Day by day itinerary
1. Marrakech - Imlil (1,740m) - Sidi Chamarouch - Toubkal Refuge (3,207m) (Walking In: Valley to Refuge)
Your driver collects you at your Marrakech hotel for a 90-minute run into the mountains to Imlil (1,740m). Your licensed mountain guide and the muleteers are waiting there. From Imlil the path climbs the Ait Mizane Valley, passing Aremd village and reaching Sidi Chamarouch, where the shrine sits beside its waterfall and the picnic lunch is taken. The climbing carries on to the Toubkal mountain refuge at 3,207m, where you take a bed in the dormitory. This is home for the next 3 nights. Elevation 1,740m to 3,207m. Walking time 5-6 hours. Elevation gain +1,467m. Overnight: refuge dormitory.
2. Toubkal Refuge (3,207m) - Ouanakrim Twin Peaks - Refuge (Acclimatization: Time on the Ouanakrim)
This is the day that makes the four-day format what it is. Breakfast at the refuge, then a climb of the Ouanakrim twin peaks, which stand in view from the door and belong to the Toubkal massif. The point of it is deliberate altitude training: it puts your body to work high up, opens a different angle on the Toubkal summit and settles the nerves before tomorrow. Dinner is back at the refuge, and you sleep a second night at 3,207m, two full days of adjustment behind you. Focus: acclimatization day. Overnight: second night at the refuge.
3. Toubkal Refuge (3,207m) - Summit (4,167m) - Refuge (Summit Day: The Roof of North Africa)
You are up early. The line of ascent is the south cirque: scree and boulders through the summer months, while in winter it turns to hard snow and ice, and crampons and an ice axe become necessary. Two days spent at 3,207m mean your body is ready for it. Reckon on 3 to 4 hours to reach 4,167 metres, where the triangular marker stands and the view turns a full 360 degrees over the Atlas, out towards the Sahara and down across the plain below Marrakech. You get around 45 minutes up there. Then down to the refuge again, for lunch and for a third night; unlike the two-day and three-day Toubkal treks in this range, summit day here does not oblige you to drop the whole way to Imlil. Elevation 3,207m to 4,167m and back to 3,207m. Total walking time 6-7 hours (up 3-4h, down 2-3h). Elevation gain and loss +960m / -960m. Overnight: third night at the refuge.
4. Toubkal Refuge (3,207m) - Sidi Chamarouch - Imlil (1,740m) - Marrakech (An Unhurried Descent and the Road Back)
Breakfast first, then an easy-paced descent past the Sidi Chamarouch shrine and back down the Ait Mizane Valley to Imlil (1,740m), where lunch is taken before the driver runs you on to Marrakech. You arrive with the evening to yourself. Elevation 3,207m to 1,740m. Walking time 4-5 hours. Elevation loss -1,467m. No overnight, you return to Marrakech.