Tips for the Toubkal trek

I got a mail from someone in the US who's going to do some trekking in Morocco in a few weeks, and wanted some advice. He found our Toubkal photos on Flickr, so he sent me a Flickr mail.

I started typing some quick notes, and then a few more, and a few more.... until it ended up as a pretty long mail, so I thought I'd reproduce it here. That way "teh Googul" will pick it up, and other people will find it, so here goes:

Our trip was pretty much entirely focussed on Jbel Toubkal, so I can't really give any advice about anything other than that and Marrakech, but here goes - hope you'll find this helpful.....

We wanted to "do" Toubkal because we're planning to do Mont Blanc next year and hopefully go to the Himalayas the year after that. So we first wanted to get some experience of being self-sufficient at a decent altitude to make sure that we'd both be physically OK. Then, with a bit of practice at winter mountaineering in Scotland, via the frontrunners for the title of Loveliest Couple Of People In The World, Dringo Adventures, we figure we're approaching readiness for some "proper" mountaineering.

The main problem I had was the heat. I got some altitude sickness at Sidi Chamarouch (~2300m), with a bit of nausea and dizziness, but actually I think that was probably more to do with being out in the blazing sun all day than the altitude. If you're going up to altitude, you'll need to make sure you drink 4 - 5 litres of water a day.

We were there in May, when the heat in Marrakesh was 40 degrees C, and although the air is cooler at altitude, the air is thinner, so the sun is scorching hot and the UV is more intense. Make sure you wear lots of high-factor sunblock and ALWAYS wear a hat - in Marrakesh, after we got back from Toubkal, we had breakfast on the roof of our riyadh. It was 8:30 in the morning, and I thought I'd be OK without a hat. Nope - I got heatstroke inside half an hour, and spent the next two days in a nauseous daze, taking a cold shower every hour to try to keep my temperature down.

Marrakech is like a rabbit warren of narrow, winding, un-signposted streets with no pavements, where people, cars, motorbikes and donkeys will come at you from all angles, at great speed, with no warning. It can be really difficult to find your way around - if you're lucky, someone from the riyadh will help you. If not, carry a map and check it all the time.

Jmaar-el-fnaar (the main market square) is pretty hard to describe - if you've ever been to Glastonbury festival, it's the same kind of bustling mass of sounds, smells, and people trying to sell you stuff. It's crazy, especially on an evening. Keep your valuables safe, because pickpockets are rife.

...and don't stroke the cats! There are hundreds of them all over the place in Marrakech, and they all look so diseased it's quite distressing.

A general bit of advice for the whole country - it *is* an islamic state, so women should dress "appropriately" - i.e. cover up. Cleavage is a definite no-no, and even bare arms can cause offence. On the other hand, men will shake hands with you a LOT, and are quite happy walking down the street hand in hand. That's just their way...

We weren't so keen on Marrakech, it was too hectic and "in your face" for us - we much preferred the mountains.
In the lowland cities, the people are Arabic, whereas in the Atlas mountains they're mostly Berber, and generally a lot more laid-back. It helps if you learn a few words of both languages, which are quite different - e.g. "shukran" is thankyou in Moroccan Arabic, whereas in Berber it's "barakalaufik" - because the Berber people we met seemed to be quite proud of *not* being Arabic, and prefer to speak their own language :-)

Not many people speak English, except the people who make their living selling souvenirs to tourists. On the other hand, just about everybody speaks French, so if you have passable French, you'll get by fine.

As for getting around, we got a taxi from the airport to the riyadh in Marrakech, with a very friendly driver called Mohammed who spoke *only* French, but who was more than happy to take us up into the mountains to Imlil, to start the Toubkal trek. We also arranged with him that he'd pick us up from Imlil at 2:30pm in 4 days time, and he was there.

You can't buy Moroccan currency outside Morocco, but you can get it at the airport. Likewise, you can't get a trekking map outside the country, so make sure you get one at somewhere like Imlil.

From Imlil it was all on foot. The path was usually pretty clear, and there are obvious stopping / camping points at Aroumd, Sidi Chamarouch and the Refuge du Toubkal. There were also a couple of huts on the way where you could buy cold drinks. It's only *after* the Refuge that it gets tricky :-)

Mules - on the way up, we were determined to carry all our own gear, so we sweated and trudged in the heat with 20Kg backpacks, while muleteers passed us on their mules every half hour or so, saying "you want a mule? you want a mule?" and looked very bemused when we said no. It was hard work without a mule. Very hard! On the way back down, we sent our gear on ahead on the back of a mule, and it was a hell of a lot easier.

