Hassan512
De BISAWiki
Trek inside the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco
The facts love walking in the High Atlas mountains of Morocco? In June 2010 a group of us found out when we did a 7 day trek from Imlil with one of Toubkal-Trekking.com guides, whose name is Jamal. It was our first connection with a "guided trek" and we didn't have regrets at the conclusion.
To start with, we meet up with the team which is composed 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 in a rucksack. Believe it or not, they'll use only female mules as their temperament is best fitted to the task. They begin working with light loads at about one year and have a working life of 27 - 30 years. Good mules may cost around 950 and can carry as much as 140kg.
Accommodation about the trek varied from camping, refuges or remaining in a Berber village house. The camp ground sites were often idyllic, usually from the side of your stream or river - ideal for summer swimming - and included a dining tent which provided protection from the heat with the sun and in the evening shelter from the cold and even occasional rain. In June, as we learned, it's still snowy at night even as camped above 2,000m.
We stayed an evening within the Toubkal refuge which at 3207m is approximately 1000m below 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 - necessary whenever we arrived at a snow storm! Our food here was still made by our cook, though we're able to also buy snacks from the refuge shop. You can find stunning views from your refuge up on the Toubkal summit and back down the valley.
One night we stayed in a Berber village house in Amsouzerte Village. This village, like many about the trek, has no electricity, so lighting and heating (for the showers) was by bottled gas. Again our food was made by our own cook - a tasty chicken tajine - the chicken being bought inside the village. Incidentally, you can easily see the villages with electricity as just about any house has a large white satellite dish about the flat roof, clearly visible when you approach the village.
On another occasion, because of bad weather Jamal arranged for all of us to settle in a pilgrims' hostel in the shrine of Sidi Chamarouch. It was an unusual experience as the shrine attracts many pilgrims who arrive on foot or mule and remain the night. 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 the mules carried. We only needed to provide our personal sleeping bags - and that we were glad we had brought warm ones. At altitude it is usually cold during the night. Sidi Chamarouch, because of the pilgrims and trekkers who go through, is full of small stalls and shops selling snacks, soft drinks and souvenirs. It had been almost surreal following your barrenness on most of the trek.
trekking atlas mountains
Our three mules carried our food which was supplemented with fresh produce, particularly eggs, fresh bread and meat, bought in the villages on the way, though there aren't shops as you may know them in 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 early meal and was comprised of a hot drink (tea, coffee with dried milk), bread, jam, chocolate and cheese spreads and honey. It was enough to manage at 6.30 in the morning! We then trigger for your morning's trek.
After our departure the muleteers packed everything up, loaded the mules and would overtake us on the trail and become prepared to welcome us, around midday, with mint tea followed by a freshly prepared picnic lunch - detailed with blankets to sit down on! Lunch would be a cold buffet, typically pasta, sardines (Morocco can be a major world producer), tuna and salad, as well as - Lahcen's speciality - a fashionable dish of potato, tomato and chick peas or even a Moroccan omelette.
Once we finished our day's walk, usually mid afternoon, we had been always offered mint tea. By the end of the trek our initial enthusiasm for mint tea had waned! Only then do we had the capacity to relax, explore or talk, often with Jamal concerning 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 by the cooks) and cooked very efficiently over a small gas stove. Whenever feasible there was berry (melon, oranges). No alcohol though, until you sneak some with you.
A lot of the walking we did was along narrow stony tracks, sometimes very faint and rarely waymarked. With no guide it would happen to be quite simple to acquire lost - yet we'd meet young boys herding goats in remote valleys or on high peaks, miles through the village. One time a new boy aged about 14 had seen us from his village in the valley heading for a pass at 3,500m and had climbed up over 1000m to satisfy us at the very top. Whenever we arrived in a biting wind on the summit he had beaten us and hang 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 wish to have a fizzy drink. He packed away the empties and hang up off again on the valley as part of his Wellingtons.
Once we approached the villages we got 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 children were herding goats or walking to school, women were carrying heavy bundles of fodder cut from the fields for the cattle, men were tilling the fields. Once we saw an enormous tipper lorry carrying about forty workers returning to their villages. Bit by bit the standard Berber way of life is beginning to change as tracks are widened and turn into passable to trucks, holes are ready for electricity pylons plus more villages are connected to a mains supply.
But June remains the duration of the transhumance for a lot of in the mountains, the going up of whole villages from your valleys towards the high summer pastures. We saw empty villages being ready for summer occupation. These folks were surrounded by mountain pastures and extensive, old networks of irrigation ditches. One shepherd we met was wondering where all others was: he had apparently trigger per week approximately too quickly and it was now having to return on 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 with us from England) and further clothing as it can be cold at altitude. Walking poles are extremely useful and good boots required for certainly not each day trek from Imlil. The walking is simple enough and Jamal made certain that we maintained a leisurely pace, allowing plenty of time for stops, photo opportunities and scenery gazing. Also, he took pride and pleasure in explaining to us the Berber life-style. We many userful stuff here about their language, culture, religion, agriculture, family life - and mules! We learned that the indigenous fauna with the area includes foxes, rabbits, wild goats and squirrel, but were assured that it's freezing for snakes and scorpions - at least when we have there been!
The majority of us suffered to varying degrees with altitude sickness throughout the initial few days. We had been glad that when we reached the Toubkal refuge there were acclimatised, helped by just about every day climbs over passes of more than 3000m and also by camping at altitude. Inside the refuge we met another party of walkers that had walked up from Imlil in a single day, a height gain of about 1500m. They weren't experienced or very fit and were struggling with sore feet and altitude sickness. They intended to climb Toubkal the next morning, but as we discovered, they were not fit or good enough together to descend.
