Toubkal Circuit Trek (Morocco)
Climbing the highest mountain in North Africa!
After about a week of walking around Moroccan cities and medinas and kasbahs we were ready for some outdoors, some mountain air, and some quiet.
The Toubkal Circuit Trek is a 6-day/5-night (40ish-mile) loop around the highest mountain in the High Atlas Range (Toubkal is actually the highest mountain for 1,200 miles!). We arranged our trip through a company, which has been legally required since extremists murdered two Scandinavian women in these mountains in 2018. Though we generally prefer to do things on our own, a guide/company can be great for providing tents, cooking meals, and helping navigate unmarked rocky trains up and over several mountain passes. We did see some foreigners trekking sans guide…but I am generally team Follow The Laws of the Country You’re In, plus the fine is over $1000, plus plus sign me up for zero interaction with Moroccan police please and thank you.
And our little team was a goddamn delight! We drove an hour and a half from Marrakech (you can actually see Toubkal from Marrakech on a clear day) to the trek start in Imlil, a pretty little hill town much like pretty little hill towns everywhere: clean crisp air and apple and walnut picking and cafes along a picturesque mountain stream. We met our guide, Mohammed, cook and horseman (mule man?) Hamid, additional horseman Watan and their two mules: Marwan and Shakira (“Shakira Shakira! Ooh pony when you trot like that, you make a horsie go mad” - Chris, basically all trek long). All are Berbers from the Imlil valley (though tbh I don’t know how the mules identify).
Important side note on Berbers: Berbers are the second largest ethic group in Morocco, inhabiting the highlands, mountains, and desert. However, though the term “Berber” is commonly used, it’s derived from “barbarian” and is actually a slur along similar lines as “gypsy” for Roma people. I didn’t learn any of this until after our trek, so I’m unclear how widely understood as offensive the term is. Our guides regularly described things and people as “Berber” with no hesitation — Berber villages, Berber bread, Berber whiskey (aka tea)! I have since learned that Berbers call themselves Imazighen or Amazigh people (“free men'“), so I’ll use that for the rest of this post.
Trekking in the High Atlas range is, of course, by no means comparable to the Himalayas of Nepal or the Central Andes of Peru (other places where we’ve trekked this past year) in terms of epic alpine grandeur, but this was a really good trek. We went up and over at least one pass each day, but nothing too huge and we were always done hiking by early afternoon at the latest. We camped on hillsides above 700-year-old villages, in valleys inhabited by Amazigh herders for the summer, and at one point halfway up a huge rocky pass.
The benefit of a 3-person staff for the two of us, on top of the culturally mandated Moroccan hospitality, is that we were very well taken care of. On the second day it rained all afternoon — Hamid delivered tea and fresh donuts directly to our tent! The food throughout was fantastic; camping tagine may be my favorite tagine.
One of my favorite things about our guide was how committed to mule safety he was. I’m sorry to say I’ve seen a lot of animal cruelty in my travels, which is sadly inevitable when you’re interacting with work and farm animals so frequently (lol to the straight-faced “no” response we give whenever an immigration official asks have you been near any livestock?). But Mohammed talked a lot about what was good for the mules, difficult for the mules, and what we’d have to do differently if the trail were slippery to ensure the safety of the mules. Some of this probably comes from the fact that the mules were personally owned by Hamid and Watan — if anything happens to Marwan or Shakira that’s a major hit to their livelihoods. But I like to think he also just cares about their well-being.
Ok sorry for the extensive mule interlude! I guess we’re just really into them these days.
Anyway, on the fifth day we summited Toubkal, which at 13,671 feet/4,167 meters is the highest point in North (and West) Africa. Because we were on the circuit route we saw hardly anyone in the preceding four days, then saw a bunch of people at the top of the mountain (most people just climb the mountain as a 2-day trip), then again hardly anyone on the way down.
Our last day we hiked out, passing through picking season in the walnut orchards, watching locals climbing high into the trees, and picking up errant nuts to crack open on rocks. Again, just a very pleasant little hike!
What am I reading?
Just finished: Piranes (Susanna Clarke)
Currently reading: The Mercies (Kiran Millwood Hargrave)
Up next: Infinite Country (Patricia Engel)