Jbel Toubkal

A couple of weeks ago, I climbed a VERY BIG mountain! Jbel (meaning mountain in Arabic) Toubkal is in the High Atlas Mountains in the south of Morocco. It is the tallest mountain in North Africa...and I climbed it! Logan and I went to Imlil, a town tucked in the mountains at the bottom of the mountain (elevation 5,709 ft). From there, we spent 6 hours climbing to 10,522 ft where there is a refuge, in which we slept and ate. The following morning, we climbed the remainder of the mountain to the summit at 13,671 ft. This ascent was much steeper and took us 3 hours and 20 minutes. We descended to the refuge in another 3 hours, where we had lunch before hiking the last 3 hours and 20 minutes to Imlil.

I had never attempted anything like this, but somehow I didn't have any doubt I could do it. I guess I've always been kind of like that - "I can do anything!!" But it was good to have this attitude because I never had a thought of not following through. We were lucky that it hadn't snowed up there yet, although we did find some ice. The most challenging part for me (in addition to having a cold) was the wind. At the top, it was so windy, I had to lean into the wind to not fall backward. It was really intense. Logan estimated it was 40-50 knots. What a challenging and wonderful experience! It was so Gorgeous up there!

villages tucked into the mountains on our way up

there was just a little climbing, where I used my hands.

in this picture, you can see the refuge (it's reddish in the bottom right). It's hard to get a good idea of how steep it is from pictures, but you can imagine.

this is the summit (where we were heading.) If you look close, you can see the pyramid shaped sign on top that is in the next picture as well...

On the way back, we walked in the clouds!