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Trek inside the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco
What exactly is it love walking inside the High Atlas mountains of Morocco? In June 2010 a small grouping of us discovered 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 experience of a "guided trek" so we didn't have regrets by the end.
To begin with, we meet up with the team which is composed of the guide, a cook, and mules and muleteers. The mules perform the effort 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 use only female mules his or her temperament is best suitable for the task. They start dealing with light loads at approximately one year this will let you working duration of 27 - Thirty years. Good mules can cost around 950 and can carry as much as 140kg.
Accommodation around the trek varied from camping, refuges or remaining in a Berber village house. The camp sites were often idyllic, usually through the side of a stream or river - well suited for summer swimming - and included a dining tent which provided defense against the heat with the sun as well as in the night shelter in the cold and even occasional rain. In June, even as learned, will still be cold at night even as camped above 2,000m.
We stayed an evening inside the Toubkal refuge which at 3207m is about 1000m underneath the summit of Toubkal (4167m) This is a large, modern refuge with dormitories of varying sizes, good showers along with a large communal area with roaring fire - necessary whenever we arrived in a snow storm! Our food here was still being prepared by our cook, though we're able to also buy snacks from the refuge shop. You can find stunning views in 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 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 very own cook - a tasty chicken tajine - the chicken being bought inside the village. Incidentally, it is possible to find the villages with electricity as virtually every house includes a large white satellite dish around the flat roof, clearly visible as you approach the village.
On another occasion, because of weather Jamal arranged for us to settle a pilgrims' hostel in the shrine of Sidi Chamarouch. This was an odd experience since the shrine attracts many pilgrims who arrive when walking or mule and turn into the evening. The shrine itself is barred to non-Muslims, but fortunately the hostel isn't! Because always we slept on the ground on comfortable sleeping mats that your mules carried. We only required to provide our personal sleeping-bags - so we were glad we'd brought warm ones. At altitude it is usually cold through the night. Sidi Chamarouch, due to the pilgrims and trekkers who move through, is stuffed with small stalls and shops selling snacks, carbonated drinks and souvenirs. It had been almost surreal following your barrenness of most with the trek.
trek high atlas
Our three mules carried our food that has been supplemented with fresh food, particularly eggs, fresh bread and meat, bought in the villages on the way, even though there aren't shops as we 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 just Lahcen spoke some French.
Breakfast was a young meal and was comprised of a fashionable drink (tea, coffee with dried milk), bread, jam, chocolate and cheese spreads and honey. It was enough to manage at 6.30 each morning! We then trigger for the morning's trek.
After our departure the muleteers packed everything up, loaded the mules and would overtake us about the trail and be able to welcome us, around midday, with mint tea followed by a freshly prepared picnic lunch - filled with blankets to take a seat on! Lunch was obviously a cold buffet, typically pasta, sardines (Morocco is a major world producer), tuna and salad, and also - Lahcen's speciality - a hot dish of potato, tomato and chick peas or a Moroccan omelette.
Once we finished our day's walk, usually mid afternoon, i was always offered mint tea. By the end of the trek our initial enthusiasm for mint tea had waned! Then we had the capacity to unwind, explore or talk, often with Jamal about the Berber life-style. Supper was usually soup plus a meat or vegetable tajine prepared in the basic ingredients (potatoes and carrots were peeled by the cooks) and cooked very efficiently on the small gas stove. Whenever possible there was clearly berry (melon, oranges). No alcohol though, until you sneak some with you.
Most of the walking we did was along narrow stony tracks, sometimes very faint and rarely waymarked. With no guide it might have been very easy to acquire lost - yet we would meet young kids herding goats in remote valleys or on high peaks, miles from the village. On one occasion a 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 at the top. Whenever we arrived in a biting wind on the summit he had beaten us and hang in a row the six bottles of Coke he'd carried up with him which he hoped we would 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 hang up off again along the valley in his Wellingtons.
As we approached the villages we saw 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 travelling to school, women were carrying heavy bundles of fodder cut in the fields for that cattle, men were tilling the fields. If we saw an enormous tipper lorry carrying about forty workers back to their villages. Piece by piece the original Berber life-style is evolving as tracks are widened and be passable to trucks, holes have decided for electricity pylons and much more villages are linked to a mains supply.
But June remains the duration of the transhumance for many out in the wild, the going up of whole villages from the valleys for the high summer pastures. We got empty villages being ready for summer occupation. These folks were flanked by mountain pastures and extensive, old networks of irrigation ditches. One shepherd we met wanted to ask where everybody else was: he'd apparently set off a week approximately too quickly and was now needing to return down the valley!
We carried only day packs so when 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 additional clothing as it can be cold at altitude. Walking poles are extremely useful and good boots needed for certainly not a day trek from Imlil. The walking itself is simple enough and Jamal ensured that people maintained a leisurely pace, allowing the required time for stops, photo opportunities and scenery gazing. He also took pride and pleasure in explaining to us the Berber way of life. We many userful stuff here regarding their language, culture, religion, agriculture, family life - and mules! We also 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 - at least whenever we have there been!
Many of us suffered to some extent with altitude sickness through the first few days. I was glad that once we reached the Toubkal refuge we'd acclimatised, helped by daily climbs over passes greater than 3000m and by camping at altitude. In the refuge we met another party of walkers who'd walked up from Imlil in one day, a height gain of approximately 1500m. They were not experienced or very fit and were battling with sore feet and altitude sickness. They meant to climb Toubkal the following morning, but as we discovered, they weren't fit or well enough coupled with to descend.
