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Logbook / one post a month

Field notes
& dispatches
from Toubkal.

Two kinds of writing. Field notes answer the questions people send me before they book — conditions, kit, fitness, altitude. Dispatches are what actually happened up there. Both are mine, first person, no ghostwriter.

Field notes

Practical

  • AUG 2026PUBLISHED9 MIN

    Do you need a guide for Toubkal?

    What happens at the park boundary above Imlil, and the better argument — judgement, not route-finding.

  • AUG 2026PUBLISHED9 MIN

    Climbing Toubkal on your own

    Most of the people who write to me are travelling alone. Here is what booking on your own gets you, and why it costs no more.

  • AUG 2026PUBLISHED8 MIN

    What Toubkal actually costs

    The €350 trip price itemised, and the four costs outside it — flights, insurance, kit and cash.

  • AUG 2026PUBLISHED8 MIN

    How hard is Toubkal, really?

    No ropes and no scrambling. Three days, 29 km, +2,427 m — and the thing that stops people is rarely the legs.

  • AUG 2026PUBLISHED10 MIN

    Altitude on Toubkal

    Thin air, the symptoms that end a day, and why the only treatment for altitude is height you give back.

  • AUG 2026PUBLISHED7 MIN

    Toubkal month by month

    Which months are genuinely good, which need crampons, and the two weekends I would book if I were you.

  • SEP 2026DRAFTING5 MIN

    Do I need crampons?

    The honest answer by month, what we hand you at the refuge, and how long it takes to learn to walk in them.

  • OCT 2026DRAFTING6 MIN

    Refuge night, honestly

    Bunks, blankets, no shower, forty strangers and the best bad sleep of your life. What to expect at 3,207 m.

Dispatches

From the trail

  • AUG 2026PUBLISHED8 MIN

    Why I cut the two-day trek

    The two-day version does put people on the summit — which is exactly what makes it the wrong thing to sell.

  • JUL 2026PUBLISHED4 MIN

    The morning we turned around at 3,900 m

    Six people, 267 metres from the top, and the four minutes that made the decision for me.

  • AUG 2026DRAFTING6 MIN

    I failed on my first attempt — a December ascent

    Winter on the upper route, what actually stopped me, and the two months of preparation that made the second try work.

  • OCT 2026DRAFTING4 MIN

    The tagine that ends every trek

    Who cooks it, why we eat in Imlil rather than driving straight back, and what gets said at that table.

Next: 2 – 4 OCT

5 PLACES€350FRI → SUN

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