There are alpine starts and then there’s a 2.30am alarm buzzing in your ear in a remote refuge, somewhere deep in the mountains of Morocco. It was around -10°C (14°F) outside, but I was snug in my down sleeping bag - and sharing a bunk room with 15 other people.
I lay still for a moment, listening to the cacophony of tinny phone alarms as my fellow trekkers stirred awake. Outside, the hulking mass of the Atlas Mountains was buried in darkness. Today, our plucky group would set off for the summit of Mount Toubkal, the highest point in North Africa at 4,167m (13,671ft).
At 3.30am, I was outside, strapping crampons to my boots under a sky crowded with stars, the Milky Way a pale streak overhead.
Lacing up my hiking boots and popping ski goggles in my rucksack, I felt a long way from the sun-drenched souks of Marrakech, where not long before I’d been dodging scooters and inhaling the scents of spices, leather and street food.
A few days earlier, we’d stepped off the bus from Marrakech into the cool air of Imlil, a Berber mountain village that’s the starting point for the trek to Toubkal. Stone shops lined the streets selling hot coffee, hiking supplies and Amazigh textiles, and pack mules trundled by, carrying loads towards the mountains.
Downstairs in the refuge, our brilliant Much Better Adventure guides, Mohamed and Ibrahim, had laid out breakfast and piping-hot coffee. Trekkers attempting Toubkal are required to have a guide, and most mountaineers stay two nights in the refuge, with an acclimatisation day before the summit push.
The refuge was pretty basic – cavernous communal rooms and toilets I wouldn’t write home about – but in winter, it was a warm and welcoming place to eat and sleep, and the night before, a cosy fire had crackled away in the stove. I hadn’t expected haute cuisine at 3,200m (10,498ft), but our support crew somehow kept producing hearty, generous meals – tagine, tasty stews, flatbreads and on our painfully early morning, stacks of pancakes to fuel us up before we headed out into the cold.
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At 3.30am, I was outside, strapping crampons to my boots under a sky crowded with stars, the Milky Way a pale streak overhead. Muffled up against the cold, we set off into the darkness, the hulking mass of the mountain looming over the group. Above us, another group of hikers, even keener for a dawn summit, were a string of star-like headlamp lights, snaking up and up the steep mountainside.
Jebel Toubkal isn’t a technical peak in the mountaineering sense – but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. The route is a long, sustained mountain day, and winter changes the character of the climb completely. Snow and ice can (and did!) cover the entire trail, footing becomes less certain and, higher up, the wind can be brutal. The final approach involves steep snowy slopes where crampons and ice axes are essential.
The eastern sky slowly turned from black to charcoal, then to pink and gold. The peaks of the High Atlas emerged from the shadows...
At more than 3,000m (9,842ft), every step seemed strenuous. My calves were already complaining and the summit looked impossibly far away. I put one foot in front of the other and found it oddly comforting to be in a line with my fellow trekkers, in my own little world, watching the glimmer of head torches and listening to the crunch of crampons on snow.
Then the darkness started to lift. The eastern sky slowly turned from black to charcoal, then to pink and gold. All around us, the peaks of the High Atlas emerged from the shadows, their ridges catching the first light of dawn. Mohamed checked we’d all filled up on water and trail mix as we took a breath on a narrow ridge. Then, ice axes firmly in hand, we picked our way upwards over the ice-slicked rock of the ridgeline and stepped out onto a mercifully soft slope of snow – and the top of Mount Toubkal.
For centuries before mountaineers eyed its summit, Toubkal was part of the landscape and culture of the Amazigh people who lived in the High Atlas. The mountain’s Amazigh name, Adrar n’Dern, translates as “mountain of mountains”, and local people are thought to have reached its summit long before any ascent was officially recorded. Small stone cairns, known as kerkours, were traditionally built on the summit and had symbolic and religious significance. The mountain is also associated with Sidi Chamharouch, a revered local saint whose shrine sits on the route above Imlil.
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The first recorded ascent came much later, on 12 June 1923, when French mountaineers Marquis René de Segonzac, Vincent Berger and Hubert Dolbeau reached the summit. Fun fact: the year before, they’d climbed what they thought was the highest mountain in the Atlas, only to notice that an unnamed peak nearby was just that bit taller – Toubkal.
The dawn glow created an eerie trick, throwing the shadow of the big trigonometrical marker on the summit across the distant peaks. From the summit, the Atlas Mountains stretched away in every direction, a vast landscape of snowy ridges and deep valleys as far as the eye could see. The morning was so clear and still, we could glimpse the Sahara Desert. We took photos in the golden glow for a few minutes, but our group – and Mohamed and Ibrahim - hadn’t forgotten an important truth about mountain days: getting to the summit is only half the job.
After the stark whiteness of the upper mountain, it was a pleasure to watch the snow recede as we passed herds of goats, green terraces and the rose-pink geometric shapes of Amazigh villages...
The way down was – there’s no way of dressing it up – a slog. There was no longer any mystery about where we were going, and we picked our way slowly down over the ice until, finally, we were sipping hot tea and attacking plates piled with fluffy couscous, fresh salads and fruit in the warmth of the refuge.
There was more trail to go. Four hours back down to Imlil, winding back through the Toubkal Valley. After the stark whiteness of the upper mountain, it was a pleasure to watch the snow recede as we passed herds of goats, green terraces and the rose-pink geometric shapes of Amazigh villages scattered through the sun-warmed valley.
We said goodbye to the Atlas Mountains and climbed into the bus for the drive back to Marrakech, and the delights of a riad - and hot showers and clean clothes - in the city centre. We’d woken up sardine-like in a mountain refuge, stood at 4,167m (13,671ft) at dawn and, by nightfall, we were sitting on a warm Marrakech terrace with ice-cold Casablanca beers. Below us, scooters buzzed through the streets, music drifted through the medina and the rooftops glowed in the evening light. I don’t know of many other mountain treks this epic you can fit into a weekend - returning to such an iconic city in time to toast your adventure.
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