2-Day Toubkal Mountain Trek from Marrakech

Sadly, I had a pretty bad experience on my 2-day Toubkal tour from 19–20 April. First of all, one of our guides, Hassan, was very friendly, funny, patient and supportive, even with the slower people in the group. I really appreciated that. Unfortunately, my experience with the other guide, Ayip, was completely different. He suggested that I walk at the front because I was one of the slower hikers, and at first I thought this was a good idea. However, it did not work at all. Within the first few seconds, the whole group overtook me and I was left behind alone for at least half an hour. Instead of keeping a steady pace and using a normal zig-zag line like other groups, he repeatedly took steep shortcuts, overtook people, stopped, and then continued again. This made it very difficult to find a rhythm. Another very frustrating thing was the communication. He kept saying things like “we will take a break in 5 minutes” or suggesting that we were almost there, but then we would continue walking for a long time without stopping. This happened repeatedly and made it hard to trust what he was saying or mentally pace myself. When I finally caught up and asked why he had left me behind, he said that he had not, and that I simply had to keep up. The same strategy was tried again, with the same result. I was left behind again and became increasingly frustrated. After a third unsuccessful attempt and another long period of walking alone, I became visibly upset. He told me that I had absolutely no reason to be annoyed and that I should “respect the group”. Only after I made it very clear in front of the other groups and guides that this was unacceptable did the strategy finally change for the last part of the summit push. There was also a moment where I tried to have a normal conversation with him about where I had already been in Morocco. I mentioned that I liked the Rif Mountains, and he replied that I “should have just stayed there”. I found this very unprofessional and disrespectful. In the end, he even seemed surprised that I did not leave a tip. I am still proud that I reached the summit of this amazing mountain, but honestly, I feel like I did it almost entirely on my own. Sadly, I expected a very different experience from a guided 2-day tour.

I would never travel with this company… terrible communication and they aren’t concerned about our safety. We didn’t do the trip we had planned due to weather conditions and they didn’t refund our money. We wouldn’t recommend them at all.

We made it to the summit and back, but there was no communication about the plan before or during the trip, and they didn’t have bunk space for a third of our group (we had to sleep in the hut eating area after all other groups ate dinner). They took our passports for verification and it required asking 8 times before they were returned to us. The tour was very disorganized and was the worst guided hiking experience I have had.

A great, very well organized trip. From drivers to our guide, everything was very smooth. From our hotel in Marrakech to the summit of Mt Toubkal and back in 36 hours - all without any problems, and great service as well. Highly recommend this outfit.

Incredible opportunity to go mountaineering in Morocco. Ayoub Belgot very punctual and friendly. The guide Omar is also very friendly and experienced in the mountains. The shelter is quite large and in my experience you do not need to bring a sleeping bag, the blanket they give you is enough.