Stanton911
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Trek within the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco
What exactly is it enjoy walking within the High Atlas mountains of Morocco? In June 2010 a group 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 experience of a "guided trek" and we didn't have regrets at the conclusion.
First of all, we connect with they that's consists of the guide, a cook, and mules and muleteers. The mules carry out the hard work 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 their temperament is better suited to the task. They start dealing with light loads at about 12 months this will let you working lifetime of 27 - 30 years. Good mules could cost around 950 and will carry approximately 140kg.
Accommodation around the trek varied from camping, refuges or remaining in a Berber village house. The camp ground sites were often idyllic, usually by the side of a stream or river - ideal for summer swimming - and included a dining tent which provided defense against the heat with the sun and in the evening shelter in the cold and also occasional rain. In June, once we learned, it's still very cold at 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 - much needed once we arrived at a snow storm! Our food here was still being served by our cook, though we might also buy snacks in the refuge shop. You will find stunning views from your refuge up towards the Toubkal summit and down again the valley.
Recognized we stayed in a Berber village house in Amsouzerte Village. This village, like many around the trek, does not have any electricity, so lighting and heating (for that showers) was by bottled gas. Again our food was made by our personal cook - a tasty chicken tajine - the chicken being bought within the village. Incidentally, it is possible to see the villages with electricity as just about any house includes a large white satellite dish around the flat roof, clearly visible while you approach the village.
On another occasion, due to rainwater Jamal arranged for all of us to settle in a pilgrims' hostel on the shrine of Sidi Chamarouch. It was a strange experience since the shrine attracts many pilgrims who arrive when 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 slept on a floor on comfortable sleeping mats that your mules carried. We just necessary 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 stuffed with small stalls and shops selling snacks, carbonated drinks and souvenirs. It was almost surreal following the barrenness on most of the trek.
trek in atlas mountains
Our three mules carried our food which was supplemented with fresh food, particularly eggs, fresh bread and meat, bought inside the villages on the way, even though there aren't shops as you may know 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 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 manage at 6.30 each day! Then we 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 stay prepared 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 really a major world producer), tuna and salad, and also - Lahcen's speciality - a fashionable dish of potato, tomato and chick peas or perhaps 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 time to wind down, explore or talk, often with Jamal in regards to the Berber life style. Supper was usually soup and a meat or vegetable tajine prepared from your basic ingredients (potatoes and carrots were peeled from the cooks) and cooked very efficiently over a small gas stove. Whenever you can there was berry (melon, oranges). No alcohol though, if you don't sneak some along with you.
The majority of the walking we did was along narrow stony tracks, sometimes very faint and infrequently waymarked. With out a guide it might happen to be super easy to acquire lost - yet we'd meet young children herding goats in remote valleys or on high peaks, miles from the village. One time a new boy aged about 14 had seen us from his village in the valley at risk of a pass at 3,500m together climbed up over 1000m to satisfy us towards the top. Once we arrived in a biting wind on the summit he'd beaten us and set in a row the six bottles of Coke he had carried track of him that she hoped we would 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 set off again along the valley as part of his Wellingtons.
Even as approached the villages we got the tiny cultivated fields, with crops of potatoes, maize, tomatoes and oats and wheat. In the fertile valleys were orchards of cherry, walnut and apple. Young 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. Once we saw an enormous tipper lorry carrying about forty workers back to their villages. Bit by bit the traditional Berber life-style is beginning to change as tracks are widened and turn into passable to trucks, holes have decided for electricity pylons and much more villages are attached to a mains supply.
But June remains the period of the transhumance for most out in the wild, the moving up of whole villages in the valleys for the high summer pastures. We got 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 was wondering where all others was: he previously apparently set off per week roughly too quickly and was now needing 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 along with us from England) and additional clothing as it can be cold at altitude. Walking poles are extremely useful and good boots essential for certainly not a day trek from Imlil. The walking is simple enough and Jamal ensured that we maintained a leisurely pace, allowing the required time for stops, photo opportunities and scenery gazing. He also took pride and pleasure in trying to explain to us the Berber life style. We learned a lot regarding language, culture, religion, agriculture, family life - and mules! Additionally we discovered that the indigenous fauna from the area includes foxes, rabbits, wild goats and squirrel, but were assured that it is too cold for snakes and scorpions - at least once we are there!
Many of us suffered to varying degrees with altitude sickness through the initial few days. We were glad that once we reached the Toubkal refuge we'd acclimatised, helped by almost daily climbs over passes of more than 3000m by camping at altitude. In the refuge we met another party of walkers who'd walked up from Imlil in a single day, a height gain around 1500m. They weren't experienced or very fit and were suffering with sore feet and altitude sickness. They intended to climb Toubkal the following morning, but because we discovered, they were not fit or sufficiently together to descend.
