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Trek within the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco
The facts really like walking inside the High Atlas mountains of Morocco? In June 2010 a group of us discovered when 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" so we didn't have regrets at the conclusion.
First of all, we encounter they that is consists of the guide, a cook, and mules and muleteers. The mules perform the effort of carrying the camping equipment, the majority of the food required for the trek and our heavy luggage, preferably packed in a rucksack. Contrary to popular belief, they use only female mules his or her temperament is much better suited to the task. They begin working together with light loads around twelve months and have a working duration of 27 - 30 years. Good mules can cost around 950 and may carry up to 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 your stream or river - well suited for summer swimming - and included a dining tent which provided defense against the heat from the sun and in the evening shelter from your cold and also occasional rain. In June, even as learned, will still be cold at night once we camped above 2,000m.
We stayed an evening inside the Toubkal refuge which at 3207m is all about 1000m beneath the summit of Toubkal (4167m) It is a large, modern refuge with dormitories of varying sizes, good showers along with a large communal area with roaring fire - essential whenever we found its way to a snow storm! Our food here had been prepared by our cook, though we could also buy snacks from the refuge shop. You will find stunning views in the refuge up for the Toubkal summit and back down the valley.
Recognized we stayed in a Berber village house in Amsouzerte Village. This village, like many on the trek, doesn't have electricity, so lighting and heating (for the showers) was by bottled gas. Again our food was made by our very own cook - a tasty chicken tajine - the chicken being bought inside the village. Incidentally, you can easily see the villages with electricity as virtually every house features a large white satellite dish about the flat roof, clearly visible while you approach the village.
On another occasion, as a result of rainwater Jamal arranged for people to settle in a pilgrims' hostel on the shrine of Sidi Chamarouch. This is an unusual experience because the shrine attracts many pilgrims who arrive when walking or mule and remain the night. The shrine is barred to non-Muslims, but fortunately the hostel just isn't! Because always we slept on the ground on comfortable sleeping mats that your mules carried. We simply needed to provide our very own sleeping-bags - so we were glad we had brought warm ones. At altitude it is always cold at night. Sidi Chamarouch, because of the pilgrims and trekkers who pass through, is stuffed with small stalls and shops selling snacks, carbonated drinks and souvenirs. It was almost surreal after the barrenness on most with the trek.
trek in atlas mountains
Our three mules carried our food that was supplemented with fresh foods, particularly eggs, fresh bread and meat, bought inside the villages along the way, even though there aren't shops as you may know them within 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 contained a warm 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! Then we set off for your morning's trek.
After our departure the muleteers packed everything up, loaded the mules and would overtake us on the trail and stay prepared to welcome us, around midday, with mint tea accompanied by a freshly prepared picnic lunch - detailed with blankets to sit down on! Lunch would be a cold buffet, typically pasta, sardines (Morocco is really 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.
When 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! Then we had the capacity to wind down, explore or talk, often with Jamal in regards to the Berber way of life. Supper was usually soup along with a meat or vegetable tajine prepared from the basic ingredients (potatoes and carrots were peeled through the cooks) and cooked very efficiently on a small gas stove. Whenever possible there was clearly fruit (melon, oranges). No alcohol though, until you sneak some together with you.
The majority of the walking we did was along narrow stony tracks, sometimes very faint and barely waymarked. With no guide it would are already super easy to acquire lost - yet we might meet young boys herding goats in remote valleys or on high peaks, miles through the village. On one occasion a young boy aged about 14 had seen us from his village inside the valley at risk of a pass at 3,500m together climbed up over 1000m to fulfill us at the very top. Whenever we arrived in a biting wind on the summit he previously beaten us and set up in a row the six bottles of Coke he previously carried up with him which he hoped we would buy. We did but more out 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 along 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. Inside 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 your cattle, men were tilling the fields. If we saw a massive tipper lorry carrying about forty workers back to their villages. Bit by bit the standard Berber way of life is evolving as tracks are widened and be passable to trucks, holes are ready for electricity pylons and much more villages are connected to a mains supply.
But June remains the period of the transhumance for a lot of in high altitude, the moving up of whole villages from the valleys towards the high summer pastures. We saw empty villages being ready for summer occupation. These were flanked by mountain pastures and extensive, old networks of irrigation ditches. One shepherd we met wanted to ask where everyone else was: he'd apparently set off per week roughly too early and it was now having to return along the valley!
We carried only day packs so that as we knew we might get closer the mules again at lunchtime, we carried only essential items: water (purified stream water), snacks (brought with us from England) and extra clothing as possible snowy at altitude. Walking poles are very useful and good boots needed for certainly not per day trek from Imlil. The walking itself is not so difficult and Jamal made sure that individuals maintained a leisurely pace, allowing the required time for stops, photo opportunities and scenery gazing. Also, he took pride and pleasure in trying to explain to us the Berber life style. We learned a lot about their language, culture, religion, agriculture, family life - and mules! We found that the indigenous fauna with the area includes foxes, rabbits, wild goats and squirrel, but were assured that it is freezing for snakes and scorpions - no less than when we have there been!
The majority of us suffered to varying degrees with altitude sickness through the first few days. We were glad that by the time we reached the Toubkal refuge there were acclimatised, helped by daily climbs over passes in excess of 3000m and also by camping at altitude. Inside 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 were not fit or sufficiently coupled with to descend.
