Day hike from Timichi to the Oukaïmeden pass

Long day hike but completely worth it. We started from the gîte and followed the river upstream. On the way up, we had not seen the trail the ultra marathoners use on the left. Basically, after you cross the river and go on the piste, it curves to the left. Follow the river for about 50 meters north and you'll see the trail on the left (with a paint marker). You follow this for about 30 minutes and then on the right, you will see a gully and at the top, you will see an arrow (marks the running trail). Follow that and at the top, you'll see a canal used for irrigation. Go up to the right and you will see the running trail on the left. You follow that all the way to, essentially, Timoummar.

Once there, you can either go past the village via the piste (takes longer) or follow the trail the locals use that goes through the village (which we did). After going past the village, you can probably use the trail we followed on the way down as it was a goat trail that skipped some of the piste (and village). When we got to the village, we were on the trail that takes you directly to Oukaïmeden but decided to stay on the piste instead. You can see we deviated towards the village (a local showed us the way to the piste) and followed it once we found it. I probably would have gone up the trail (and not the piste) if I did it again :)

Once at the pass, enjoy the beautiful views to the south (amazing, snowy peaks) and the north, mostly the flatness of Central Morocco :) It was great to realize how high up we were and yet, feel like we were only at the edge of the high atlas mountains! We also enjoyed the hike up the valley as the terraces looked beautiful and lush against the reddish-brown-colored peaks. I hiked up some of the nearby peaks at the top to get a better view and also followed the road west a bit in case we could have taken the trail back but it was too far away so we had to turn back via the piste :(

On the way down, we skipped most of the piste by taking a steep path on the left that locals use to go down to the village. It saved us a lot of time! I'd only recommend using this to come down and not up as it's very steep. However, your knees will definitely feel the hike down after this 😬 Lovely hike.