April 19, 2008 - February 28, 2008 | Atlas Mountain, | Ski

In shallah- Morocco 2008
Everything seemed so foreign and I was so tired; after all I had just flown half way around the globe from Niseko – Japan. A double transcon flight takes its toll, especially when one is sick (compliments of my great host Nigel in Niseko) and when ones back is thrown out (compliments of 40 plus….)
Dave Jordan and I finally landed and met up with Peter Adamco, his spouse Holly Yokum, Catherine Kerr and our local guide Omar. All our gear was loaded into a passenger Van and we drove out of the city of Marrakech towards the Atlas Range. “Almost there” I thought. Omar casually announced that we were going to have to load our gear onto his mules once we arrived in Imlil and hike up the hill for about 45 minutes to get to his house. “He must have seen how completely trashed I am and so now he is messing with me”. So I asked him: “Tu rigole?” just to make sure he was kidding. “Je ne rigole jamais” was the dry retort from the front of the bus.
Sure enough, the mules were already waiting and a few minutes later we were hiking in the crisp evening air with the Atlas Mountains towering over our head. Upon arrival Hassan our cook insisted on cooking us dinner and by the time we finally got to go to sleep in Omars comfortable and spacious house, it was after midnight. I did briefly try to figure out what time my body might be on, but this might have been a tall order even in a fresh state of mind….
At 5:45am the call to prayer coming from the local Mosque Tower made it crystal clear that we were not in the US anymore. I got up and prayed for some coffee. Hassan our cook came through for me. (Well sort of; it was Nescafe and this struck me a bit like a cruel joke considering I was in an Arab country.) He did inform me that coffee was a bit of a luxury drink and tea was really the way to go anyway. Sweet green tea with flatbread dunked in olive oil, so he explained - was the basic breakfast of choice. It sounded kind of similar to peanut butter toast and coffee to me.
By 8am the mules were loaded up again we started our hike through the little town of Around towards the Neltner hut at the base of Toubkal. This 4167m peak was our first skiing objective. Around seemed very quiet and also very poor to me to me. The few locals we saw were friendly but shy. After about one and a half hours of hiking through apple orchards above town and then lower reaches of the Atlas Mountains we reached the pilgrimage site of Chambarouch at roughly 2300 meters. It was a wild little place where a few locals tried to sell you some souvenirs ranging from bracelets to Berber carpets. The sales pitches were lively, friendly and exhausting. The Berber people have lived in the Atlas mountains for centuries and they are very proud of their heritage. They were very quick to point out that the carpets, teapots, mirrors, and jewelry was not the phony stuff that just anyone could buy in the city of Marrakech. We made promises to the locals to buy some things on our way back from the mountain. We kept on climbing and at around 2800 meters we reached snowline. The mules were unloaded and the mule herders turned into porters. I sure did feel like a wimp skinning along with my little day pack, but I spent the next 400 meters of vertical justifying it and I must say: I must have done a good job, because by the time we arrived at the Neltner hut at 3200 meters, I was totally fine with somebody else carrying my stuff. In fact I was a little bummed when I did not see a little chocolate on the spot where there should have been a fluffy down pillow in the bunkroom that should have been my single room…
The Neltner hut is part of the CAF (club alpin francais), is run by three friendly guardians and gets stocked by porters.
Nobody had been up to the summit of Toubkal (4167 meters) in over a week due to the massive winds that had been raging on the ridge tops. So when I asked Omar about our chances of summiting, I heard my first “In shallah” (if god is willing).
Well, apparently god was willing – but barely. We made it up to the summit in very windy conditions. The route lead up beautiful ski touring terrain through slopes and a large bowl to the summit saddle where the snowpack had been reduced to nothing by the wind.
Windy or not – we were tolerated on the highest point in North Africa. “In shallah”!!
