Читать книгу The High Atlas. Treks and climbs on Morocco's biggest and best mountains онлайн

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The Middle Atlas sees far fewer mountain visitors than elsewhere, a reflection I’m sure of the lure of the big, whereas much of the area offers indescribably beautiful hills covered in cedar forest, the Cedrus atlanticum. Jbel Tazekka is isolated enough for cedars to have evolved here that are regarded as a subspecies. The area is a national park.

The Tazekka cedar forest

Meknes and Fes, two of Morocco’s imperial cities (the others are Rabat and Marrakech) lie not far away from the Tazekka rump of the Middle Atlas, and to the north, with a narrow gap between, lie the Rif Mountains. The Arab invasion came through the ‘Taza Gap’ in the seventh century, a unique chink in the mountains that form a battlement around Morocco. It was from Taza we began our end-to-end Atlas trek, which finished on the Atlantic coast at Tamri, and Jbel Tazekka was the first hill climbed on the trip. I’ve been back since. The end of March visit gave the best display of flowers – including gagea, romulea, miniature daffodils, pansies and ranunculus. Ground churned up is a sign of wild boar in the area.