Atlas Mountains
ATLAS MOUNTAINS
The Atlas mountains offer amazing treks – magnificent views, hidden villages, dramatic gorges, and a glimpse of Berber culture. The trek from the Ait Bougmez valley to the summit of Djebel Mgoun shows you a less crowded corner of Morocco than some of the more popular High Atlas routes.
By Andrea Kirby and Jacques Combeau
From the top of the Djebel Mgoun, a 4,000 metre mountain, you can stand with your feet in a dusting of snow and look down to the distant sands of the Sahara. One world up here – and another down there. You feel quite literally on top of the world.
Two days will take you from the start of the trek in the Ait Bougmez valley all the way to the top of Mgoun, and back; if you have a week, you can add the rugged passes and spectacular gorges of the Tessaout valley.
'from here, you can trek up into the bare,
mythical, ochre-coloured Atlas mountains'
Start from Tabant or Agouti, villages where many of the mountain guides live. Ait Bougmez now has a paved road – formerly, it was difficult to access - but it's still a secluded valley, where walnut trees and lush fields surround the hill villages with their mud-brick houses. From here, you can trek up into the bare,mythical, ochre-coloured Atlas mountains.
You make an early start; sometimes eating breakfast - flat Moroccan bread, olives, fig jam, and soft white cheese – before it's properly light, and watching the sun gradually light up the valley. It's still quiet, with no wind, and cool, and there's that secret feeling of being up before everyone else.
You climb up the bare earthen slopes of humpy hills; soon you'll see huge buttresses of rock, sharp ledges and slumping shale. Sometimes a pathway zigzags up the side of a valley; at other times you may be striding the edge of a cliff, the whole valley laid out at your feet. It's dusty in the hills, and dry; everything is brown, or grey, or ochre.
Yet there are still high green valleys hiding in the folds of the hills, with small villages surrounded by tiny patchwork fields of wheat and barley. And at the end of the day, you'll drop down to one of these villages for your overnight stop.
The traditional houses here are thick-walled; made of big stone blocks in one valley, of mud brick in the next one, and enormous logs made of crude walnut trunks in another. Each village seems to have its own traditional methods. Their sloping walls and rounded corners, their natural colours, make them seem a natural part of the landscape. And the way they're scattered along the valley sides, or heaped on a modest hill, is the same wherever you are; no town planning here, just random houses huddling together for comfort.
If you're staying in a Berber gite, you'll end your first day in one of these houses. Inside, the cosy visitors' room will be lined with a thick layer of carpets on the floor – where you'll stretch out your sleeping-bag; in the most traditional houses, you'll still wash in a rocky basement bathroom, with permanently running water from a spring. Though the rooms may look spartan, vivid paint on the doors and ceilings, together with the fine carpets, makes them feel as warm as the welcome you'll get from your hosts. And you'll probably smell the tagine cooking as you walk in – a good tagine takes hours over the embers to cook.
In the late afternoon, young Berber girls had been busy cutting and carrying huge loads of hay while exchanging their beautiful traditional melodies from one slope to another.
'in the late afternoon, young Berber girls
exchange their beautiful traditional melodies
from one slope to another'
Or you might even sleep in the open, above the fields where, in the late afternoon, young Berber girls had been busy cutting and carrying huge loads of hay while exchanging their beautiful traditional melodies from one slope to another.
Setting out again on the trek, you'll climb higher, and further towards M'goun. At some point, high up and many hours away from any settlement, you may see young shepherds in one of the high pastures, looking after the sheep and goats, or in the villages, the women doing their laundry in the free-flowing waters of the river, beating clothes out on the rocks. Up in the mountains, the old traditions are still maintained, and life goes on as it has for centuries.
In the high valleys, you'll see the colours of the landscape changing, too, from ochre to purple and red tints. Some of that is the work of the light; the rock is dark brooding purple in the morning, with the low light of early sun, then as you walk you'll see how it bleaches out, starkly lit at noon, and finally in the evening glowing orange and pink, yielding to duller browns as the sun weakens and dies. And some of that is the geology changing beneath your feet, the slow work of millennia in which layers of rock have been crumpled and crushed.
'the evening glowing orange and pink,
yielding to duller browns as the sun weakens and dies
And that's the wonderful thing about trekking in the Atlas. Whichever track you take, whichever valleys or summits you tackle, you'll see the same traditional lifestyles and experience the same Berber hospitality. You'll experience the landscape in the same way – the contrast between the humpy, rounded mountain ranges and the green valleys, the colours of rock, the shadows thrown across the ground as sunset approaches.
