It’s a six-day walk in Morocco’s Atlas Mountains. You enjoy Ourika Valley’s unspoiled beauty, which is best explored on-foot. Your trail will take you through olive groves, terraced fields and beautiful waterfalls to enjoy your picnic in the beautiful scenery of a Berber village. You also get a better insight into the local culture as you stay in a Berber-style Moroccan home in Timichi village and in Tinoughar, you see women at work, almond and walnut trees groves and centuries-old irrigated fields. You are ready for a steep climb to the highest peak in the Maghreb where you can enjoy the magnificent views of the of Atlas Mountains. This exciting tour shows you a side of Morocco that is never seen by many tourists.
After meeting our mountain guide and muleteers in the village of Setti Fatma, we strike through 100-year-old walnut trees on the far side of the river for about 30 minutes to visit the region’s beautiful waterfalls. We swing back through Zaouia Mohammed’s twin village of Setti Fadma to take our village picnic. Suitably refreshed, we now start the quite difficult part of our hike of about 6 hours towards the west along the western branch of the valley, facing the Adrar n’Oukaïmeden and Jbel Angour.We walk through the tiny hillside villages of Isghouarne, Agadir n’Aït Boulmane, Tadrart, Tiourdiou and Izouggaghene with their cornfields, terraced irrigated plots and groves of orange and olive groves to finally reach the village of Timichchi. We set among the ancient walnut trees where we have dinner and spend the night in a family home in Berber.
After breakfast, we start our superb2-hour walk in the early morning west along well-defined mule trails in the lush upper valley to Iaabassene’s Berber village (2.030 m). We cross the rocky lower levels of the Tizi n’Tacheddirt (3,200 m) and that of the Jbel Angour range (3,616 m) after a break close to a spring.
After about 21⁄2 hours of incredible hiking, we stopped for our field picnic before setting off again for another 2 hours down to the terraced pisé village called Tacheddirt (2,291 m), set among terraced, irrigated fields. We relax tonight and enjoy our dinner in a Berber gîte d’étape.
We headed down the Assif Imnane Valley, passing through several Berber hamlets. We walked up to the Tizi n’Ageursiwal (2,000 m), from where we went down more winding mule tracks leading to the village of Aguersiwal. We stopped for a lunch break before we walked along Imlil’s riverbed to the village where we finally walked after 6 hours
We start a 6-hour trek through long, winding mule tracks to Tizi Mzik (2,664 m), giving an amazing panorama of the Imlil Valley and Jebel Toubkal (4,167 m). We walk down from Tizi Mzik to Aazib n’Tamsoult (2,145 m) for a stream picnic. We walk up to the Tamsoult Cascade, also known as the Irhoulidene Cascade (2,200 m) and go back down to a basic refuge for dinner and overnight.
After breakfast, we presently set out eastwards on a very troublesome climb up winding donkey tracks to the Tizi Aguelzim (3,104m) where we take our outing.We walk a further 3 hours south-east to the Toubkal Refuge, which denotes the spring snowline at 3,207m. Here, we eat and go through the night.
Today we wake up early to climb Toubkal, North Africa’s highest mountain and one of Moroccan High Atlas Mountains ‘ beautiful tourist spots. The High Atlas Mountains were once described by Pliny, the great Roman scholar, as “the most fabulous mountains in Africa.” We cross the stream above the refuge and then cross one of the numerous scree areas in the mountains, making the walk-in parts quite difficult. It’s relatively straightforward, however, and the views along the way make the trip more than worthwhile. We are on the plateau cresting the ridgeline, from where there is a short walk to the summit. From here, there are unrestricted views in all directions, from the Marrakesh Plain to the North High Atlas and south as the Anti-Atlas and the Sahara.
After taking enough pictures and having some food, we go back down the mountain to Imlil, from where we drive back to Marrakech.
Note: Itinerary is only a rule and subject to change to suite local conditions.
