CLIMBING THE TALLEST MOUNTAIN IN NORTH AFRICA

A portion of this video is sponsored by Google.

Thank you so much. Have a good day. It feels so weird being at the airport alone.

So traveling is basically continuous problem solving. And let me show you the first problem that I have to solve today. Inside of this grocery bag is all of my drone stuff. As I was researching last night, I realized you can't take drones into Morocco. There is a storage facility here at the airport.

I just.

I don't know if they're going to take it in a plastic bag.

Can I check this bag?

Only this one?

No, only this one. Thank you. It. It turns out that you can store.

Grocery bag at the airport.

I don't even think I double knotted the bag. We'll see if the drone's still here in four days.

If you're new here, the name of this channel is Cara and Nate. Normally, there's two of us in these videos. So let me start by explaining what happened to Kara. Last week, we flew to Greece on a $300 flight that we found with Faradross. So, long story kind of short, we were both originally supposed to fly back to the US Together, but while I was in Athens, I decided to sign up for my first marathon, which takes place here in about a week. But more on that in the next video.

Kara stuck to the original plan and.

Flew home because her sister's about to.

Give birth to her first child, and.

She wanted to spend time with her.

During this special season. Which left me with a little over a week here in Athens to train for the Marath.

Thought at least that was the plan.

Then our friends Eamon and Beck, you know, the. The ones from the raft?

Wow.

Even cheating can't beat Aon and Beck.

They invited me to fly down to Morocco and climb the highest mountain in North Africa. And I am really bad at saying no to stuff like this.

So let's go to Morocco.

Hey, y'. All, Kara from the future here, two things. First thing, it is super weird watching Nate have this new experience that I wasn't a part of. It's almost like I'm getting to watch as a regular viewer for the first time. Second thing, this video was filmed in early November, well before the new travel restrictions were put into place in Morocco. With the ever changing travel landscape, it's more important now than ever to properly research your destination before you travel. Okay, now let's go to Morocco. Thank you.

All right, the first flight of the.

Day is a short one to Istanbul.

After departing from Istanbul, we are expecting flight time at 1 hour, 10 minutes.

And the Flight.

Ladies and gentlemen, dear children, welcome to Istanbul Airport.

It is good to be back.

There are few other airports in the.

World where I would rather spend five hours.

Turkish Airlines has one of, if not the best business class lounge in the entire world.

So, back to the mountain. Unfortunately, Eamon and Beck and I weren't able to coordinate schedules to be able to hike the mountain at the same time. But I had gotten myself so excited about the idea that I decided to go hike it alone. Last night at 11 o', clock, after days of agonizing over whether or not this was a good idea.

I did it.

I booked a ticket to Morocco. I've had pretty much no time to plan this trip. Ultimately, what my decision came down to was what will I Remember more in 10 years? Sitting in my Airbnb in Athens, working behind my computer, or going and attempting to climb a mountain in Morocco? No matter how the next few days work out, I'm sure the latter is going to be the more memorable one.

Wow.

I didn't even know this was a thing. I just booked this entire conference room.

Now this is a lounge park.

I just booked my hotel for tonight. Feels like the old days.

That sounds bad.

Marrakech?

I don't know. Alright, from here I have five hours to Morocco. I'm pretty sure I have an entire.

Exit row to myself and a box.

Of chocolates for the flight crew. All right, see you in Morocco.

I made it. I almost said we, but it's just I. I made it to Morocco alone and.

I think this is it.

Is this gym Riyadh? Yeah. Okay.

Good morning from Marrakesh.

There's been a big change of plans. Last night when I landed at the.

Airport, I had a text from Eamon.

That said to call him.

So do you want some friends on the hike?

You're coming.

We're coming.

So now it's back to the original plan. We're all hiking the mountain together. I got myself really, like, mentally pumped up about this idea of doing this big solo adventure, but I'm way more excited to do it with friends.

Thank you for everything.

Oh, my gosh.

Guys.

The van in Morocco looks so ridiculous. What up, bro? Let's roll.

Let's go climb a mountain.

Oh, thank you.

Welcome.

Welcome home.

Nate, you built this van out in.

Canada and it's currently in Morocco. This all feels crazy.

What's crazier is we left this van in Morocco for the past two years and we picked it up.

Like nothing ever happened.

It's a little Moroccan traffic jam.

Jeez.

