Mt. Toubkal - 13,671 ft Summit

Earlier this week, Jesse and I climbed the second highest mountain in Africa, Mt. Toubkal, in the Atlas Mountains. Funny, everyone here calls them the "High Atlas" mountains, but everywhere on the internet, they're just the "Atlas." I'm not sure of the real name.

Anyhow, we signed up to take a guided two day trek up to the summit of this mountain at a regular tourist office that books camel tours, beach excursions, and other touristy things to do. Seeing their other offerings, I thought that this "hike" would be no sweat, especially when the only thing they told us we had to bring was a sleeping bag. Part of me was skeptical about the equipment really needed, so we tended to over pack.

On Monday morning, we were picked up at our hotel early in the morning and taken to the base of the mountain trails in a city called Imlil. This is where the road ends. Any supplies needed further up the mountain are taken by donkey. (A donkey took our pack up the mountain as well, except for a few bottles of water, which we carried. Does this make me any less hard core?).

We started hiking mid morning and within 30 minutes, had stopped for tea. Although the mountains were looming, I was still convinced this was a "cake walk". After tea, we continued to hike for another hour and a half to lunch. Yes, the trails were getting steeper, but the stops were well placed and made it bearable. At this point, (around 1pm), I felt that it was too hot for a hat and put my hat in my pack that the donkey was carrying. I blame the altitude for this lapse in judgment.

After lunch, we continued to hike for another 2.5 hours up to base camp in the French Mountaineering Club's "Refuge." The hiking was getting much tougher. Once we got to the refuge, we learned that we'd use this for our base camp for our ascent to the summit the next day. Base camp was at 3200 meters, the summit was at 4167, and that we'd start hiking tomorrow morning, early. The rest of the afternoon, we rested, read and enjoyed the scenery. When the sun went down, it got wicked cold up there.

The next morning, we woke up at 4:30am, had breakfast at 5 and hit the trails at 5:30. The sun was just starting to come up at that point and it was still very cold out. It was great climbing weather, and Jesse and I summited by 7:20am, passing most of the groups that were climbing as well. Try as we might, we couldn't get our guide, Hassan, to break a sweat. I guess doing this every couple days, like he does, puts you in very good shape.

We spent about 20 minutes at the summit, taking in the beautiful views and feeling the rush associated with being the absolutely highest thing around (no thunderstorms thank you), and headed down.

Once again, we were reminded that coming down is the roughest part of mountain climbing - sliding down the skree field, we both went down a couple of times, nothing major, but we were sore the next day. All in all, we were down at the refuge by 9:45 and took a well deserved siesta while waiting for the other groups to come down.

We had lunch at the Refuge and then headed back to Imlil, sliding and stumbling down the mountain. I really enjoyed the hike down because Jesse and I got spend some quality time talking. Traveling together has allowed us to get to know each other better. After 3 years of marriage, I frequently learn something new about her. :-)

I also had some time to think about donkeys. Strange thing to think about, but watching them and their "drivers" as they went up the mountain, I was reminded of different theories of management. I started to craft a parable to explain these different methods of motivation/leadership. Once I work it out fully, I'll post my "Tale of Two Donkeys."