Berber Village Trek

With an early morning departure from marrakech for a pleasant drive south, winding our way up through the moulay brahim gorge and upper valleys to arrive at the higher foothills of the western high atlas mountains. Our trailhead of imi oughlad(1450m) with the jbel toubkal, at 4167m the highest peak in north africa, aglzim 3650m and aksoual 38847m ,looming before us.

Here, we alight from our vehicle and meet up with berber muleteer crew, always a fun part of our treks.

We set off up in a north-westerly direction for a 2hour acclimatisation hike up switchback mule tracks, passing by cornfields, woods of pine and juniper, to the tiz n’tachete (2000m), where we shall stop to look back down on the Imlil and Ait oussaden valleys before carrying on for another half hour to Imi n’ifri and our field picnic.

Then a slow hike for about 2 and half hours south-west down along a dirt track to assif n’ ait oussaden and the red clay

terraced village of Tiziane(1750 m)for our accommodation in gite d’etape or bivouac.

After breakfast we now set off on our hike up along the Assif n’ait oussaden valley, passing through the walnut groves, up to tizi n’taghrhourte (1995m)and through to a rare almost flat stretch to arrive at Assaka spring, where we will stop for our field picnic amidst an awesome silence after some 2 and half hours relatively easy walking.

Our afternoon’s hike takes us down along the edges of the forest until we reach the berber village of D’knt (1870m) where we will have our dinner and spend the night in a family’s home or in a bivouac.

We set off for our morning 3 hours hike up through groves of walnut trees, fields of corn and barley to greet the many sheep and goatherders and women and children bent over with 20kg loads of Dates and dried herbs.

We traverse the Tizi n’tagdalte to the descent amongst the juniper trees till we come to a small spring set amongst the trees, where we will stop for our picnic.

Once refreshed, we are off down winding tracks of upper slopes for some 3hours to come to a small river at the beginning of the valley of Assif nait oussaden. From here we enter the village of Tizi oussem (1850m) for our dinner and accommodation in a mountain gite d’etape.

After breakfast, we strike out up through pine and juniper trees to travel the tizi Mzzik 2450m and descent slowly to the foot of the col just before the hamlet of m’zzik where we stop for our field picnic amidst orchards of cherry, apple and nut trees and the surrounding peaks.

This afternoon, we set off down to the berber trailhead village of imlil and the end of your trek.

Transportation is then provided to return you back to Marrakech.