The M'Goun Massif — Morocco's Great Remote Traverse

If Toubkal is the mountain everyone climbs, the M'Goun massif is the one seasoned trekkers save for later. Ighil M'Goun crowns the Central High Atlas at roughly 4,071 metres and anchors a multi-day traverse that many rate as the best long walk in Morocco. Instead of a single summit dash, you cross an entire mountain landscape: limestone plateaux, deep river gorges, high passes and the summer pastures of Amazigh shepherds who still move flocks up here each year.

The trade-off for that grandeur is commitment. There are no cable cars, no road shortcuts and often no phone signal for days. You walk from village to high camp to village, supported by mules that carry the tents and food, and you rarely see another foreign face. For walkers who found the refuge queues on Mount Toubkal a little busy, that solitude is precisely the draw.

The two headline High Atlas treks reward very different travellers. Toubkal is short, high and popular; M'Goun is longer, more remote and more about the journey than the peak. The table below distils the main differences to help you choose.

Most M'Goun traverses set off from the Aït Bougmez valley, the fertile trailhead reached by road from Azilal. A common itinerary climbs out of the valley over a high pass, drops toward the head of the M'Goun gorges, then works up to the summit ridge before descending south toward the Tessaout valley or back toward the Dades. Days are long — often six to eight hours of walking — with camps pitched beside streams or in hospitable villages.

The summit itself is a broad, stony whaleback rather than a sharp peak, reached on a big day from a high camp. On a clear morning the panorama takes in wave after wave of the Atlas and, to the south, the parched land falling away toward the pre-Sahara. Because routes vary with water, weather and how many days you have, the exact line is best fixed with your guide once you know the group's pace.

M'Goun is walked in the old-fashioned, self-contained way. Muleteers load tents, kitchen kit and food onto their animals each morning and go ahead to set up camp, while a cook conjures surprisingly good tagines and soups from a couple of gas rings. Nights are spent under canvas beside a river or on the flat roof of a village gîte, wrapped up against the mountain chill, with a sky thick with stars once the lamps go out.

The human landscape is as memorable as the geology. You pass stone-and-mud hamlets, terraced barley plots and the black tents of transhumant herders on the high plateaux. A little Amazigh or French goes a long way, and accepting a glass of mint tea when it is offered is part of the experience. Tread lightly: carry out your rubbish and ask before photographing people.

The window for M'Goun is narrower than for Toubkal because the terrain is higher for longer and involves river crossings. Mid-June to early October is the reliable season: the snow has cleared the passes, the gorges are wadeable and the high camps are pleasant. Outside that, snow can block the passes and the rivers run dangerously high, while late summer can bring sudden, powerful thunderstorms.

Those thunderstorms are the main hazard, because flash floods can turn a placid gorge into a torrent within minutes. A good guide watches the weather, times the gorge sections carefully and knows the escape routes. As with any Atlas trek, the altitude also matters: build in a gentle first day, drink plenty and let your body adjust before the highest camps.

The single best preparation for M'Goun is time on your feet. Because the trek strings together five or six long days, often six to eight hours of walking with meaningful ascent, endurance matters far more than raw speed. In the months before you travel, build up back-to-back hiking days carrying a loaded daypack, add some hill and stair work to your training, and break your boots in thoroughly — blisters on day two of a remote traverse are miserable and very hard to escape. A basic head for heights helps on the exposed passes, though nothing on the standard route requires ropes or scrambling.

Kit is about coping with big daily temperature swings and being self-sufficient. Days can be hot under a fierce mountain sun while nights at high camp fall close to freezing, so pack breathable walking layers, a warm insulated jacket, a hat and gloves, and a sleeping bag genuinely rated for cold. Add strong sun protection, a wide-brimmed hat, a reliable way to treat water, and sandals or old trainers for the gorge crossings. Your muleteers carry the tents, food and heavy loads, but you still walk every hour with the day's essentials, water and warm layers on your own back.

M'Goun is not a walk to improvise solo. A licensed mountain guide plus muleteers is the standard and sensible set-up, arranged either in Aït Bougmez or through operators in Marrakech and the Dades. Confirm the number of walking days, whether food and camping gear are included, and the plan for water and river crossings before you commit. Come fit: consecutive long days with a full pack of daily essentials are the real test.

Access is part of the adventure. From Marrakech it is a long drive north-east over the mountains to Azilal and then up the valley to Tabant in Aït Bougmez. Many trekkers pair the traverse with time in the Aït Bougmez valley itself, spring rafting on the nearby Ahansal river, or, at the southern end, a night in one of the kasbah hotels of the Skoura and Dades valley. Winter walkers who still want the mountains often switch to the lower, sunnier Jbel Saghro.