August - Toubkal

Summit Height:

4167m

What?

Jebel Toubkal

When?

1st - 7th August 2011

Where?

Atlas Mountains - Morocco

Who?

James, Claire, Ben, Anurag, Emer, Chris, Ian, Kirsty and Henry  

It has taken me a while to get round to updating the blog this month, and that is because since returning from Morocco a new house, city and job has made life a little hectic.

Back at the start of August (not long ago, but seems like an age) I spent a week in the Atlas mountains in Morocco, and during a 6 day trek summited not only Morrocco and North Africa's highest mountain, Jebel Toubkal, but also the second highest Jebel Ouanoukrim. Ouanoukrim was certainly the tougher, more rugged and quieter of the two summits and therefore made a wonderful conclusion to the Atlas trek.

Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself here! Before reaching either summit we spent two very very hot days walking through valleys and over passes whilst staying in Berber villages and experiencing the mountain atmosphere and way of life. On the third day we took mule tracks up toward Toubkal refuge, a bunkhouse situated 3207m above sea level which served as a resting place for anybody on their way to or from Toubkal. It was here that the dice game of 'Heckmeck' was taken to competitive extremes, whilst we waiting for morning and the accent of Toubkal.

Scree was the word of the day on summit day, and this made an otherwise fairly straight forward climb much more challenging. Upon arriving at the iconic pyramid construction at the summit, all thoughts of the previous challenges washed away as we marvelled at the spectacular views in every direction. For me the most surprising thing of all was the fact that at 4167m it was still warm enough to wear a t-shirt, and whereas summits are usually not places to dwell, because they are often windy or cold, in this case we were able to spend a full hour at the summit relaxing, soaking in the views and eating lunch whilst enjoying our achievements.

Another night at the refuge, and a few more competitive game of 'Heckmeck' lead to a very early start as we put on our head torches and began our accent of  Ouanoukrim. We left behind the scree and began a scramble, and despite being slightly smaller quickly discovered that Ouanoukrim was a much tougher mountain to climb than Toubkal! On Ouanoukrim there were no other people in sight and simply a pile of rocks to mark the highest point, as such this climb maintained a sense of wilderness!

The rest of that day was decent, which was long and tough and really took everything that I had left (and a little bit more), but an evening of relaxing back in the valley, sleeping under the stars and sharing memories and jokes created a lovely and fitting end to a great adventure.