So when I packed for this trip. I packed for a one week trip to Greece.

So I'm buying all the stuff you need to climb a mountain. So, so far, matching backpacks, matching sleeping bags.

We're just the three best friends that anyone could have.

When I say everything, I mean everything.

I think that's it. Thank you so much. That's pretty good. I outfitted myself with everything I need to climb a Mountain for $230.

Yeah.

Let's go.

Eamon's napping in the back and from here we have about a two hour.

Drive to In Lil.

Sounds about right. Eamon's so excited. The energy coming from the back of the van is electric.

I don't know.

See me? It looks like a taco.

They say if they pull me, should.

I pretend to be Hammond?

Oh, that's a good idea.

Yeah, it's a terrible idea. It's a good one. It's so stressful driving in Morocco because every like 15 minutes there's another police check. We've made it through two so far. He's waving you through.

He is?

Yeah, the guy on the left.

On the left to me.

Sure. Yeah. He's saying go. I think he's gonna let you go. Come on.

Three for three. Wow.

Such an adrenaline rush.

Last checkpoint.

Oh, we almost went. We were so close.

Bonjour, Salah.

Okay.

Passport, please.

Okay, sure. We're literally two minutes away from the town and we just got pulled over at our first police stop.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

We made it.

They were very, very nice. So we are parked in the town.

Of Emil, which is basically the last.

Town that you get to before you start climbing up the mountain.

And everything just feels kind of surreal right now, like being surrounded by the Atlas Mountains and a bunch of local kids playing soccer. And it's two worlds that I'm intimately familiar with separately, van life and international travel. But, like, combined together, it's this completely new foreign feeling experience. And I kind of love it.

I don't know, I'm just feeling a lot of things right now.

What do you think?

Have I packed the right stuff for the mountain? Yeah, it's good. These guys are helping me pack or distracting me. One of the two. Toilet paper. We're here.

Goodbye. Nice to meet you.

Unfortunately, Nate, our guest bedroom setup is not quite what we have in Casa.

B here in Trinity.

But we're gonna make sure you have a good comfy stay. I did offer that you could sleep in the bed with Eamon, didn't I?

So this rug, this is Me? Yeah. The rug is really, really nice. But look how cozy Beck looks back here. A rug, two yoga mats, deflated sleeping pad, an extra sleeping bag for padding, and then the one I'm sleeping on looks great. I think you're fine.

This would all be great if we weren't sleeping at about a 20 degree angle.

I know.

And the sleeping bags are all so slidy. Just sliding down slowly to the front of the van. No, it's gonna be good. Good night, dude.

Good night.

Good night, Nate.

Sounds like no ice in there.

Okay.

Today's the day. I just sat in the van for like 30 extra minutes because I couldn't.

Bear the thought of getting out of the heated van. It is so cold out here. Like, I've gotta find my gloves right now.

Oh, this is horribly packed. Where'd they go?

Can't find my gloves.

Oh, no.

Hey, Jackie.

Good morning.

Good morning. Okay, Amy gave me his gloves. I feel guilty, but I'm also freezing. It's cold. Beck and I are currently just walking up through the town, hoping I'm gonna run into the start of the hiking trail. This is how little planning I've done.

Two colds to think this morning. Well, that was short lived, huh?

That was. It's been fun hanging out.

I'm gonna miss you, Nate.

I'm sorry.

I'm not coming with you.

Thanks for walking me to the start. Good luck. Oh, this is gonna be weird.

Are you okay?

Yeah, I'm good. Okay. I'm good. Okay.

I feel like my child is going.

To school for the first day. Oh, finally. I hope Eamon gets better. Okay, so there's been another plot twist. Eamon is feeling really under the weather now. It's back to the original plan. Eamon and Beck are gonna wait back at the base for a couple days and hope Heyman gets to feeling better before he climbs.

Hello.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Where you phone?

Usa. Welcome. Thank you so much. Good morning. Good morning. How are you? How are you? Good. How are you?

Good.

Okay. I'm a little sad, but that's already got me excited. Bonjour.

Pointing. Been hiking for about 15 minutes now. Just kind of following the trail that I see on Google Maps. Hiking through a little village right now. I think I started the trek, but if I'm being completely honest, I'm not sure. I'm trying not to say that too loud because I'd really like the opportunity to try to do this alone. But I'm kind of thinking there's a slim chance that I make it through this. Village without somebody forcing themselves upon me to be my guide. I've heard it is required to have.

