Bettie512
De BISAWiki
Trek within the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco
What exactly is it enjoy walking within the High Atlas mountains of Morocco? In June 2010 several us discovered whenever 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 that we had no regrets by the end.
To start with, we meet up with the team which is consists of the guide, a cook, and mules and muleteers. The mules do the hard work of carrying the camping equipment, the majority of the food required for the trek and our heavy luggage, preferably packed in a rucksack. Contrary to popular belief, they'll use only female mules his or her temperament is best suited to the job. They begin working with light loads at about 12 months and have a working life of 27 - 3 decades. Good mules may cost around 950 and can carry up to 140kg.
Accommodation on the trek varied from camping, refuges or remaining in a Berber village house. The camping ground sites were often idyllic, usually by the side of your stream or river - well suited for summer swimming - and included a dining tent which provided defense against the heat of the sun as well as in the evening shelter in the cold and even occasional rain. In June, once we learned, will still be snowy at night as we camped above 2,000m.
We stayed an evening within the Toubkal refuge which at 3207m is about 1000m beneath the summit of Toubkal (4167m) It 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 found its way to a snow storm! Our food here was still being served by our cook, though we're able to also buy snacks in the refuge shop. You will find stunning views in the refuge up on the Toubkal summit and back down the valley.
Recognized we stayed in the Berber village house in Amsouzerte Village. This village, like many on the trek, doesn't have electricity, so lighting and heating (for that showers) was by bottled gas. Again our food was prepared by our own cook - a tasty chicken tajine - the chicken being bought within 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 when you approach the village.
On another occasion, because of weather Jamal arranged for all of us to sleep in a pilgrims' hostel on the shrine of Sidi Chamarouch. This is a strange experience as the shrine attracts many pilgrims who arrive by walking or mule and stay the night. The shrine itself is barred to non-Muslims, but fortunately the hostel isn't! Here as always we used the floor on comfortable sleeping mats that your mules carried. We just 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 pass through, is full of small stalls and shops selling snacks, carbonated drinks and souvenirs. It was almost surreal following your barrenness on most from the trek.
trek atlas mountains
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, even though there aren't shops as we know them within 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 contained a fashionable drink (tea, coffee with dried milk), bread, jam, chocolate and cheese spreads and honey. This was enough to face at 6.30 in the morning! Then we 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 stay ready to welcome us, around midday, with mint tea followed by a freshly prepared picnic lunch - detailed with blankets to sit on! Lunch would be a cold buffet, typically pasta, sardines (Morocco can be a major world producer), tuna and salad, and also - Lahcen's speciality - a warm 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. 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 about the Berber way of life. Supper was usually soup along with a meat or vegetable tajine prepared from the basic ingredients (potatoes and carrots were peeled from the cooks) and cooked very efficiently on the small gas stove. Whenever feasible there was fruit (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 barely waymarked. With out a guide it might are already very easy to obtain lost - yet we might meet young children herding goats in remote valleys or on high peaks, miles from any village. On one occasion a boy aged about 14 had seen us from his village inside the valley at risk of a pass at 3,500m coupled with climbed up over 1000m to meet us towards the top. When we arrived at a biting wind in the summit he had beaten us and hang up up in a row the six bottles of Coke he'd carried up with him that they hoped we might buy. We did but more out of admiration for his toughness and entrepreneurial spirit than desire to have a fizzy drink. He packed away the empties and hang up off again along the valley as part of his Wellingtons.
As we approached the villages we saw the small 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 in the fields for your cattle, men were tilling the fields. Once we saw a massive tipper lorry carrying about forty workers returning to their villages. Bit by bit the traditional Berber way of life is changing as tracks are widened and become passable to trucks, holes are ready for electricity pylons and more villages are connected to a mains supply.
But June remains to be the duration of the transhumance for most out in the wild, the upgrading of whole villages from your valleys towards the high summer pastures. We got empty villages being ready for summer occupation. They were surrounded by mountain pastures and extensive, old networks of irrigation ditches. One shepherd we met wanted to ask where everybody else was: he previously apparently trigger per week roughly too soon and it was now needing to return along the valley!
We carried only day packs and as we knew we might catch up with 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 very cold at altitude. Walking poles are very useful and good boots needed for anything but per day trek from Imlil. The walking itself is simple enough and Jamal made certain that we maintained a leisurely pace, allowing sufficient time for stops, photo opportunities and scenery gazing. Also, he took pride and pleasure in trying to explain to us the Berber life-style. We many userful stuff here regarding 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 too cold for snakes and scorpions - a minimum of whenever we are there!
Most of us suffered to some degree with altitude sickness through the initial few days. We were glad that once we reached the Toubkal refuge there were acclimatised, helped by just about every day climbs over passes greater than 3000m and also by camping at altitude. Within the refuge we met another party of walkers who'd 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 meant to climb Toubkal these morning, but as we discovered, they were not fit or well enough coupled with to descend.
