Jebel Toubkal Circuit

Peter Flegg

It all started ominously cold—we arrived from Newcastle in the south of Spain to discover all rooms within our budget range were booked out. So we slept out in the open on the pier at Tarifa and needed all of our clothes on in our sleeping bags to keep warm and that was at sea level!

Some days later after a brief history tour of Fes we arrived, after 13 hours non-stop travelling, at Imlil at 1700m in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco.

Everything (apart from camel rides is possible here) so Lewis looked into crampon hire as we could see plenty of snow on the low altitude peaks visible—the price was an extortionate £3.50 per day!

  Next morning Lewis talked them down to £3 per day hire charge but he refrained from making them rich and hoped he could make the Toubkal circuit trek that we planned without needing them. I decided to hire a pair—I tried one on in the café and it fitted my boot OK (remember that for later in the story!)

We set off late at about 10.30am and were soon racing up the hill catching and overtaking a large trekking party. Lewis (aka marthon man) was keen to push the limit and combine 2 days walk into one even though we weren’t acclimatised.
We arrived at the start of the what was described as the second day at 13.30 and stopped to refuel—out of the blue appeared a local guy who told us we were in the wrong place if we were heading to the col at Tizi Likemt.

It was now 14.00 and I was ready to call it a day but we were eventually lead by the local guy over a scree slope ridge on to the real route. We paid our fee (£2.50) and continued on our way with the track getting ever steeper and the scree more slippery.

Lewis was able with his non-flexible boots to kick steps up the ice in the middle of the slope and moved quickly. Whereas my leather boots slipped all way so I stopped to fit my crampons but soon discovered that I had 2 left-foot crampons, one of which was broken and wouldn’t stay on my boot so I was stuck on the scree.

At about 3400m I ground to a halt having eaten all my chewy and power bars. I called to Lewis who had been sitting on the ridge for an hour already that I was exhausted and was heading back down unable to summon up the energy required to reach the col at 3500m… unless he came and helped me by carrying my pack for the last vertical 100m. He soon came and helped complaining about the rubbish I was carrying in my pack.We reached the col at dark—I got the stove working to melt some ice for a drink while Lewis attempted to make a flat space among the rubble where we could sleep. We managed 2 cups of tea and no food before we had all of our clothes on and were squeezed tightly in our sleeping bags

We didn’t sleep much and didn’t get up until the sun came up over the ridge at 8.30 next morning.

Then we had a long walk downhill to the next deserted village (a summer pasture area) we stopped here for lunch and had several cups of tea and left feeling totally refreshed. Over another easy col at 3150m in the rain and then a painfully long and steep descent to an occupied village.

One mother came out bringing her daughter when she heard us passing through—the daughter’s face was covered in blood and she had a very nasty open wound on her head. Not being doctors the best we could do was to say that she should keep the wound clean by washing it regularly. We finally arrived at our destination village of Amsousert in the dark and were led to the Gite where we got a nice room and a totally filling meal and breakfast for £5 each.

Luckily as it turned out next morning, using sign language, I got a nail and a pair of pliers so that I could fix my broken crampon. We set off on what was again to be another 2 day stages covered in one. A local guy (Rashid) asked if we wanted a guide

—we didn’t but I asked how much he wanted to carry my pack I agreed and so we set off at a faster pace now. We stopped at lake d’Ifni for lunch—bread supplied by Rashid, we supplied the tea.

Then we started the hard slog up to the col of Tizi Ouanouns at 3600m. Rashid soon became our guide and lead us rapidly up the mountain side—Lewis had to donate a pair of thick socks when Rashid stopped with numb feet—he was wearing leaking welly boots! We reached the col at 6.20pm but there was a gale blowing with spindrift stinging our eyes. Rashid bailed out once we looked down the other side—the descent was over steep ice and drift snow. We paid him and he headed back the way we had come.

The descent was easy enough with my newly fixed crampons and we again arrived after dark at the large and crowded Toubkal refuge at 3200m.