A guide to climb too cold.

And I've heard you definitely don't need one. I'm sure the truth is somewhere in between.

Oh, I was worried about freezing to death a few minutes ago and I'm already sweating. Let's see if my bag can hold one more thing.

I don't understand. Up this way. Yeah. Have a good day.

Look at this village built into the side of the mountain here. So beautiful. Normally I'd have these conversations and make these comments to somebody else I was hiking with, but now I'm just making them to you. Camera's the only person I have to talk to.

Good morning.

No, it's not possible to go without.

No, I would prefer no guide one.

Night or two night to go to the top 400 for one days.

But I prefer to go. It's not the price, but I just prefer to walk alone.

With guide. They come with him, no problem.

So they said it's necessary to take a guide from here.

Yeah, it's true.

Well, I think this is where my solo trip ends. It's mandatory to have a guide to go up. After the terrorist attack that happened a couple years ago, which I can completely understand and appreciate, I was excited to have just like some time alone in my head as I hiked up the mountain. But it'll also be good to be able to support a local guide after Covid. And it's not how I expected the day to go. And I left the van this morning, but it'll be good.

How's it going? I'm Nate. Nice to meet you. You too. This is my guide. We're officially on the trail. No more wondering if I'm going in the right direction or not. And he seems to be a very fast hiker, so I'm just going to do my best to keep up. We're officially starting the trail at 10 o'.

Clock.

I thought I officially started the trail back there at 8:30, but here we are.

My guy didn't know what he was signing up for. The trees here are really beautiful. I've now gotten to experience fall in three different countries. First in Canada, then we drove down to the northeast in the US and now in Morocco.

In the beginning of the national park.

Now any fun facts? No. No fun facts.

No.

So that's in the middle with two cups.

What elevation are we at now?

Almost 2,000 meters. And that's 4,011 67 meters.

So from here, from the Entrance of the national park. We have a little over 2,000 meters to climb until we get to the summer. Having flashbacks to our Everest base camp trek. Except instead of yaks coming up the mountain, it's horses here in Morocco. What are they carrying?

The bags.

Stuff. Ah, they're bags. So I could have had a donkey carry my bag.

We are donkeys.

We are the donkeys.

You're making me look bad now, though.

Here for a couple of tea.

Perfect.

This is a Moroccan breakfast. We call it bisara. And mostly people like to eat this in the morning.

And we also have a hot glass of mint tea.

Morocco whiskey.

Moroccan whiskey.

Moroccan whiskey.

Thanks.

We're ready to go.

We go.

Okay. Up the mountain we go. I would have liked to have shown you a lot more of that village, but the elders here were not a big fan of the. The camera. Okay, no problem. It's a pretty neat little town. There's this big white rock that's supposed to be holy. It's a place you can come if you're down on your luck or if you're having trouble having kids. That's a pretty unique place.

Going less and less far each time.

I go first. Okay.

Okay.

Now I'm the leader. It's just getting prettier and prettier.

From here. We have a beautiful view of the entire valley. We can see the small town that we just came from and then working our way up the valley that looks like frozen waterfalls on the side of the mountain. The views from up here are just incredible.

Again, here.

Bottle of tea.

Sounds like a plan.

From here to the raw cage is not that far away. About like, one hour.

Oh, nice. We're making great time.

Thank you very much. Shukrona. Wow.

Wow. Now that is an unexpected luxury halfway up the mountain. Cheers. Cheers.

Special Moroccan whiskey. We make like this. And sometimes we can put him back again just to mix it. Just to make a sugar.

Then.

Cheers. Cheers. Can I try the pork? Of course. Yes.

Okay. Almost rocket.

Okay. Check this out. This is probably the most innovative refrigerator I've ever seen. It diverted to cold water that's running off the mountain into this little room. And they're just squirting it right on the drinks to keep them cold.

Oh, wow. Those are suitcases. Do you know how much they get paid to take this stuff up and down?

€20 per day from you.

The main difference, it seems, from the porters here versus the porters in Nepal is that the people in Nepal actually carry this stuff on their back. And here it seems like the horses are Doing all the hard work, carrying, and the people are just kind of guiding them up and down the mountain.

This gives you an idea of just how cold it gets up here. This is all ice that's probably melting from last night.

Okay. The refuge where we're staying tonight is in sight. Sitting right down there in the valley.

