Day by day itinerary
1. Marrakech to Imi Oughlad (1,450m) to Tizi N'Tachte (2,000m) to Tiziane (1,750m) - Up into the Ait Oussaden Valley and the first village
Elevation 1,450m to 2,000m to 1,750m. 5 hours trekking. Altitude change +550m / -250m. You are collected in Marrakech early, and the road south takes you through the Moulay Brahim gorge, then on to Imi Oughlad (1,450m), on the edge of Toubkal National Park, where your licensed mountain guide is waiting with the Berber muleteers. The first stretch is an easy 2 hours northeast on mule tracks, through cornfields, pine woods and juniper, up to Tizi N'Tachte (2,000m); from there you can look back across the Imlil and Ait Oussaden valleys with their Berber villages scattered over the slopes. Picnic lunch follows on the plateau at Imi N'Ifri. After that, 2.5 unhurried hours of descent, heading southwest, bring you to Tiziane (1,750m), a village of red clay terraces. You sleep in the village guesthouse there: plain rooms, thick blankets and a dinner cooked in the house.
2. Tiziane to Tizi N'Taghrhourte (1,995m) to D'knt (1,870m) - Walnut groves, a mountain spring and the second village
Elevation 1,750m to 1,995m to 1,870m. 5 hours trekking. Altitude change +245m / -125m. After breakfast the path goes up through walnut groves, following the Ait Oussaden Valley as far as Tizi N'Taghrhourte (1,995m) and the Assaka spring, where the Atlas opens out around you. Lunch is a picnic at the spring. The afternoon runs downhill along the forest edge to the Berber village of D'knt (1,870m), also called Agouns N'Assoul, a farming community with sheep and goats worked on the hillsides above it. Dinner and the night are spent in a D'knt village guesthouse, in a Berber family home.
3. D'knt to Tizi N'Tagdalte to Tizi Oussem (1,850m) to Tamsoult (2,250m) - Deep into the Azzaden
Elevation 1,870m to 2,250m. 6 hours trekking. Altitude change +380m. Three hours of climbing take you through walnut groves and fields of corn and barley, past shepherds and goat herders at work. You cross Tizi N'Tagdalte and drop through juniper forest to a spring, where the picnic lunch is taken, then the trail drops into the Azzaden Valley and Tizi Oussem (1,850m), before carrying on to Tamsoult (2,250m), a summer village. The night is spent in the Tamsoult mountain hut, the last night before the mountain proper, with three days of gentle height gain now behind you.
4. Tamsoult (2,250m) to Aguelzim Pass (3,560m) to Toubkal Refuge (3,207m) - The big climb
Elevation 2,250m to 3,560m to 3,207m. 7 hours trekking. Altitude change +1,310m / -353m. Breakfast, then a hard pull on winding mule tracks out of the Azzaden Valley up to the Aguelzim Pass at 3,560m, the green of the valley giving way to rock and scree as you climb. The pass opens a view along the whole High Atlas range, and lunch is eaten up there. Three days of gradual ascent through the villages mean you arrive acclimatized without having had to think about it. From the pass you descend to the Toubkal mountain refuge at 3,207m for a bed in the dormitory and dinner at the refuge.
5. Toubkal Refuge (3,207m) to Summit (4,167m) to Sidi Chamarouch to Imlil to Marrakech - Summit day, the roof of North Africa
Elevation 3,207m to 4,167m to 1,740m. 8-9 hours in total. Altitude change +960m / -2,427m. An early start, then the south cirque route, scree and boulders underfoot, which takes roughly 3 hours to put you on the summit of North Africa at 4,167m, beside the triangular marker, with the view running a full 360 degrees across the Atlas, out to the Sahara and down over the plain below Marrakech. You come back to the refuge for lunch, then descend the Ait Mizane Valley, passing the Sidi Chamarouch shrine and its waterfall, down to Imlil (1,740m). The driver is there for the transfer to Marrakech, which gets you in early evening.