Brett and Bernii

On Sunday the 14th of Sepember, I left Bernii in Casablanca and caught the train back to Marrakech to be ready for my trip to Imlil the following morning.

The driver picked me up from my hotel at 9:00AM and drove to Aroumd, a small village just outside of Imlil. We walked a short distance to the Mount Toubkal Lodge where I would be spending the night before I started the trek. I had booked this extra night to help acclimatize in order to minimize the risk of altitude sickness. The village of Aroumd sits at about 1900m, much highter than Casablanca (27m) and Marrakech (457m).

During the afternoon I walked to the village of Imlil to have some lunch and purchase some drinking water for the trek, before returning to my accommodation and sorting out what gear I would be taking with me. I had arranged to hire a backpack, sleeping bag and a headlamp as my gear was in our storage locker in Bangkok.

The hired equipment arrived after dinner and I packed the backpack before going to bed.

The next day I had breakfast at 9:00AM before I met my guide and we departed from Mount Toubkal Lodge at 9:30AM. The trail was well defined and fairly rocky in sections. After about 30 minutes, we came to the entrance to the National Park. The guide had to present my passport at the checkpoint so we could access the park. We continued walking and by 10:30AM had arrived at the tiny village that we had planned to have lunch. We were making good time and weren’t yet hungry so decided to keep going and have lunch when we arrived at the Refuge du Toubkal.

The trail was a gradual uphill incline all the way to the refuge. At times we had to give way to mules carrying people or supplies. We made it to the Refuge du Toubkal (3207m) at 1:30PM, an hour and a half earlier than anticipated.

I was shown to my bed, a single bed in a dormitory-style room that slept 28 people. I rolled out my sleeping bag and went to the mess room for lunch – an egg and olive tagine with salad and pasta that was delicous. It rained all afternoon, and some people were getting concerned whether they would be able to continue the trek with the weather conditions. My guide didn’t seem bothered so I ignored it. I got some rest before having dinner at 7:00PM and going to bed to try to get some sleep.

My alarm was set for 3:00AM, but it was difficult to sleep. There were constantly noises in the room from other people moving about. At 2:59AM, I dismissed my alarm, quietly packed my gear and went to breakfast. I had a few pieces of Moroccan bread with jam and Moroccan mint tea (amazing!), then put my boots on and hit the trail just before 4:00AM.

The section of trail from the refuge to the summit was steep and very rocky. It was pitch black, so the headlamp was needed for the whole ascent. It was a constant uphill climb with 970m of elevation gain over roughly 3.5km, so we stopped a few times to rest and have a drink of water. At the first stop, I removed my flannel shirt, as I was overheating, and I continued on in my t-shirt and rain jacket. It was very windy in some sections, and as we ascended, the wind became bitterly cold. I was glad to have bought a pair of fleece gloves for the trek, and I had to put my flannel shirt back on around 6:00AM.

We arrived at the summit at 4167m just before 7:00AM. I didn’t notice that we were so close to the summit until we were less than 50m away from it. We got a few photos at the summit as more people started arriving. Unfortunately there was a lot of low cloud so we couldn’t see any of the surrounding area.

After about 10 minutes at the summit, we descended to a rocky pass where we watched the sunrise. The clouds had started to clear a bit by then and we continued descending. At some point I strained my right knee which made it slower going that normal, however we still made good time and arrived back at the refuge around 8:45AM. I think in future I will take trekking poles with me (or hire them) to ease the pressure on my knees.

We rested for half an hour before starting the descent back towards Imlil. Again, the going was a bit slower than usual due to my sore knee. I was determined to make it back to Aroumd on my own feet, and not the back of a mule. About a third of the way back, we stopped at a tiny village for tea, then around two-thirds of the way back we stopped again for lunch.

We arrived back at Aroumd at 1:15PM. I repacked my trekking gear into my travel duffel bag and returned the hired backpack, sleeping bag and headlamp. Then said goodbye to my guide and hosts and headed back to Marrakech to reunite with Bernii.