Both of us.

Oh, that feels good.

Oh, these are for me. This is nice. I guess I'll put some sandals. So just as Abdul said, we made it to the refuge in a little under five and a half hours. I had done zero research on the room situation and this is the hostel room that I'll be staying in tonight. Alright.

It's me and about 25 other roommates in this room.

I am feeling super grateful for how today's worked out. Abdul has been such a great addition to the team. Even though I was set on not having a guide at the beginning of the day, I really just can't believe how lucky I got. If I would have spent 100 hours researching online, I don't think I could have found a better guide than Abdul. It's been a really good day and honestly the trek was nothing but enjoyable.

So now I'll grab some dinner, sleep.

For a couple hours and then Tomorrow morning around 4am we'll wake up and we'll make our push to the summit and hope to get there in time for sunrise. Oh yeah.

Someone in there told me it's supposed.

To be negative 20 degrees Celsius on.

Top of the mountain tomorrow.

I'm not sure what that converts to.

In Fahrenheit, but I know it's really cold.

Okay. The best part of the night. We'll enjoy it while we cannot made to wear three pairs of socks.

You ready? I'm ready, yes.

How about you?

Let's do it.

Let's do it.

Nice morning. This way. This way. Yeah. We are going up. Okay. The first step.

This morning. We have two and a half hours to reach the summit before the sun comes up. I'm pleasantly surprised by the temperature. I'm pretty sure I'm running on about zero hours of sleep. I just tossed and turned all night last night. Sometimes it can be really hard to sleep at altitude.

How many kilometers and how much elevation?

4Km and 800 elevation to go.

Yeah. This will be a challenge with the camera, huh?

I hope.

All good.

Thank you.

I'm also very glad that I have Abdul to lead the way because there's no way I'd be fighting my way up here in the dark. It doesn't look Good. I assume that says watch out for falling rocks in French.

I think one of the best things about hiking at night is that you can't really look up the mountain to see how much further you have to go, because your headlamp just disappears into the darkness. So you're really forced to take it one step at a time. The first hour out of the refuge wasn't so bad, but.

The last hour has been a bit of a struggle with the altitude. Haven't been able to feel my fingers and toes for some time now. I knew what I was setting up for, but just wanted to let you know that it hasn't necessarily been easy.

Sun's just starting to come up over.

The Sahara, so we are here in 3,900 meters. About half an hour more from here.

I almost got it. Almost got it.

I think we came from somewhere right down in that valley. You can see the little string of lights coming up the mountain. That right there, that's the peak. We just have to make our way up along this ridge, and then we've made it.

I need to put my scarf to cold.

This journey is really starting to come full circle. We've almost made it up to the summit, and we can see Marrakech, the city that I flew into all the way from here. Every time I think we're almost there, the mountain just gets bigger.

Wow. Are you ready to finish? Yes.

He did it. Yes.

This is incredible. What a crazy journey. This is probably one of the most rash decisions I've ever made in my life to come climb this mountain. Seven days ago, I didn't even know I was coming to Morocco. And today I'm standing on top of the tallest mountain in North Africa. I can't feel my fingers. I can't feel my face. I think it's just stuck in a permanent swell right now.

But I'm happy. I'm feeling accomplished, but with all those emotions, there's also a little bit of sadness that I'm up here without Kara. Every big memory that I've made in my life over the last six years has been with Kara, and this is the first one that she won't be able to share with me. I think that's one of the incredible things about traveling with your spouse is we'll have these memories to share together for the rest of our lives. So it feels kind of weird having this one to myself. I was thinking about all that on the way up here, and I felt like it was going to come out a lot more eloquently, but I don't know if that made any sense, between the altitude and the lack of sleep.

Wow. Just wow. Sunrise in the Atlas Mountains, over the Sahara Desert.

Ado.

Thank you for getting me here. The best guide in Morocco.

Thank you so much. Like, two hour and a half from the refuge to here. Sometimes, as people, they do more than that. Three, four, five hours.

Updates.

Well done.

Thank you.

Thank you. We did good.

You can only enjoy the views from the top for so long. I soaked it all in for a minute. And now hike back down the mountain, get a taxi back to Marrakech, get on an airplane, fly to Istanbul, overnight layover in Istanbul, fly to Athens, and then in four days, I attempt to run my first marathon.

Massive.

No. French, french, french.