early morning departure from marrakech for a pleasante drive south winding our way up through the moulaybrahim gorge and upper valleys to arrive at the higher foothills of the western high atlas mountains and our trailhead of imioughlad (1450m) with the jbeltoubkal , at 4167m the highest peak in north africa , aglzim 3650m and aksoual 38847m ,looming before us . here we alight from our vehicle and meet up with berber muleteer crew . We set off up in north-westerly direction for a 2hour acclimatisation hike up switchback mule tracks , passing by cornfields woods pine and juniper to the tizn’tachete (2000m),where we shallstop to look back down on the imlikl and aitoussaden valleys before carrying on for another half hour to imin’ifri and our field picnic .thence a slow hike for about 2 and half hours south-west down along a dirt track to assif n’ aitoussaden and the red clay terraced village of tiziane ( 1750 m )for our accommodation in our bivouac or gite. 1h:30mn Drive/ 5 hours Walk,

after breakfast we now set off on our hike up along the assifn’aitoussaden valley , passing through the wallnuts groves , up to tizin’taghrhourte (1995m )and through to a rare almost flat strecth to arrive at assaka spring, where we will stop for our field picnic amidst and awesome silence after some 2 and half hours relatively easy walking .our afternoon’s hike takes us down along the edges of the forest untill we reach the berber village of D’knt (1870m) or agouns n Assoul where we will have our dinner and spent the in a bivouac or gite . 5-6 hours Walk

we set off for our morning’s 3 hours hike up through groves of walnut trees, fields of corn and barley to greet the many sheep and goatherders – and women and children bent over with 20kg loads of faggots and dried herbs. We traverse the tizin’tagdalte to the descent amongst the juniper trees till we come to a small spring set amongst the trees , where we will stop for our picnic .once refreshed , we are off down winding tracks of upper slopes for some 3hours to come to a small river at the beginning of the valley of assifn’aitoussaden . from here we enter the village of tizioussem (1850m) then up to the summer village Of Tamsoult for our camp or gite. 6 hours walk,