Atlas Mountains

The High Atlas out of Marrakech is Berber Morocco. Terraced villages, mint tea on rooftops, women in bright headscarves working the fields, and snow on Toubkal (4,167 meters, the highest peak in North Africa) from late autumn to spring. The pace is what the cities have forgotten. We drive the Tizi n'Tichka pass before the tour buses get up there, so you have the switchbacks and the viewpoints to yourself.

The Middle Atlas out of Fes is a different Morocco altogether. Ifrane looks like a transplanted Swiss village at 1,600 meters, with chalets, manicured gardens, and a statue of a lion. Azrou, just down the road, is the start of the cedar forest, where troops of Barbary macaques live among trees that are hundreds of years old. Go in the morning, bring fruit but do not feed them, and you will see them.

And the Atlas is a through-route, not a destination to return from. The High Atlas drops south into the Valley of a Thousand Kasbahs and on to the Sahara. The Middle Atlas drops through Midelt and the Ziz Gorge into the oasis of the Tafilalet. Either way, the mountains are how you get to the desert.

The drives are the experience. Ait Ben Haddou, the clay-brick UNESCO kasbah where Gladiator, Game of Thrones, and many other productions filmed [CHECK: filming credits], is just over the Tizi n'Tichka pass. Ouzoud Waterfalls, a 110-meter triple cascade, is 2.5 hours northeast of Marrakech and routinely the single most photographed waterfall in North Africa.

April to June and September to early November are ideal across both ranges. Summer is pleasant at altitude while the cities bake below. The High Atlas holds snow on Toubkal from November through April, which is stunning but cold (pack layers). The Middle Atlas cedar forests are particularly beautiful in May when wildflowers come up and in late October when the light gets low and golden.

From Marrakech to the Ourika Valley is 1 to 1.5 hours. To Imlil, 1.5 hours. To Ouzoud, 2.5 hours. To Ait Ben Haddou via the Tizi n'Tichka pass, 3 hours. From Fes to Ifrane is 1 hour, and to Azrou's cedar forest 1.5 hours. The mountains are day-trip territory from both Marrakech and Fes, and they are also the road to the Sahara, so most Tarla itineraries pass through the Atlas on the way to somewhere else.