The wind had announced a new system and it came upon our return to the Neltner hut. By the time my jetlag decided that it was time to get up at 3am, we had receive about 15 cm of fresh snow and it was still snowing pretty good. At about 6am some of the local guides got up and started their day with a morning prayer. Sure enough shortly after their prayers the coffee started showing up. I think they know exactly what they are praying for…
Well, the weather was not on our side and our intended ski tour to “Timesguide n’Ouanoukrim (4089 meters) was cut short. We did end up touring through a beautiful little canyon and on into a fantastic bowl to a col north of Ouanoukrim at around 3800 meters. There was obviously fresh snow, but the fact that there had been very little before, kept us skiing cautiously. Upon our return to the hut, the mandatory tea with sugar was already waiting (actually it was more like sugar with tea). We hung around a little bit, packed up our stuff and then let our porters (but of course…) carry the gear down to the mules that were already waiting at snow line. Yes, the sales men at Chambarouch inflicted damage on our pocket books, but we were proud of our purchases.
We loaded our precious belongings onto the mules and continued the hike out to Around.
We were all tired and happy to be back in Omars house.
The next day we hiked from Around to the mountain town of Tachedirt via Tizi n’Tamatert (Tizi is a Pass). The hike was straight forward and enjoyable but the very poor town of Tachedirt showed how far the seemingly poor town of Around had already come. Omar explained to us that his town (Around) had formed a Coop in the mid nineties which enabled them to bring electricity into town. This had been a giant leap for the community and the construction efforts along the way on our hike showed that Tachedirt was now trying to follow their example.
The skitouring around Tachedirt seems promising with big 5000 foot plus ascents, but got pinned down by bad weather, so tea and sugar it was for a full day. The weather improved the next day and we kept moving with our mule train over Tizzi n’Addi into the small resort of Oukaimedene. The little area goes up to over 3200 meters, but the persistent winds had shut down the top lift. We toured up to the top of the area and all remarked that the terrain in and especially around the area was actually very good. What we witnessed at the bottom of the lift was what made the trip so special. We saw young seemingly affluent people from Marrakech on beginner lifts, being pestered by poor people who tried to sell them some goods off of their donkeys. There were mountain people advertising their carpets from the “Berber culture”, kids simply digging for a few Dirham and Marrakechian urbanites testing out their latest Gucci sunglasses. It was strange, unpolished, vibrant with live and completely awesome.
We said our farewell to the cook and mule herders and drove the long but interesting drive back down the northern slopes of the Atlas Mountains to the furtile flatlands of Marrakech.
We were tired from the drive, but ended up going out to dinner with Omar in the old center of Marrakech. The crush of humanity on the busy markets of this ancient royal city is hard to describe, but I can assure to anyone who might read this, that it is worth the trip.
We spent the next four days after that driving a large loop over the Atlas Mountains to the north western edge of the Sahara Mountains, back trough the famous Valley of the Roses into the new climbing mecca of the Toudra Gorge.
In case anyone was wondering – the Sahara is very large, much larger than I was able to comprehend. I felt honored to get some glimpses of the slowly vanishing life style of the Nomad people. People that seemed so poor at first look, but seemed so far from desperate upon a closer look. I was perplexed at the amazing simplicity of their life style. Their life seemed so hard, but at the same time they seemed enjoy a lot of freedom. Their nomadic or semi-nomadic life seemed to revolve around their camels, sheeps and goats and once it was all explained to me, I realized that their expense to asset ratio would most likely put the average American family to shame. One can live a long time, when the daily expenses hover around a couple dollars per day and the live stock assets are worth several thousand dollars.
It seemed so hard, so simple, so dialed, so free, so hard… off we went again in our comfy Toyota Landcruiser through the Valley of the Roses to the Toudra Gorge. The steep limestone canyon walls have seen a lot of development by French and Swiss climbers in the last few years and would be worth the climbing trip alone in the spring before it gets too hot.
Yes, Marrocco – we will be back! “IN SHALLAH”