Anderson182
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Trek within the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco
What exactly is it love walking inside the High Atlas mountains of Morocco? In June 2010 a group of us learned when we did a 7 day trek from Imlil with one of Toubkal-Trekking.com guides, whose name is Jamal. It was 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 made up of the guide, a cook, and mules and muleteers. The mules do the hard work of carrying the camping equipment, the majority of the food required for the trek and our heavy luggage, preferably packed inside a rucksack. Contrary to popular belief, they will use only female mules his or her temperament is best fitted to the job. They begin working together with light loads around 12 months and have a working life 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 residing in a Berber village house. The camping ground sites were often idyllic, usually by the side of a stream or river - perfect for summer swimming - and included a dining tent which provided defense against heat from the sun and also in the night shelter in the cold and also occasional rain. In June, even as learned, it is still very cold at night as we camped above 2,000m.
We stayed a night within the Toubkal refuge which at 3207m is approximately 1000m below the summit of Toubkal (4167m) It's a large, modern refuge with dormitories of varying sizes, good showers along with a large communal area with roaring fire - necessary whenever we found its way to a snow storm! Our food here was still made by our cook, though we might also buy snacks from your refuge shop. You can find stunning views from your refuge up towards the Toubkal summit and down again the valley.
One night we stayed inside a Berber village house in Amsouzerte Village. This village, like many around the trek, has no electricity, so lighting and heating (for the showers) was by bottled gas. Again our food was made by our personal cook - a tasty chicken tajine - the chicken being bought within the village. Incidentally, you can easily find the villages with electricity as nearly every house has a large white satellite dish about the flat roof, clearly visible while you approach the village.
On another occasion, as a result of bad weather Jamal arranged for us to sleep in a pilgrims' hostel on the shrine of Sidi Chamarouch. It was an unusual experience because the shrine attracts many pilgrims who arrive by walking or mule and remain the evening. The shrine itself is barred to non-Muslims, but fortunately the hostel just isn't! Because always we used the floor on comfortable sleeping mats which the mules carried. We simply required to provide our own sleeping-bags - and that we were glad we'd brought warm ones. At altitude it is always cold through the night. Sidi Chamarouch, as a result of pilgrims and trekkers who move through, is filled with small stalls and shops selling snacks, carbonated drinks and souvenirs. It absolutely was almost surreal after the barrenness on most from the trek.
high atlas mountains trek
Our three mules carried our food that has been supplemented with fresh produce, particularly eggs, fresh bread and meat, bought within the villages along 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 in support of Lahcen spoke some French.
Breakfast was an early meal and was comprised of 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 morning! Then we tripped for that morning's trek.
After our departure the muleteers packed everything up, loaded the mules and would overtake us around the trail and stay ready to welcome us, around midday, with mint tea accompanied by a freshly prepared picnic lunch - complete with blankets to sit on! Lunch was obviously a cold buffet, typically pasta, sardines (Morocco is really a major world producer), tuna and salad, and also - Lahcen's speciality - a fashionable dish of potato, tomato and chick peas or even a Moroccan omelette.
Whenever we finished our day's walk, usually mid afternoon, i was always offered mint tea. After the trek our initial enthusiasm for mint tea had waned! We then had time to unwind, explore or talk, often with Jamal concerning the Berber life style. Supper was usually soup plus a meat or vegetable tajine prepared from the basic ingredients (potatoes and carrots were peeled by the cooks) and cooked very efficiently on the small gas stove. Whenever feasible there was clearly fresh fruit (melon, oranges). No alcohol though, unless you sneak some together with you.
A lot of the walking we did was along narrow stony tracks, sometimes very faint and barely waymarked. Without a guide it might are already very easy to acquire lost - yet we'd meet young children herding goats in remote valleys or on high peaks, miles through the village. On one occasion a new boy aged about 14 had seen us from his village in the valley heading for a pass at 3,500m coupled with climbed up over 1000m to satisfy us at the very top. When we arrived at a biting wind in the summit he had beaten us and set in a row the six bottles of Coke he previously carried on top of him which he hoped we might buy. We did but higher productivity of popularity of his toughness and entrepreneurial spirit than desire for a fizzy drink. He packed away the empties and set off again along the valley in the Wellingtons.
As we approached the villages we saw the little cultivated fields, with crops of potatoes, maize, tomatoes and oats and wheat. In the fertile valleys were orchards of cherry, walnut and apple. Small children were herding goats or approaching school, women were carrying heavy bundles of fodder cut from the fields for your cattle, men were tilling the fields. Once we saw an enormous tipper lorry carrying about forty workers to their villages. Little by little the standard Berber way of life is beginning to change as tracks are widened and become passable to trucks, holes are ready for electricity pylons and more villages are connected to a mains supply.
But June remains the duration of the transhumance for a lot of in high altitude, the moving up of whole villages in the valleys to the high summer pastures. We got empty villages being prepared for summer occupation. They were flanked by mountain pastures and extensive, old networks of irrigation ditches. One shepherd we met wanted to ask where everyone else was: he had apparently tripped weekly roughly too quickly and was now being forced to return down 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 around from England) and additional clothing as it can be very cold at altitude. Walking poles are incredibly useful and good boots needed for anything but a day trek from Imlil. The walking is not so difficult and Jamal ensured that we maintained a leisurely pace, allowing the required time for stops, photo opportunities and scenery gazing. Younger crowd took pride and pleasure in explaining to us the Berber life-style. We many userful stuff here regarding language, culture, religion, agriculture, family life - and mules! We also discovered that the indigenous fauna from the area includes foxes, rabbits, wild goats and squirrel, but were assured that it's freezing for snakes and scorpions - a minimum of once we have there been!
Most of us suffered to some extent with altitude sickness during the first few days. We had been glad that once we reached the Toubkal refuge we'd acclimatised, helped by just about every day climbs over passes greater than 3000m and also by camping at altitude. In the refuge we met another party of walkers who had walked up from Imlil in a day, a height gain of approximately 1500m. They weren't experienced or very fit and were struggling with sore feet and altitude sickness. They designed to climb Toubkal the following morning, but because we discovered, they weren't fit or sufficiently and had to descend.
