When your impossibly beautiful, super-fit Moroccan guide leans in late at night and says quietly, ‘Can I take you to see the sun rise over the mountain?’, obviously you say yes. But in the light of a camp fire, a few bottles down, I failed to clock the implications until he stood up and departed, saying, ‘Cool. Get some sleep. I’ll wake you at 1am’.

Still, I had no idea what I was letting myself in for.  I've been to Africa gazillions of times and climbed Kilimanjaro on the spur of the moment, largely in the clothes I was standing up in. I thought I knew my stuff.

I’d arrived in Marrakech a few days earlier with a friend for a trip we’d put together ourselves (being very particular about our itinerary) with the expert help of a company called Journey Beyond Travel.

We’d had a couple of days in a gorgeous riad in the old town where nothing was too much trouble, had the top five layers of our skin sanded off in a hammam and eaten seventeen courses of exquisite food for less than a beer costs in London. The same restaurateur had escorted us to the local parts of the souk where you could still haggle serious prices.

On the third day, we were driven to a village in the High Atlas Mountains to begin our climb of Toubkal, the second highest mountain in Africa. Marrakech was a shade below 40° when we left in our linen shirts, shorts and sun hats, attire that served well until we reached base camp.

It was a tough walk – but a walk nonetheless, not unlike ‘climbing’ Kili. Our guide was born and bred in the mountains and ran marathons up the High Atlas. We felt more than safe in his charming hands.

We also had a cook with us and a whole ‘nother donkey to carry all his equipment and food. When our guide indicated lunchtime shade, the cook unloaded pots, pans, stoves, teapots, glasses, china, pretty tablecloths and napkins and cushions for our tender behinds. He boiled kettles for tea, picked flowers and filled vases. We sat on handmade rugs spread on the mountain scrub and ate freshly cooked, beautifully presented local food.

We arrived at base camp feeling hot and sweaty and ready for a shower and a sleep. It had been a long and often steep walk through searing heat and, fit as we were, we could both feel the muscles in our legs starting to complain.

But it was Africa. It was as we had expected. Until our guide woke us in the middle of the night.

‘I thought you’d be ready,’ he said, glancing at my Goretex trousers, micro-fleece jacket and baseball cap.  

 He couldn't believe we were so horribly unprepared. I was sure he was making a fuss about nothing when he insisted I wear his coat over mine and take his head torch, thermal hat and gloves. And sticks. For the love of Pete.

Less than ten minutes later I was more scared than I have ever been before or since. Not in an adventurous roller-coaster, skiing-slightly-above-my-ability sort of way. Really, really scared. Asking myself why I had left my children on a far-off continent and put myself in this kind of danger.

It was pitch black. People say that all the time but this was like being blind. Without my torch I couldn't see my own legs if I looked down. I couldn't see my companions standing next to me. I've never experienced such total blackness – it was claustrophobic, like being in an underground cave.

And it was, as he had warned us, bitterly cold. This was serious climbing, not just steep walking. Within twenty minutes we hit snow. Each step involved stamping out footholds with woefully inadequate hiking boots as we clung to the icy mountain, traversing trustingly, as close to our invisible guide as possible.  

Once, my friend flung out an arm to steady herself and knocked him off the side of the mountain. We heard him tumble down below us in the darkness and howled in terror (us, not him). He climbed quickly back up on his goat’s legs and reassured us that we were doing fine.

A little later, we heard (but couldn't see) rushing water.

‘When I say jump…..jump,’ he said in his usual merry voice.  What? Wtf? Blind? NO!

‘It’s fine,’ he said. ‘Ready?  Trust me. 1,2,3…..’

We did, of course, jump when he told us to. And we were fine. And not long after that, thin fingers of light started to stretch across the sky and by 4am we could see where we were going. By 5am my friend was starting to struggle with altitude sickness and our progress slowed painfully. Ten steps forward, rest for a minute to draw breath. Our guide said we should give up and go back. My friend, a doctor, insisted she would rather chew her own arm off.  

Just before 6am we carried her between us to the peak of Toubkal and sat and watched the sunrise. It was breathtaking. Truly, utterly spectacular. Was it worth it? At that moment, yes, undoubtedly. When we saw the yawning crevasse and waterfall on the way back down that we had jumped over in the dark, not so much. Would I do it again? In a heartbeat. But with my children – and the same guide. Who, on the way back down, as we shed our layers and beanies and donned sunglasses, told us that people get lost on the mountain and die every day trying to do it on their own. Because, like us, they are woefully unprepared.  And because, unlike us, they think they can do it on their own.