Oh, and if you do happen to stop in Sidi Chamarouch, these two guys (wearing mine and lise's sunglasses) - are very friendly, and will talk to you for hours. They run little souvenir stalls, with a lot of overpriced tourist clobber - model camels and stuff - which you might not want to buy, but remember that this is their only source of income, and you're expected to haggle.
If you do happen to meet them, make sure you buy from OMAR before anyone else - he's the guy on the right.
I got my attack of altitude sickness when I was just about to look in his shop, and then when we we on the way back, Lise spent the last of our money elsewhere while I was haggling with him, and he got quite upset. I still feel a bit bad about that, so buy from him first, and tell him I told you to do that - he'll probably remember me :-)

You'll have a great time, especially in the mountains. I also have a friend who went trekking in the Rif mountains in the North, and ended up getting invited on a free tour of a "Kif" factory, much to his delight... although I wouldn't recommend doing that anywhere else... the police are pretty strict

Hope that helps, if you want to ask anything else, feel free - I'll look forward to seeing your pics on Flickr!

Cairngorms Ice Climbing Pics on Flickr

"AAA-aaaal!"
Originally uploaded by Dr Snooks.

Just got back from our weekend of winter mountaineering / ice climbing in the Cairngorms, of which I'll post more later - but we got some great pics, particularly of the Cairngorm Plateau in dramatic sunshine.

You 6a Mother

It's been a frustrating last few weeks, with some niggling muscle strains in my back and thigh for the last few weeks that just haven't seemed to heal properly and have stopped me climbing at anything like full strength, but yesterday I finally caught up with Lisa and Ant and became the newest member of the 6a club, by completing my first ever 6a boulder problem! Woo- as I believe they say in the States - Hoo!

If anyone is reading this from the States, by the way, it's a UK Technical 6a grade. According to this grade comparison chart, that could be anywhere from 5.11a to 5.12c (US), or 6b+ to 7b+ (French), or "a real sod" to "a right bugger" (Yorkshire)

It was no. 41 in the "Cave" section at The Castle, behind the two free-standing boulders "Lust" and "Envy" on the Mezzanine level. It had a sitting start, then went straight backwards over the ceiling, around the left-hand wall, and then straight backwards over the ceiling (crux) under the fingerboard to finish. Admittedly, it was probably one of the easier 6a's I've attempted - the holds were comparatively juggy for a 6a, but it was quite reachy, to the point where it was beyond Lise, at 5'6".

It took me four or five attempts to figure out the crux (hint: it's all about the toes of your right foot), by which time my elbow tendons were twanging white-hot and my abs were starting to cramp up - there were two separate "hang on to the ceiling with your finger tips and swing your legs from that side all the way over to this side, and just hope you've done it hard enough to reach the toe hold on the opposite wall" moves. I'm sure that kind of move must have a proper name, like a "dyno" or an "Egyptian", but I'm buggered if I know what it is - maybe I should just arbitrarily invent a name, like.... a "monkey-lunge" - yeah, that'll do for now.

Anyway, on the sixth attempt, I did the whole problem cleanly, start-to-finish, and collapsed onto my back, grinning like a village idiot and slowly getting my breath back. The trick is, as ever, to not hang around too long! With the crux being right by the lockers where everyone warms up, you get a small audience of other climbers going through their introductory contortions and watching you - raising eyebrows, nodding sagely, grimacing in sympathy at your failure to glue yourself to the ceiling by the sweat on your fingertips and suppressing a smirk when you land in a graceless, cursing heap. The trouble is you can never tell whether they're smiling because they're admiring your technique and trying to learn by watching your mad uber-l33t cl1mbz0r sk1llz (d00d!), or because they're quizzically bemused at the thought that anyone could actually be struggling with such a "punter" problem. (I mean, 6a??? Come on, that's practically a ladder! What's this guy's next "achievement" going to be - climbing the stairs to bed?) They could even be the setter of the route, inwardly shaking their head and thinking "no, you fool, not that way.... your FEET man! Sort yor FEET out! Muppet..."

After getting my breath back, and a couple of congratulatory hugs from Lise, I felt so flushed with pride that I proceeded to make a complete pigs arse of a "mere" 5b top-rope route, but I'd done my major achievement for the day and I wasn't going to let my abject failure to achieve anything else for the day stop me smiling about it :-)

So whoever set boulder problem number 41 on the Mezzanine - I think the ticket said it was some whipper-snapper who goes by the name of "Doors Off", whoever that might be - thanks for a great route, it's challenging but it never felt intimidatingly out-of-reach, and it's a really enjoyable climb. You've made a frustrated punter very happy!