High Atlas Mountains – in 5 photos

Views, villages and traditions between Morocco's highest peaks

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High Atlas Mountains – in 5 photos

Views, villages and traditions between Morocco’s highest peaks

Dear NE-One

In the far north of Africa, where the Sahara desert rolls her dunes between the broad belly of the continent and the western bulge of Europe, there is a range of mountains that stands in her way. Formed when tectonic plates collided, the slopes of the High Atlas stretch for 740km across Morocco, from the Atlantic coast near Agadir all the way to Algeria, creating a barrier for weather systems and giving birth to rivers that nurture fertile valleys and bring sustenance to some of Morocco’s most thirsty lands.

These rugged mountains – the sentinels of Morocco’s wilderness – shape the climate and life of the region, sustaining rural communities and guarding the traditions of the resilient Amazigh people who, for millennia, have called these mountains home.

I spent all of January – not nearly enough time – roaming the High Atlas. Here are five of the photos I snapped during that month:

I can’t tell you about the High Atlas Mountains without mentioning the earthquake, so let me begin here. At 11.11pm on 8 September 2023 a shallow 6.8-magnitude earthquake devastated mountain villages in the western High Atlas region. More than 60,000 homes were destroyed and around 3,000 people were killed – and still, when I visited the area some 16 months after the quake, homes and lives were being pieced back together. Many families still live in tent villages; cement-brick houses are rising where clusters of adobe ones once stood; and piles of rubble gather dust around the remnants of what once were buildings. I snapped this photo in Amizmiz, a large town very close to the epicentre; scenes like this – and with even more devastation – still characterise the town.

About half of Morocco’s female population is illiterate, and in the High Atlas region in particular girls have exceptionally limited access to education. Education For All (EFA) is an organisation that builds schools and boarding houses for girls – and many of their buildings were destroyed in the earthquake. If you’d like to contribute to the rebuilding of these centres and to the work EFA does, please click here.

Sunset over the High Atlas. I took this photo en route to the Oukaimeden Observatory, not too far from Morocco’s only ski resort. Hidden behind the snow-covered mountain here is Jebel Toubkal which, at 4,167m, is the highest peak in North Africa. Toubkal is a big drawcard for so many travellers and Imlil village, the gateway to this peak (and somewhere between the mountains you see here), has grown incredibly since I first visited it about 15 years ago. There are so many guesthouses and small cafes now around Imlil, and almost every store, it seems, rents out mountaineering gear. Winters in this area are crazy-cold – on the night we spent in Oukaimeden the mercury dropped to -5°C – but despite the chilly temperatures, snowfall has decreased over the past few years. Drought has crept in and trees, particularly olives, are producing less fruit than usual.

Here, a photograph of Fatima’s kitchen. Mark and I walked for a day from Amizmiz, winding our way up old mule paths and into a remote mountain village where we spent a night with Fatima and her husband Mohamed. Mohamed’s first wife died when she was quite young, and when he then married Fatima she decided to make the kitchen her own by adding her art to the walls. In here she cooked us a feast: an exceptional chicken tajine simmered for about two hours on a simple gas cooker and on the gas stove she boiled up delicious mint tea, and toasted homemade bread. All of her ingredients are up there on the shelf; what Fatima doesn’t gather from around her village, Mohamed will buy at the weekly market, a five-hour walk away.

This, dear NE-One, is what the Amazigh people call almaghsal – a kettle, I guess you could say, that’s used to wash hands. In Amazigh (Berber) tradition, when a visitor arrives – and before a meal – a female from the host family should pour water from the almaghsal over the guest’s hands, and catch the dirty water in the bowl. The Amazigh have a tradition of very generous hospitality, and I was humbled by how warmly we were welcomed into strangers’ homes. Even in the most simple of homesteads we would be offered mint tea, just-baked bread and a tray of delicacies that usually included honey, olives, village-made olive oil and a bowl of fruit.

I found it difficult to capture the scale of the High Atlas in photos. Look carefully here and you’ll see villages tucked against the mountains on the left of this pic… they might give you some idea of the scale of the peaks beyond. The landscape here comprises astounding soils and rocks; rocks that hold dinosaur tracks and bones, and also ancient dreams carved into slabs of stone. Who knows what other historic treasures are hidden here… I’d love to spend many more months exploring these mountains.

Until next time

Narina x

PS In a reading kinda mood? Put the kettle on…

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