We were going back and forth about whether we should try and do a hiking trip in the High Atlas Mountains so soon after the earthquake (about 3 weeks) but after hearing about how important tourism is both to the country and the region, we decided to give it a go, and man, what an unforgettable trip!
Our guide was Ibrahim and we had Omar as our porter and cook. I'm not really sure what I was expecting but the scenery of the entire three days just totally blew us away. When we climbed one mountain pass, it was like we were transported to a completely different part of the country.
In terms of level of difficulty, we are both active 40 and 58 year old men, and I would say it was a solid 3.5/5.0, but any guide would be able to adjust the difficulty depending on the group. We hiked for about 8-9 hours each day with breaks but I think some groups go for a shorter period of time. I think our only regret was that we didn't have hiking shoes and one of us got blisters on our feet.
The food was unexpectedly some of the best we've had in Morocco, and they even accommodated for a gluten allergy. Accommodations on the first night were very basic, but the second night were amazing.
In terms of the impact the earthquake had on the hike itself, we might have had to make one or two detours due to obstructions from the damage. On the trails outside of villages, there was some limited impact (hiking to the summit of Mt. Toubkal, for instance, is affected). Inside villages, most people's houses were intact, if not completely undamaged. But there are people whose homes were destroyed, and in the villages we passed, some people are still living in tents and probably will be for quite some time.
I don't want to minimize the loss that many have suffered, but people seemed genuinely happy to see trekkers coming back through their communities and just want life to get back to normal. I would also note that Aztat is charging an additional 2.5% surcharge and donating it to earthquake recovery.
So while there is still evidence of the earthquake in some of the villages, the actual 3-day trek we did was barely affected, if at all. Moreover, many of these communities depend on tourists like ourselves for their livelihoods; we are grateful to them for what was an amazing and unforgettable trek.