After a higher pass you might take a diversion to the grassy higher valley of the Tessaout, 4000m above sea level. In the summer, it's crowded with herds of goats, camels and donkeys which have come up from the not-too-distant Sahara; the nomad Berber families spend summer in rough houses under the rocky overhangs of the cliffs, closed off with dry stone walls. Here is the best pasture, home to the flock until the snow comes at the end of summer and it's time to head back to the valley villages.
Where the valley narrows into a gorge, you can see huge blocks of eroded stone on both sides of the river that has gradually carved its way through. At one point the cliffs are scored with grid-like cracks, like a giant noughts and crosses board – water has eaten through the weaker rock between layers, and frost has chipped and cracked it. At another point, you can see the different layers of sedimentary rock exposed in ledges, the edges eroding, shale slipping and sliding away. At its most dramatic point the cliffs rise to 700 metres high, and the river fills almost the whole of the narrow bottom of the valley; your footsteps echo in the booming canyon.
'at its most dramatic point the cliffs rise to 700 metres high,
and the river fills almost the whole of the
narrow bottom of the valley; your footsteps echo
in the booming canyon'
And if you're intrepid, you'll want to tackle the summit, Djebel Mgoun. The mountain dominates this part of the Atlas; it's not a dramatic peak, but a huge, spreading massif. At over 4,000 metres, it's the second highest peak in the entire Atlas, after Toubkal. But unlike Toubkal with its dramatic crinkled ridge, Mgoun is flatter, the summit a huge plateau.
If you start early, the ascent will take most of the morning, giving you time to drop down again to the valleys by evening. The ascent is steep and impressive, though not difficult, if you're reasonably fit – at least in summer ; in winter, it's a very different matter. But there's a fierce wind, which you'll stoop to struggle against, before you reach the very top. Persevere; it's worth it, and you are never so exposed that you need to fear being blown off the mountain.
And then, right at the top, catch your breath, feel your heart beating, feel the thinness of the air, and the cold – even in summer – and see the clarity of the light. And look south, across the wide Drâa valley, towards the distant Sahara. You're king of the world.
FACT FILE
Marrakech to Ait Bougmez
There are three or four buses to Azilal every day, taking three and a half hours to cover the 200 km. From here to Tabant or Agouti you can take a taxi or minibus.
Mountain guides
You can hire mountain guides in most villages, such as Agouti, or through the 'Bureaux de guides' in Tabant, Imlil, or Azilal. All qualified guides have photo ID, either as members of the Federation Royale Marocaine de Ski et Montagne, or of the Association Nationale des Guides et Accompagnateurs en Montagne de Maroc (quite a mouthful). Ensure your guide is a mountain guide, not just a tourist guide (guide de tourisme); their training includes first aid, navigation and mountain craft.
Most guides will get free lodging, but you'll need to pay for their meals as well as paying them a daily rate for the group. In addition, you should tip them about 10 percent at the end of the trip. Ensure that you talk about what the day ahead has in store for you – any difficult paths, where and when you're planning to eat, and so on. If you're lucky, you 'll find that your guide can show you many aspects of local culture too – many guides have friends in the mountain villages who are ready to show great hospitality.
You may also find your hotel can help with arranging a trek. However, do check your guide's qualifications.
When to trek
The Atlas is closed to trekking in winter (except for well-equipped mountaineers), when the mountains are covered by snow. April and May are great months to go, as the snow has thawed, but the weather is still cool; if you can manage the heat, you can trek all summer up to the end of September, when the snow comes again.
Other great treks
Trekking to the summit of Toubkal, the Atlas' highest peak, takes two days from Imlil, and is not a difficult walk for reasonably fit hikers (there are a few patches of scree). It can easily be extended to four days by taking in the peaceful lake of Ifni, reached by a fairly challenging pass.
'Fair weather' hikers might prefer the opportunities afforded by the Ourika Valley, which starts just 30 km from Marrakesh (regular buses - Marrakeshis often ride their mopeds out here). Setti Fatma is a good place to stay and explore the valley with its waterfalls and greenery.
Finding a Berber gite
If you have organised a trek through your hotel, or employed a guide, it is likely that your accommodation will be organised for you. In many areas, it's likely that locals will approach you with offers of accommodation. On the longer treks, you may need to camp or sleep in the open – not advised in the more touristy areas, but usually quite safe on more distant trails. If camping near a village, ask to be shown an appropriate spot.
Fitness and expertise
For most treks in Morocco, you'll need to be adequately fit – if you can comfortably walk ten or twelve miles at the weekend, or regularly jog or play football, you should be able to cope. You'll need to be comfortable with uneven terrain and there are very occasional 'bad steps' where you may have to scramble for twenty feet or so – often assisted by wooden pegs or ropes added by the Berbers. But you won't need to be a mountaineer, and for most of the time you'll be on tracks regularly used by mules and donkeys.