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Trek inside the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco
The facts love walking in the High Atlas mountains of Morocco? In June 2010 a small grouping of us learned once we did a 7 day trek from Imlil using one of Toubkal-Trekking.com guides, whose name is Jamal. It was our first experience of a "guided trek" so we had no regrets at the end.
To begin with, we connect with the c's that's composed of the guide, a cook, and mules and muleteers. The mules perform the hard work of carrying the camping equipment, most of the food needed for the trek and our heavy luggage, preferably packed in a rucksack. Contrary to popular belief, they will use only female mules his or her temperament is much better suited to the work. They start working together with light loads at approximately 12 months this will let you working lifetime of 27 - 3 decades. Good mules can cost around 950 and will carry approximately 140kg.
Accommodation on 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 a stream or river - perfect for summer swimming - and included a dining tent which provided protection from heat with the sun and in the evening shelter from the cold and also occasional rain. In June, once we learned, it is still cold through the night even as camped above 2,000m.
We stayed a night inside the Toubkal refuge which at 3207m is about 1000m below the summit of Toubkal (4167m) It's a large, modern refuge with dormitories of varying sizes, good showers plus a large communal area with roaring fire - essential when we arrived at a snow storm! Our food here was still prepared by our cook, though we could also buy snacks from the refuge shop. You can find stunning views in the refuge up towards 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, has no electricity, so lighting and heating (for your showers) was by bottled gas. Again our food was prepared by our own cook - a tasty chicken tajine - the chicken being bought inside the village. Incidentally, it is possible to find the villages with electricity as nearly every house has a large white satellite dish on the flat roof, clearly visible when you approach the village.
On another occasion, due to rainwater Jamal arranged for people to sleep in a pilgrims' hostel at the shrine of Sidi Chamarouch. It was a strange experience since the shrine attracts many pilgrims who arrive by walking or mule and stay the evening. The shrine is barred to non-Muslims, but fortunately the hostel is not! Here as always we used the ground on comfortable sleeping mats that the mules carried. We simply required to provide our very own sleeping bags - so we were glad there were brought warm ones. At altitude it is usually cold at night. Sidi Chamarouch, due to the pilgrims and trekkers who pass through, is filled with small stalls and shops selling snacks, carbonated drinks and souvenirs. It absolutely was almost surreal following the barrenness of many with the trek.
high atlas mountains trek
Our three mules carried our food that was supplemented with fresh food, particularly eggs, fresh bread and meat, bought within the villages in route, even though there aren't shops to be sure them inside 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 in support of 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. It was enough to face at 6.30 each morning! We then tripped for your morning's trek.
After our departure the muleteers packed everything up, loaded the mules and would overtake us around the trail and become ready to welcome us, around midday, with mint tea then a freshly prepared picnic lunch - filled with blankets to take a seat on! Lunch would be a cold buffet, typically pasta, sardines (Morocco is a major world producer), tuna and salad, and in addition - Lahcen's speciality - a fashionable 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! Only then do we had the capacity to relax, explore or talk, often with Jamal concerning the Berber life style. Supper was usually soup along with a meat or vegetable tajine prepared in the basic ingredients (potatoes and carrots were peeled through 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 together with you.
Most of the walking we did was along narrow stony tracks, sometimes very faint and barely waymarked. With no guide it could have been super easy to acquire lost - yet we'd meet young children herding goats in remote valleys or on high peaks, miles through the village. One time a new boy aged about 14 saw us from his village in the valley heading for a pass at 3,500m coupled with climbed up over 1000m to satisfy us at the top. When we found its way to a biting wind in the summit he had beaten us and set up in a row the six bottles of Coke he previously carried up with him that she hoped we might 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 in the Wellingtons.
Once we approached the villages we had 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. Small children were herding goats or travelling to school, women were carrying heavy bundles of fodder cut from your fields for that cattle, men were tilling the fields. If we saw an enormous tipper lorry carrying about forty workers back to their villages. Bit by bit the traditional Berber life-style is evolving as tracks are widened and turn into passable to trucks, holes are prepared for electricity pylons and much more villages are connected to a mains supply.
But June remains to be the time of the transhumance for many in high altitude, the moving up of whole villages from your valleys for the high summer pastures. We had empty villages being gotten ready for summer occupation. These were encompassed by mountain pastures and extensive, old networks of irrigation ditches. One shepherd we met wanted to ask where all others was: he'd apparently tripped per week roughly too soon and it was now having to return on the valley!
We carried only day packs so that as we knew we would meet up with the mules again at lunchtime, we carried only essential items: water (purified stream water), snacks (brought around from England) and extra clothing as they can be very cold at altitude. Walking poles are extremely useful and good boots required for certainly not per day trek from Imlil. The walking itself is not so difficult and Jamal ensured that people maintained a leisurely pace, allowing sufficient time for stops, photo opportunities and scenery gazing. Younger crowd took pride and pleasure in explaining to us the Berber life-style. We learned a lot regarding language, culture, religion, agriculture, family life - and mules! We also discovered that the indigenous fauna of the area includes foxes, rabbits, wild goats and squirrel, but were assured that it's too cold for snakes and scorpions - a minimum of when we are there!
Many of us suffered to varying degrees with altitude sickness throughout the first couple of days. I was 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. 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 weren't experienced or very fit and were struggling with sore feet and altitude sickness. They meant to climb Toubkal these morning, speculate we discovered, they weren't fit or sufficiently together to descend.
