Anna has been preparing for her trip to the top of Mount Toubkal for quite some time. Last summer, she was climbing in the Tatry mountains of Slovakia during the summer with her mother, brothers and sisters. This took quite a lot of planning, as you can see in the photo.This photo was taken at the Tatralandia Aqua park in Slovakia, during a family holiday. Anna is on the left, with her brother Bobby, sister Katie, and youngest brother Sam shown from left to right.
Additionally, she also scaled Ben Nevis, the largest mountain in Great Britain, at 1344m. This was a very long climb, and she is photographed here with her Daddy. It took over three hours to get to the top, and all three were very tough! The views from Ben Nevis are absolutely stunning all the way up, although at 800m, we entered the clouds. It became very cold inside the clouds, but Anna insisted on going all the way to the top. It then started to rain, and the temperature was around zero. We had not expected it to be so cold, so neither of us had brought gloves (it was July afterall!).What was also quite surprising for us, was to find there was a bank of ice and snow at the top! It was July afterall, and when we started out if was a normal Scottish day - so whilst we knew it would get colder we had not anticipated this! It was quite slippery to get across as well!
But we made it to the top!
This is the most representative climb for her, because at Toubkal, she is going to have to do up to 900m per day. Although we may have mules to help carry the tents and the food as well as clothing, Anna is going to have to walk every single step on her own.
However, Morocco is a very warm country and very beautiful, and the people are very nice and friendly. The mountains are quite big obviously, but they are also farmland for the people who live there. It is not unusual to come across sheep and goats, and there are many dogs there too for the protection of the livestock. So likely when we start the climb it will be around 30C, but we do know that when we get to the top it will be freezing cold - so likely we will not stay at the top for too long!
