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Trek within the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco
What is it love walking within the High Atlas mountains of Morocco? In June 2010 a group of us discovered once we did a 7 day trek from Imlil and among Toubkal-Trekking.com guides, whose name is Jamal. It had been our first experience with a "guided trek" and that we didn't have any regrets at the end.
First of all, we encounter they that is composed of the guide, a cook, and mules and muleteers. The mules carry out the hard work of carrying the camping equipment, a lot of the food needed for the trek and our heavy luggage, preferably packed inside a rucksack. Contrary to popular belief, they'll use only female mules his or her temperament is much better suitable for the work. They begin dealing with light loads at approximately one year and have a working lifetime of 27 - Thirty years. Good mules could cost around 950 and will carry as much as 140kg.
Accommodation around the trek varied from camping, refuges or residing in a Berber village house. The camping ground sites were often idyllic, usually from the side of a stream or river - well suited for summer swimming - and included a dining tent which provided protection from heat from the sun and also in the evening shelter from your cold and even occasional rain. In June, once we learned, will still be very cold at night even as camped above 2,000m.
We stayed a night 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 - necessary once we found its way to a snow storm! Our food here had been served 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 down the valley.
One night 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 that showers) was by bottled gas. Again our food was made by our own cook - a tasty chicken tajine - the chicken being bought inside the village. Incidentally, you can easily spot the villages with electricity as nearly every house includes a large white satellite dish on the flat roof, clearly visible as you approach the village.
On another occasion, because of bad weather 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 by walking or mule and stay the night. The shrine itself is barred to non-Muslims, but fortunately the hostel is not! Because always we used the ground on comfortable sleeping mats that the mules carried. We only required to provide our own sleeping-bags - and we were glad there were brought warm ones. At altitude it is always cold during the night. Sidi Chamarouch, due to the pilgrims and trekkers who pass through, is full of small stalls and shops selling snacks, carbonated drinks and souvenirs. It was almost surreal after the barrenness on most from the trek.
trek 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 in route, even though there aren't shops as you may know them within 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 consisted of a hot drink (tea, coffee with dried milk), bread, jam, chocolate and cheese spreads and honey. This is enough to face at 6.30 each day! Then we tripped 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 accompanied by a freshly prepared picnic lunch - detailed with blankets to sit on! Lunch would be a cold buffet, typically pasta, sardines (Morocco is really a major world producer), tuna and salad, as well as - Lahcen's speciality - a fashionable dish of potato, tomato and chick peas or 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 relax, explore or talk, often with Jamal in regards to 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 over a small gas stove. Whenever you can there was fruit (melon, oranges). No alcohol though, unless you sneak some along with you.
A lot of the walking we did was along narrow stony tracks, sometimes very faint and infrequently waymarked. With out a guide it might have been super easy to obtain lost - yet we might meet young children 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 at risk of a pass at 3,500m and had climbed up over 1000m to meet us at the very top. Whenever we arrived at a biting wind on the summit he had beaten us and set in a row the six bottles of Coke he had carried up with him which he hoped we would buy. We did but more out of popularity of his toughness and entrepreneurial spirit than desire to have a fizzy drink. He packed away the empties and hang up off again on the valley in his Wellingtons.
Even as approached the villages we got the little 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 walking to school, women were carrying heavy bundles of fodder cut from your fields for the cattle, men were tilling the fields. After we saw a huge tipper lorry carrying about forty workers returning to their villages. Little by little the original Berber life-style is evolving as tracks are widened and be passable to trucks, holes are prepared for electricity pylons plus more villages are attached to a mains supply.
But June is still the period of the transhumance for a lot of out in the wild, the going up of whole villages from the valleys for the high summer pastures. We had empty villages being ready for summer occupation. These were encompassed by mountain pastures and extensive, old networks of irrigation ditches. One shepherd we met wondered where all others was: he had apparently set off per week roughly too quickly and it was now being forced to return on the valley!
We carried only day packs and as we knew we might meet up with the mules again at lunchtime, we carried only essential items: water (purified stream water), snacks (brought with us from England) and further clothing as it can be cold at altitude. Walking poles are incredibly useful and good boots required for certainly not each day trek from Imlil. The walking is not so difficult and Jamal ensured that we maintained a leisurely pace, allowing plenty of time for stops, photo opportunities and scenery gazing. He also 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 found that the indigenous fauna of the area includes foxes, rabbits, wild goats and squirrel, but were assured that it's freezing for snakes and scorpions - no less than once we were there!
Many of us suffered to some extent with altitude sickness throughout the initial few days. I was glad that by the time we reached the Toubkal refuge there were acclimatised, helped by almost daily climbs over passes in excess of 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 about 1500m. They were not experienced or very fit and were suffering with sore feet and altitude sickness. They intended to climb Toubkal the next morning, but because we discovered, they were not fit or sufficiently together to descend.
