Читать книгу The High Atlas. Treks and climbs on Morocco's biggest and best mountains онлайн

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The mountains vary enormously, and a rolling plateau bump can entail as much of a challenge as some obviously rocky spire (like Cairngorms and Cuillin). There is a stark, barren look to the summer Atlas and it can be ferociously hot then, with periodic severe storms and water not always easy to find. I’ve always finished any year’s ploys by the end of June and often earlier. It is perfectly possible to trek in winter if one has winter climbing skills. The weather can often be sparklingly cold and clear, with periodic three-day depressions blasting through. We trekked every February for seven years with not a drop of precipitation. In the following year we were notably washed out again and again and, believe me, when it decides to be wet you will enjoy tropical thoroughness. The hard ground can’t absorb this assault, so the result is spate and flood and a thorough testing of survival skills. (A few examples are given in the subsequent chapters.) Memorable, of course! The sunny normal is so accepted that when old Atlas hands get together the reminiscences tend to be about flash flood and other encounters of a wetting kind. One friend made five annual visits of 2–3 weeks before he had rain.