Every mountain presents a different challenge.

As you may recall I climbed Kilimanjaro, in July 2018 and as a result, with far too much assurance I assumed if I could tread upon Kili’s 5,895 metre (19,341′) summit, Djebel Toubkal’s 4,167 metre (13,343′) summit would be a cake walk.
Wrong again.

At first the path was easy, meandering through Aremd, our guide Hussein’s village and then “The Plains.”

But the trail quickly became difficult and I watched my feet, carefully stepping on the scree-laden pathway of rocks, a pathway that went up up up…and never down and never a flat “breather” section.
Tanzania’a Mount Kilimanjaro, the tallest free-standing mountain in the world and Africa’s tallest peak, was much easier than I expected.
Toubkal, North Africa’s tallest mountain, located in Morocco was far more difficult than I expected.

I was shocked when I understood that after nearly FOUR hours of hiking, I was at least two hours away from anything on this schematic of the mountain! In the photo, our base camp for tonight is the Refugio, located just above the telephone numbers at the bottom!

Finally, we have a break from the relentless uphill slog and enjoy a fabulous lunch prepared by Hamid. Everything we needed for our trek was chosen and prepared by Hamid and carried by our two donkeys. My muscles were not sore and I wasn’t very tired physically but the constant uphill was a challenge.
Stretching out on the padded cushions felt like a decadent delight.

We encountered some people riding up…

and others who had summited but were too tired—or their knees hurt—to walk down.

Finally, we sight our home for the night—at least until the pre-dawn morning—Refugio Les Mouflons—the Mountain Goats.