Toya831
De BISAWiki
Trek in the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco
The facts enjoy walking within the High Atlas mountains of Morocco? In June 2010 several us discovered once we did a 7 day trek from Imlil with one of Toubkal-Trekking.com guides, whose name is Jamal. It had been our first experience with a "guided trek" so we had no regrets by the end.
To begin with, we connect with the team that is composed of the guide, a cook, and mules and muleteers. The mules carry out the hard work of carrying the camping equipment, most of the food necessary for the trek and our heavy luggage, preferably packed inside a rucksack. Believe it or not, they will use only female mules as their temperament is best suitable for the job. They begin working together with light loads at approximately 12 months this will let you working lifetime of 27 - Thirty years. Good mules can cost around 950 and can carry as much as 140kg.
Accommodation about the trek varied from camping, refuges or staying in a Berber village house. The camp sites were often idyllic, usually by the side of a stream or river - well suited for summer swimming - and included a dining tent which provided defense against the warmth from the sun and also in the evening shelter from your cold and even occasional rain. In June, even as learned, it is still very cold during the night once we camped above 2,000m.
We stayed an evening inside the Toubkal refuge which at 3207m is about 1000m underneath 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 once we arrived in a snow storm! Our food here was still prepared by our cook, though we might also buy snacks from the refuge shop. You can find stunning views from the refuge up for the Toubkal summit and back down the valley.
Recognized we stayed in the Berber village house in Amsouzerte Village. This village, like many about the trek, has no electricity, so lighting and heating (for that showers) was by bottled gas. Again our food was served by our very own cook - a tasty chicken tajine - the chicken being bought within the village. Incidentally, it is easy to spot the villages with electricity as virtually every house includes a large white satellite dish around the flat roof, clearly visible when you approach the village.
On another occasion, as a result of weather Jamal arranged for all of us to settle in a pilgrims' hostel in the shrine of Sidi Chamarouch. It was an unusual experience since the shrine attracts many pilgrims who arrive by walking or mule and stay the night time. The shrine itself is barred to non-Muslims, but fortunately the hostel just isn't! Because always we slept on the floor on comfortable sleeping mats that the mules carried. We just necessary to provide our personal sleeping bags - and we were glad there were brought warm ones. At altitude it is always cold through the night. Sidi Chamarouch, because of the pilgrims and trekkers who move through, is full of small stalls and shops selling snacks, soft drinks and souvenirs. It had been almost surreal after the barrenness of most with the trek.
high atlas mountains trek
Our three mules carried our food that has been supplemented with fresh foods, particularly eggs, fresh bread and meat, bought in the villages in route, though there aren't shops to be sure them in 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 just 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 is enough to handle 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 become prepared to welcome us, around midday, with mint tea followed by a freshly prepared picnic lunch - complete 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 a Moroccan omelette.
Once 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! Then we had time to unwind, explore or talk, often with Jamal in regards to the Berber life-style. The evening meal 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 over a small gas stove. Whenever possible there is fruit (melon, oranges). No alcohol though, unless you sneak some with you.
Most of the walking we did was along narrow stony tracks, sometimes very faint and barely waymarked. Without a guide it might happen to be very easy to acquire lost - yet we might meet young kids herding goats in remote valleys or on high peaks, miles from any village. On one occasion a boy aged about 14 saw us from his village within the valley at risk of a pass at 3,500m and had climbed up over 1000m to satisfy us at the very top. Once we found its way to a biting wind in the summit he'd beaten us and hang up up in a row the six bottles of Coke he'd carried up with him that they hoped we'd buy. We did but higher productivity of admiration for his toughness and entrepreneurial spirit than desire to have a fizzy drink. He packed away the empties and hang off again down the valley in the Wellingtons.
Even as 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. Young kids were herding goats or walking to school, women were carrying heavy bundles of fodder cut in the fields for the cattle, men were tilling the fields. If we saw a huge tipper lorry carrying about forty workers to their villages. Little by little the original Berber life style is changing as tracks are widened and be passable to trucks, holes have decided for electricity pylons and more villages are linked to a mains supply.
But June remains to be the duration of the transhumance for most in high altitude, the moving up of whole villages from the valleys towards the high summer pastures. We got empty villages being prepared for summer occupation. They were encompassed by mountain pastures and extensive, old networks of irrigation ditches. One shepherd we met wondered where everybody else was: he'd apparently set off per week roughly too early and was now being forced 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 with us from England) and additional clothing as possible cold at altitude. Walking poles are extremely useful and good boots required for anything but each day trek from Imlil. The walking is not difficult and Jamal made sure that individuals maintained a leisurely pace, allowing plenty of time for stops, photo opportunities and scenery gazing. Also, he took pride and pleasure in trying to explain to us the Berber way of life. We learned a lot regarding their language, culture, religion, agriculture, family life - and mules! We learned that the indigenous fauna of the area includes foxes, rabbits, wild goats and squirrel, but were assured that it is freezing for snakes and scorpions - a minimum of whenever we were there!
Most of us suffered to some degree with altitude sickness throughout the first few days. We had been glad that once we reached the Toubkal refuge we had acclimatised, helped by daily climbs over passes of more than 3000m by camping at altitude. Within the refuge we met another party of walkers that had walked up from Imlil in one day, a height gain around 1500m. They weren't experienced or very fit and were suffering with sore feet and altitude sickness. They designed to climb Toubkal the next morning, but as we discovered, they were not fit or well enough coupled with to descend.
