Jenelle512
De BISAWiki
Trek in the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco
What exactly is it really like walking inside the High Atlas mountains of Morocco? In June 2010 a group of us learned 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 at the end.
To begin with, we connect with they that's consists of the guide, a cook, and mules and muleteers. The mules perform the work of carrying the camping equipment, a lot of the food necessary for the trek and our heavy luggage, preferably packed inside a rucksack. Surprisingly, they'll use only female mules as their temperament is best fitted to the task. They begin working together with light loads around 12 months this will let you working life of 27 - 3 decades. Good mules could cost around 950 and may carry approximately 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 protection from the warmth with the sun and in the evening shelter from your cold and also occasional rain. In June, even as learned, it is still snowy during the night even as camped above 2,000m.
We stayed per night in the Toubkal refuge which at 3207m is about 1000m beneath 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 - essential once we arrived in a snow storm! Our food here was still being made by our cook, though we're able to also buy snacks from the refuge shop. You will find stunning views from your refuge up on the Toubkal summit and down again the valley.
One evening we stayed inside a Berber village house in Amsouzerte Village. This village, like many around the trek, doesn't have 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, 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, as a result of weather Jamal arranged for all of us to sleep in a pilgrims' hostel in the shrine of Sidi Chamarouch. This is an odd experience since the shrine attracts many pilgrims who arrive on foot or mule and remain the night time. The shrine is barred to non-Muslims, but fortunately the hostel is not! Here as always we used the floor on comfortable sleeping mats that your mules carried. We just necessary to provide our own sleeping bags - so we were glad we had brought warm ones. At altitude it is usually cold through the night. Sidi Chamarouch, as a result of pilgrims and trekkers who move 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.
high atlas mountains trek
Our three mules carried our food that was supplemented with fresh produce, particularly eggs, fresh bread and meat, bought within the villages in route, though there aren't shops to be sure them inside 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 early meal and contained a hot drink (tea, coffee with dried milk), bread, jam, chocolate and cheese spreads and honey. This is enough to face at 6.30 in the morning! Only then do we set off for the morning's trek.
After our departure the muleteers packed everything up, loaded the mules and would overtake us about the trail and become prepared to welcome us, around midday, with mint tea then a freshly prepared picnic lunch - complete with blankets to sit down 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 warm 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. After the trek our initial enthusiasm for mint tea had waned! Then we had the capacity to wind down, explore or talk, often with Jamal concerning the Berber life-style. The evening meal was usually soup plus a meat or vegetable tajine prepared in the basic ingredients (potatoes and carrots were peeled from the cooks) and cooked very efficiently on a small gas stove. Whenever feasible there is fruit (melon, oranges). No alcohol though, if you don't sneak some together with you.
A lot of the walking we did was along narrow stony tracks, sometimes very faint and rarely waymarked. With out a guide it could have been very easy to get lost - yet we would meet young kids 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 together climbed up over 1000m to meet us at the top. Once we found its way to a biting wind on the summit he had beaten us and hang up in a row the six bottles of Coke he'd carried track of him which he hoped we'd buy. We did but more out of popularity of his toughness and entrepreneurial spirit than wish to have a fizzy drink. He packed away the empties and set off again along the valley in his Wellingtons.
Even as approached the villages we had 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 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 huge tipper lorry carrying about forty workers to their villages. Piece by piece the original Berber life-style is evolving as tracks are widened and become passable to trucks, holes are ready for electricity pylons and more villages are linked to a mains supply.
But June is still the period of the transhumance for most in high altitude, the moving up of whole villages from the valleys for the high summer pastures. We got 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 previously apparently set off per week approximately too soon and was now being forced to return on the valley!
We carried only day packs and as we knew we would 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 further clothing as they can be snowy at altitude. Walking poles are incredibly useful and good boots essential for anything but a 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. He also took pride and pleasure in trying to explain to us the Berber life style. We many userful stuff here about their language, culture, religion, agriculture, family life - and mules! Additionally we discovered that the indigenous fauna with the area includes foxes, rabbits, wild goats and squirrel, but were assured it is freezing for snakes and scorpions - a minimum of once we are there!
Most of us suffered to some degree with altitude sickness during the first 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 by camping at altitude. In the refuge we met another party of walkers that had walked up from Imlil in one day, a height gain of approximately 1500m. They weren't experienced or very fit and were suffering with sore feet and altitude sickness. They meant to climb Toubkal the next morning, but as we discovered, they weren't fit or well enough coupled with to descend.
