Toubkal National Park – 80th birthday celebrations
This year is the 80th anniversary of the formation of Toubkal National Park. To help celebrate the occasion, BMS Life Member Alan Palmer has been invited by the Director of the Park, Soraya Mokhtari, to make two presentations with the aim of highlighting and promoting the range of wonderful trekking opportunities within the National Park.
These presentations, kindly hosted by Mike McHugo in Kasbah du Toubkal, Imlil, are to take place at 3pm on Monday 22nd and Monday 29th August. There is no charge for admission although capacity is limited to 50 people, so please contact Alan if you would like to reserve a place, either for yourself or for others: alan@yaktravel.co.uk
Entering Timichi in the upper Ourika valley
Alan is no stranger to trekking in Morocco. Having first visited the country in 1979, he began trekking in the Atlas Mountains in the summer of 1986, principally motivated by the need to escape the August heat of Marrakech. Since then he has returned many, many times, trekking extensively in both the High Atlas and Anti-Atlas Mountains.
The clustered village of Aït Aissa in the Azzadene valley
With this experience behind him, he first wrote “Moroccan Atlas – The Trekking Guide”, now in its second edition and considered ‘indispensible’ by Lonely Planet, before founding his own company, “Trek in Morocco”, specialising in organising fully personalised, tailor-made treks throughout Morocco, for individuals and small groups. In 2015, he renamed his company “Yak Travel” to reflect his expansion into little known and rarely visited corners of north-east India, notably Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya and Assam.
The view from Tizi Oudite
Alan frequently makes presentations about trekking in Morocco and other remote mountainous corners of the globe at travel shows and travel clubs in London. He also regularly writes for travel magazines and has contributed to a number of other guide books, too, including “The Rough Guide to Morocco”, “Insight Guide Pakistan” and “Insight Guide The Silk Road”.