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Trek in the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco
The facts enjoy walking inside the High Atlas mountains of Morocco? In June 2010 a small grouping of us discovered when we did a 7 day trek from Imlil using one of Toubkal-Trekking.com guides, whose name is Jamal. It absolutely was our first experience with a "guided trek" and that we didn't have any regrets at the conclusion.
To begin with, we connect with the team that is composed of the guide, a cook, and mules and muleteers. The mules perform 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. Believe it or not, they will use only female mules his or her temperament is much better fitted to the job. They start dealing with light loads at about one year and have a working duration of 27 - 3 decades. Good mules could cost around 950 and will carry approximately 140kg.
Accommodation about the trek varied from camping, refuges or staying in a Berber village house. The camping ground sites were often idyllic, usually from the side of the 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 night shelter in the cold and also occasional rain. In June, even as learned, it is still snowy through the night once we camped above 2,000m.
We stayed an evening in the Toubkal refuge which at 3207m is all about 1000m below the summit of Toubkal (4167m) It's a large, modern refuge with dormitories of varying sizes, good showers and a large communal area with roaring fire - necessary once we found its way to a snow storm! Our food here had been made by our cook, though we're able to also buy snacks from the refuge shop. You will find stunning views in the refuge up towards the Toubkal summit and down again the valley.
One night we stayed in a Berber village house in Amsouzerte Village. This village, like many around the trek, has no electricity, so lighting and heating (for that showers) was by bottled gas. Again our food was served by our own cook - a tasty chicken tajine - the chicken being bought inside the village. Incidentally, it is easy to spot the villages with electricity as just about any house features a large white satellite dish on the flat roof, clearly visible as you approach the village.
On another occasion, due to weather Jamal arranged for us to settle a pilgrims' hostel in the shrine of Sidi Chamarouch. It was an odd experience since the shrine attracts many pilgrims who arrive by walking or mule and remain the night time. The shrine is barred to non-Muslims, but fortunately the hostel is not! Because always we slept on the floor on comfortable sleeping mats which the mules carried. We only required to provide our very own sleeping-bags - and that 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 pass through, is full of small stalls and shops selling snacks, soft drinks and souvenirs. It was almost surreal following the barrenness of most of 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 inside the villages along the way, 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 in support of Lahcen spoke some French.
Breakfast was an earlier meal and was comprised of a fashionable drink (tea, coffee with dried milk), bread, jam, chocolate and cheese spreads and honey. This was enough to handle at 6.30 in the morning! Only then do 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 prepared to welcome us, around midday, with mint tea followed by a freshly prepared picnic lunch - filled with blankets to sit down on! Lunch was a cold buffet, typically pasta, sardines (Morocco is a major world producer), tuna and salad, and in addition - 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 were always offered mint tea. After the trek our initial enthusiasm for mint tea had waned! We then had the capacity to relax, explore or talk, often with Jamal in regards to the Berber way of life. The evening meal 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 clearly fresh fruit (melon, oranges). No alcohol though, until you sneak some together with you.
Most of the walking we did was along narrow stony tracks, sometimes very faint and rarely waymarked. With no guide it could have been very easy to obtain lost - yet we'd meet young children herding goats in remote valleys or on high peaks, miles from the village. On one occasion a boy aged about 14 saw us from his village within the valley at risk of a pass at 3,500m and had climbed up over 1000m to meet us at the very top. When we found its way to a biting wind in the summit he previously beaten us and set in a row the six bottles of Coke he'd carried track of him which he hoped we'd 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 off again on the valley in his Wellingtons.
Even as approached the villages we had the tiny 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 walking to school, women were carrying heavy bundles of fodder cut in the fields for that cattle, men were tilling the fields. After we saw an enormous tipper lorry carrying about forty workers returning to their villages. Little by little the original 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 attached to a mains supply.
But June remains the duration 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 saw empty villages being prepared for summer occupation. They were surrounded by mountain pastures and extensive, old networks of irrigation ditches. One shepherd we met wanted to ask where everybody else was: he had apparently trigger weekly or so too soon and was now needing to return along the valley!
We carried only day packs so when we knew we might catch up with the mules again at lunchtime, we carried only essential items: water (purified stream water), snacks (brought around from England) and further clothing as they can be cold at altitude. Walking poles are incredibly useful and good boots needed for anything but per day trek from Imlil. The walking is not so difficult and Jamal made sure that people maintained a leisurely pace, allowing sufficient time for stops, photo opportunities and scenery gazing. Also, he took pride and pleasure in explaining 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 from the area includes foxes, rabbits, wild goats and squirrel, but were assured it is too cold for snakes and scorpions - a minimum of when we have there been!
Many of us suffered to varying degrees with altitude sickness throughout the initial few days. We had been glad that when we reached the Toubkal refuge there were acclimatised, helped by almost 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 suffering with sore feet and altitude sickness. They intended to climb Toubkal these morning, but as we discovered, they were not fit or well enough coupled with to descend.
