Tizi Oussem-Refuge Lepiney Part 1
The trip started thursday morning. We woke up at 5a.m and took the road from Rabat to to Tizi Oussem, passing by Marrakech, Tahennaout then Isni, finally arriving to Tizi Oussem by 14h. The drive from Isni to Tizi Oussem was a bit trecherous due to the presence of many turn arounds and mountainous roads. We parked our car in Tizi Oussem, prepared our gear and started our treck. Our guide was Mohammed, a friend of Houcein that we picked from Marrakech. He is an alpinist and goes to the Lepiney refuge quite frequently.
Our first pause was at around 2200m altitude, where we drunk some orange juice. My backpack was a bit heavy so I decided to leave my water drinking pocket at this point in this small shop. Unluckily, I would never recuperate it due to some synchronization issues with the shop owners.
Around 16h, we arrived at Azib Tamsoult located at 2250m altitude. There is a nice hostel here where you can spend the night or just pause and eat some food. We decided to just continue since it was a bit late and much altitude was still to be gained. The best part about this treck is definitely the Ighouliden waterfalls. We posed there for some minutes, where we ate our tuna with cheese and tea prepared by the local shop owner.
We took some photos of the majestically falling waters and went ahead through the almost vertical roads to refuge Lepiney.
This section from 2400m altitude to 3000m was the hardest part. There wasn't much distance but 600m of height difference, So the slope tended to be hard, which added to the fatigue I accumulated from the 8 hours drive and the scaling to the waterfalls. Around 18H30 we finally saw the refuge Lepiney at a distance but it was still quite far, since we still had to go around the mountains zigzagging our way through them and following mohammed who had to take the lead in order to trace the passage for us by digging his steps into snow.
At last, we arrived at 19h to Refuge Lepiney, where we were accommodated with much grace by Mr Houcein. He is a nice host who prepared food for us and gave us the slipping bags necessary for the freezing weather at this altitude.
