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Trek in the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco
What is it love walking within the High Atlas mountains of Morocco? In June 2010 several us discovered whenever we did a 7 day trek from Imlil using one of Toubkal-Trekking.com guides, whose name is Jamal. It had been our first experience of a "guided trek" and we didn't have any regrets by the end.
First of all, we meet up with the team that is composed of the guide, a cook, and mules and muleteers. The mules do the work of carrying the camping equipment, a lot of the food needed for the trek and our heavy luggage, preferably packed in a rucksack. Believe it or not, they will use only female mules as their temperament is best suitable for the task. They begin dealing with light loads at about twelve months this will let you working lifetime of 27 - 3 decades. Good mules may cost around 950 and may carry approximately 140kg.
Accommodation around the trek varied from camping, refuges or residing in a Berber village house. The camp ground sites were often idyllic, usually by the side of your stream or river - perfect for summer swimming - and included a dining tent which provided defense against heat from the sun and in the night shelter from the cold and even occasional rain. In June, as we learned, it's still snowy through the night even as camped above 2,000m.
We stayed per night inside the Toubkal refuge which at 3207m is about 1000m underneath the summit of Toubkal (4167m) It is a large, modern refuge with dormitories of varying sizes, good showers plus a large communal area with roaring fire - necessary whenever we arrived at a snow storm! Our food here was still prepared by our cook, though we might also buy snacks in the refuge shop. You will find stunning views in the refuge up for the Toubkal summit and back the valley.
Recognized we stayed inside 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 in the village. Incidentally, it is possible to find the villages with electricity as just about any house includes a large white satellite dish on the flat roof, clearly visible when you approach the village.
On another occasion, as a result of weather Jamal arranged for people to settle in a pilgrims' hostel on the shrine of Sidi Chamarouch. It was an odd experience since the shrine attracts many pilgrims who arrive by walking or mule and turn into the night time. The shrine is barred to non-Muslims, but fortunately the hostel just isn't! Because always we used the floor on comfortable sleeping mats that the mules carried. We just necessary to provide our own sleeping-bags - so we were glad we'd brought warm ones. At altitude it is usually cold during the night. Sidi Chamarouch, because of the pilgrims and trekkers who go through, is full of small stalls and shops selling snacks, soft drinks and souvenirs. It was almost surreal following the barrenness of most with the trek.
trek in atlas mountains
Our three mules carried our food that has been supplemented with fresh foods, particularly eggs, fresh bread and meat, bought inside the villages along the way, even though there aren't shops as we know them in the High Atlas villages. Every one of 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 early meal and contained 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 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 be ready to welcome us, around midday, with mint tea followed by a freshly prepared picnic lunch - filled with blankets to sit on! Lunch would be a cold buffet, typically pasta, sardines (Morocco can be a major world producer), tuna and salad, as well as - 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 were always offered mint tea. By the end of the trek our initial enthusiasm for mint tea had waned! Then we had time to relax, explore or talk, often with Jamal concerning the Berber life-style. Supper was usually soup plus a meat or vegetable tajine prepared from your basic ingredients (potatoes and carrots were peeled through the cooks) and cooked very efficiently on the small gas stove. Whenever feasible there was berry (melon, oranges). No alcohol though, if you don't sneak some along with you.
A lot of the walking we did was along narrow stony tracks, sometimes very faint and barely waymarked. With no guide it might have been super easy to get lost - yet we might meet young children herding goats in remote valleys or on high peaks, miles from any village. On one occasion a young boy aged about 14 saw us from his village within the valley at risk of a pass at 3,500m coupled with climbed up over 1000m to satisfy us towards the top. Whenever we arrived in a biting wind in the summit he had beaten us and set in a row the six bottles of Coke he had carried on top of him which he hoped we'd 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 hang off again along the valley in the Wellingtons.
Even as approached the villages we saw 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 the fields for that cattle, men were tilling the fields. After we saw an enormous tipper lorry carrying about forty workers back to their villages. Piece by piece the traditional Berber life-style is beginning to change as tracks are widened and become passable to trucks, holes are ready for electricity pylons and much more villages are linked to a mains supply.
But June is still the period of the transhumance for a lot of in the mountains, the upgrading of whole villages from the valleys towards the high summer pastures. We had empty villages being gotten ready for summer occupation. They were surrounded by mountain pastures and extensive, old networks of irrigation ditches. One shepherd we met wanted to ask where everyone else was: he had apparently trigger weekly roughly too early and it was now being forced to return along the valley!
We carried only day packs and as we knew we might get closer 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 possible snowy at altitude. Walking poles are incredibly useful and good boots needed for certainly not per day trek from Imlil. The walking is not so difficult and Jamal made certain that people maintained a leisurely pace, allowing plenty of time for stops, photo opportunities and scenery gazing. Younger crowd 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! We found that the indigenous fauna of the area includes foxes, rabbits, wild goats and squirrel, but were assured it is too cold for snakes and scorpions - at least whenever we are there!
Most of us suffered to some extent with altitude sickness through the initial few days. I was glad that by the time we reached the Toubkal refuge we had acclimatised, helped by daily climbs over passes in excess of 3000m and also by camping at altitude. Within the refuge we met another party of walkers who'd walked up from Imlil in a single day, a height gain of about 1500m. They were not experienced or very fit and were struggling with sore feet and altitude sickness. They intended to climb Toubkal the following morning, but because we discovered, they weren't fit or sufficiently together to descend.
