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Where the sun sets over the snow-clad peaks of Atlas Mountains
Atlas Mountains are known as “Mountains of Mountains” in Berber. Obviously, as the Moroccan Atlas mountains include North Africa’s highest peak, Jebel Toubkal, as well as six other genuine peaks exceeding 4000m (but some modern references may note ten peaks above 4000m). The snowy peaks of the Atlas Mountains are visible from afar throughout the year, but the clearest light is in the winter.
The Middle Atlas, High Atlas, and Anti Atlas mountain ranges roughly divide Morocco in half from north to south, but they are not a continuous chain. Between the Algerian border and the Atlantic coast, the High Atlas spans over 700 kilometers. The Jebel Toubkal massif, which includes North Africa’s highest peak, was declared a national park in 1942 and is the highest point in the Atlas Mountains. Travel time to the Toubkal mountains from Marrakech is just around 90 minutes. This area contains almost all of Morocco’s 4,000-meter summits.
The Central High Atlas is home to Jebel Mgoun, the country’s third-highest peak at an altitude of 4000 meters. From Marrakech, you may reach a number of trailheads that lead to Jebel Mgoun, including the beautiful Ait Bougmez valley in four hours and the Mgoun Valley (the Valley of Roses) in six. Given the multiple open access ways to the peak, from both the North and South sides, the Mgoun massif provides a large diversity of distant altitude hiking.
The Berbers, Morocco’s indigenous people, have made their home in the Atlas Mountains, maintaining a way of life that hasn’t altered much in hundreds of years. The majority of villagers engage in subsistence farming using traditional techniques, either by hand or with the help of mules, and each family maintains a modest herd of animals. Sheep and goats, and the shepherds who care for them, will be a common sight. Most homes are made of mud bricks or stones, and settlements are perched precariously on the slopes of mountains.
Beautiful, deep river valleys with patchwork farms and colorful terracing either side of traditional Berber settlements, olive groves and orchards, swaths of juniper and pine trees, and untamed pastures and meadows are just some of the sights to see in the heart of the Atlas Mountains.
The Anti-Atlas is the link between the High and Middle Atlas and the Sahara, and it provides a mountainous experience that is distinct from but no less breathtaking than that of the Atlas Mountains. As we go south, the dry and harsh landscapes grow more extraordinary, with rock formations that are completely new to us. In other words, you may still make a home in that area. We could even come across semi-nomadic tribes in the Anti-Atlas, people who go north in the spring (and back south again in the fall) with their animal herd in quest of grazing space in the upper regions of the Atlas.
