> Morocco: Day 1 - Marrakech
> Morocco: Day 2 - Imlil to Toubkal basecamp
After a couple of hours sleep on night 1, and even less on night 2, I was running on empty.
I scoffed some breakfast - can't remember what - and quickly got changed.
The others in my group, all seemingly well-rested, had got up before me and were ready to go.
I asked someone to take a final pic of me, crampons, poles and all.
And off we set.
Immediately above basecamp was a fairly treacherous stretch of ice and rock climbing.
It was pitch black, so it was simply a case of keeping an eye on the person in front, watching and double-checking every single step, and taking it slowly.
A couple of people in our group were struggling, and unfortunately one of them had to turn back after an hour or so.
After that initial stretch of hazardous ice and rock, things started to get slightly easier.
(Though it's all relative when you're inching your way up a steep mountain in crampons and not getting enough air into your lungs.)
The guides had said to us the previous day that it was unusual to still have such a blanket of snow and ice on Toubkal this late in the season (May).
There was a breathtaking bit (literal and metaphorical) after about three hours' climbing, when we made our way to the top of a valley and could look down at other hikers following our path.
Their head torches twinkled in the dawn light and the snow-capped mountains framed the view. It was a memorable sight.
A couple of hours later, and I was starting to struggle with the altitude.
My head was pounding, and no amount of water, food or paracetamol was making it shift.
Some of our group (yep, those Poles) were almost skipping towards the summit. I was slowly plodding forward, just trying to put one foot in front of the other and willing my head to stop throbbing.
At one stage, a few hundred metres from the summit, we had to traverse a particularly dicey section.
It involved skirting our way along a narrow icy path, a sheer drop on one side and large boulders on the other, which we gripped onto for safety.
We weren't attached to the rock face with any ropes, so one small slip and that would've been that.
No pics of that path I'm afraid (too busy hanging on to rocks), but here are one or two from similar locations on the mountain:
Towards the summit the terrain flattened out slightly and I slowly walked towards the small group of people on top.
I'd love to say reaching the peak was a joyful moment.
However, with a head full of altitude-induced ache, I was slightly preoccupied with descending to a level where normality would kick in again.
I'm proud to have climbed it though; a peak more than three times the height of Ben Nevis and not far off the height of Mont Blanc.
We spent 20 minutes or so at the top, got some photos, and then started our hike back down.
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A couple of our group had taken slightly longer to climb up, so we passed them near the top and wished them well for their descent.
The hike down to basecamp was fairly uneventful. My knees took the strain of several thousand downhill steps, willing me to stop and walk on something flat.
By late morning we were back at Les Mouflons to decompress, eat and chill for an hour.
I felt a good sense of achievement. With the icy conditions and the altitude, it was tougher than I'd expected.
Once everyone had regrouped, we started the long walk back to Imlil, retracing our steps on the rocky, dusty paths.
By late afternoon everyone was fairly shattered. Basecamp > summit > basecamp > Imlil in one day. About 15-16 hours of walking.
Our guide took us to a different guesthouse than we'd stayed in on the Friday, which had a great view across the mountains.
We had a tagine dinner before I collapsed into bed (I mercifully got my own room, which I was so grateful for).
In the morning, we were driven back to Marrakech, where we said our goodbyes.
But I wasn't leaving Morocco just yet. I had one final day to get lost in the Marrakech Medina.