were surrounded by mountain pastures and extensive, old networks of irrigation ditches. One shepherd we met was wondering where everybody else was: he had apparently trigger weekly or so too early and it was now having to return along the valley!
We carried only day packs so when we knew we'd 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 it can be snowy at altitude. Walking poles are extremely useful and good boots required for certainly not each day trek from Imlil. The walking is not so difficult and Jamal made sure that we maintained a leisurely pace, allowing the required 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 about their language, culture, religion, agriculture, family life - and mules! We also learned 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 - no less than whenever we have there been!
The majority of us suffered to some degree with altitude sickness throughout the first couple of days. I was glad that once we reached the Toubkal refuge there were acclimatised, helped by just about every day climbs over passes greater than 3000m by camping at altitude. Inside the refuge we met another party of walkers who had walked up from Imlil in one day, a height gain around 1500m. They weren't experienced or very fit and were battling with sore feet and altitude sickness. They meant to climb Toubkal the next morning, speculate we discovered, they were not fit or sufficiently coupled with to descend.
