Four-day hike in Atlas mountains, Morocco with a guide and transport donkey

We did a four-day hike in the Atlas Mountains, Morocco, in March 2016. It was part of a 12-day trip around Morrocco. We hiked from Imlil near Mount Toubkal and slept in simple guesthouses in the villages we passed. We had hired a local agency to arrange the tour for us that included a guide, donkey driver and a cook. Tobias and Nikolaj were 9 and 7 yeas old.

We had expected sunny spring weather and views of the iconic Mount Toubkal, the highest mountain in North Africa. But we were in for a real surprise! We had a snow storm and realised how cold and rough the unheated and uninsulated guesthouses are in winter. Luckily we had brought the right gear, but it was a lot rougher than expected, and the freezing evenings and nights were a mental challenge.

The four-day hike in Atlas mountains was arranged by Housseine from TrekMorocco.com. He created the itinerary for us, and arranged the people who would help us on the hike, and we would use his agency again if we should need that service.

As we hiked with young kids, the agency recommends that we hike with a guide, a donkey driver and a cook. I don’t know if you could hike without a guide. The trails are not marked, so you would need good maps a perhaps a gpx file with your route. It was also the guide who new the location of the very anomynous guesthouses, gite d’etape.

The donkey meant that we don’t need to carry heavy bagpacks, and the boys only had to carry a small daypack, and that is a great comfort. The cook was fantastic, we had great meals on the trip. A real luxury and comfort on a rough hike! It was easy to arrange gluten free meals for Tobias, as Moroccan food typically is gluten free. Read more about our experiences travelling gluten free in Morocco here. We came back to Morocco in 2020, read about those experiences here.