spaced that you could actually count them as they made damp craters in the trail, the edges of which collapsed inwards the instant they dried. A few rumbles of thunder could be heard behind us, muffled by summits nearly 4000m high. Not wanting to be caught here by the storm, we headed down into the misting valley, the mules forging ahead, muleteers holding onto tails, talking all the while.
There was no more thunder, but it rained all the way down. Not the heavy rain predicted by those initial forerunner drops on the pass, but a steady, persistent drizzle that soaked shirts and steamed glasses. Too warm to bother with waterproofs, wet clothing was acceptable, but towards evening, once we’d chosen a site for our bivouac on a meadow where two streams met at a confluence of valleys, dry shirts and anoraks were put on and we began to prepare a meal.
Rain continued to fall while the meal was cooked. Clouds lowered over the mountains and brought an early nightfall. It rained while we ate, and it was still raining when we slid into bivvy bags beneath a star-free sky. Frogs slipped into the water and eyed their new neighbours from a low vantage point.
The mules were hobbled for the night, but you could hear their teeth tearing at the short grass, followed by the unmistakable sound of digestive tracts gurgling and the odd fart too close for comfort. I made a mental note not to sleep near a mule again.
Our bivvy site was a rarity in this corner of the Atlas Mountains – it consisted of soft, fairly level turf and a pair of meandering streams. Wild mint grew along the margins of one; tall thistles with bulbous heads stood in clumps alongside the other. There was no village, so no terracing or ditches for irrigation on the hillsides; no trees nor shrubs, but a half-circular wall of rocks about knee-high suggested there had once been a shelter here – perhaps for a shepherd.
Headtorches went out one by one, and at last even the voices of the muleteers fell silent. Yet sleep was elusive. Lying there with just my head projecting from the bivvy bag, I was content with the warm rain on my face, and the stream sliding gently past less than an arm’s length away. The rain was of no concern. Almost soothing, it threatened no flooding, and I was sure it would be gone by daybreak. So I lay there rewinding our journey of the past five days, only vaguely anticipating days ahead and content with the now of being. Then, suddenly, my thoughts were interrupted – a frog had leapt from the water and landed on my forehead.
The rest of the night was spent with my head inside the bivvy bag.
3
MINT TEA WITH A MULETEER
Trekking with mules over a series of high passes, visiting Berber villages and scrambling to unmarked summits had resulted in another memorable two-week journey in 1986. But at the end of the trek there was an alternative way out of the mountains that four of us wanted to take that would preclude the mules. Having no objections to our plan, the muleteers and the rest of our group agreed to meet us at the end of the day in a village close to the road-head, so we set out before dawn and clambered in the darkness aiming for a distant ridge…
On this our last morning in the high mountains, my headtorch beam had lost much of its power, but day was now stealing into the sky and I could pick out a few recognisable features on the steep slope ahead. The other three were spread out – their flashes of white light growing dim, the sound of stones being rearranged by their boots, and the occasional voice caught in a fight for breath.
We came together to climb the gully. It was not a technical climb, rather a scramble over boulders, before we worked our way on ribs of rock, then steeply angled scree, followed by more rock ribs. Above these we stopped to rest, with legs dangling and eyes scanning peaks that emerged from anonymity with a blaze of red along their rim. Five hundred metres below, I imagined I could see where we had spent the night.
It took two and a half hours to gain the ridge at the point we’d been aiming for, by which time day had fully formed. Gazing north we could now see far-off villages, but way beyond these, where mountains fell to the plains, a filter of haze blurred our vision. Lost in that haze Marrakech was no more than a memory and a name on a ticket home. Elsewhere, all was part of the vertical arena through which we’d travelled these past two weeks – a journey and a land we’d never forget. Strangers had become friends as we’d shared fresh experiences and daily excitements. And today would bring more.
On the other side of the ridge it was possible to traverse round the head of a hanging valley walled by north-facing crags, where we overlooked a wild inner sanctum of buttresses and pinnacles. Beneath our boots screes plunged into a gorge whose bed we could not see. It was the harshest of environments; a land without compromise; a take-it-or-leave-it land. We took it at face value and launched ourselves down the screes into the unknown, filling our boots with grit and leaving in our wake clouds of dust.
At the foot of the screes a new valley system opened up, the couloirs that sliced its massive grey walls clogged still with last winter’s snow, while we fought our way through a levelling of boulders and waist-high patches of thistle. Cascades poured over a bluff as the valley enticed us forward, dropping from one level to the next, growing more colourful the deeper it led.
Now we had a stream for company, its water eager to reach the plains, surging forward towards the north, tumbling over projections as it went, swirling along pebble corridors – the perfect companion on such a day. Where it dashed against rocks, tiny rainbows appeared in the spray; then it was drawn into the narrows of a gorge and the rainbows were lost in shadow. Descent here was difficult at first, but the way soon eased, so we could walk rather than scramble and pause to inspect and admire cushion plants clinging to the gorge walls, where they’d been dampened by a waterfall spilling over the topmost cliffs. As we gazed up at the spray individual droplets became diamonds suspended in sunlight. At the base of the falls, a deep green pool had formed. Resisting the temptation to bathe, we satisfied ourselves with dunking heads and letting the water run down our sweat- and dust-stained bodies.
Half an hour later a mule was seen drinking from the stream, and in the shade of an overhanging boulder nearby a fresh-faced Berber was tending a fire. The smell of juniper rose in the smoke to mingle with that of mint and mule dung.
The man was not alone, for a woman appeared from the other side of the boulder clutching a handful of freshly picked mint, a round-faced infant tucked under one arm. Dressed in a symphony of reds and greens, she washed the leaves, shook them over the stream, then pushed them into a pot with delicate fingers. And a shy smile spread across her face when her husband asked if we wanted tea. So we sat with them in the shade, drank mint tea with the muleteer and watched as swifts dashed to and fro in a feeding frenzy, their nests plastered to the great walls soaring above us.
Sipping my third glass of the hot sweet liquid, I was reminded that days in the mountains are more than just mountains, and the Atlas experience has many dimensions. And that is just how it should be. Not just in the Atlas, but everywhere.
Pyrenees
A SPIRITUAL HOME
Entering Spain on the way to Morocco in 1965, our truck crossed the Basque country as daybreak stole from the sky, with the Pyrenees depicted in that soft light as little more than low misted hills. Weeks later, with Atlas dust grimed into our clothes, we returned via the eastern end of the range, with heavy rain obscuring any view of mountains. The High Pyrenees would have to wait. And then when I did get to see them at last, it was only as a distant outline from the swift-nested ramparts of Carcasonne – a ragged horizon turning purple when the sun dropped. Having run out of money I turned to hitch my way home.
But the Pyrenees were worth waiting for. A first visit revealed snow-capped 3000m peaks, modest glaciers, fragrant valleys and canyons, hundreds of sparkling lakes and the richest mountain flora in all Europe. I’d have to return. So I did. Again and again,
