Loop from Marrakech
The Atlas Mountains
7 days · 1200 km · Morocco
Route Marrakech → Tizi n'Tichka → Aït Benhaddou → Dades → Todra → Agdz → Taliouine → Tizi n'Test → Marrakech Distance 1200 km around the High Atlas Duration 7 days
Short legs, long stops Best Months March to May, September to November
Snow shuts the passes in winter; the south is a furnace in summer World Heritage The ksar of Aït Benhaddou
Tin Mal mosque on the tentative list, quake-hurt Parks & Protected Areas Toubkal National Park
The Saghro and Siroua massifs Signature Roads The Tizi n'Tichka at 2260 m
The Dades gorge switchbacks
The Tizi n'Test, wildest road in Morocco


Route Map


Open in Google Maps The Plan

A week around the High Atlas, over one great pass and back over its wilder brother. Out on the Tichka, the trade route the trucks still use; down to a mud city the movies never stopped borrowing; along two gorges where the road squeezes between three-hundred-metre walls; then home over the Tizi n'Test – single lane, no barriers, built by the French in 1932 and barely apologised for since. Kasbahs, palmeries, saffron fields and snow peaks, all inside a lap the size of Rajasthan's little finger.


Day Route Distance Highlights Night stay
01 Marrakech → Tizi n'Tichka → Telouet → Aït Benhaddou 190 km
5.5 h		 The 2260 m pass, the Glaoui kasbah at Telouet, the mud city at dusk Aït Benhaddou
02 Aït Benhaddou → Ouarzazate → Skoura → Dades gorge 160 km
4.5 h		 Desert light over the film studios, the Skoura palmery, into the gorge Dades gorge
03 The Dades switchbacks → Todra gorge → Tinghir 130 km
4 h		 The famous hairpins, then canyon walls three hundred metres sheer Tinghir
04 Tinghir → Alnif → N'Kob → Agdz 230 km
5.5 h		 Around Jebel Saghro's volcanic wreckage to the kasbahs of the Draa Agdz
05 Agdz → Ouarzazate → Taznakht 200 km
4.5 h		 The Draa palmery, then carpet country under the Siroua Taznakht
06 Taznakht → Taliouine → Tizi n'Test → Tin Mal → Ouirgane 260 km
7 h		 Saffron at Taliouine, the wildest pass in Morocco, the Almohad mosque Ouirgane
07 Ouirgane → Asni → Marrakech 60 km
1.5 h		 Toubkal in the mirrors, Jemaa el-Fnaa by lunch Marrakech
Notes

The Tizi n'Test is open but it is not what it was. The 2023 earthquake had its epicentre in these hills; the pass took damage, the rebuilding is still going, and the road was rough and narrow before any of that. Single lane with two-way traffic, no barriers, long drops. Ride it mid-morning in dry weather, expect works, and ask in Taliouine before committing – the fallback is the Tichka again, which is no punishment.

Tin Mal, the 1156 mosque that seeded an empire, partially collapsed in the same quake and is under restoration – seen from outside, still worth the stop. Day 6 is the heavy day of the week; if it runs long, Ijoukak has beds before Ouirgane does.

Big bikes rent in Marrakech – Africa Twins and 700-class adventure machines – and an Indian licence with an IDP works in Morocco. Winter closes both passes with snow gates when it storms; summer south of the Atlas runs to 45 degrees. Spring gets snow on the peaks, green in the valleys and the gorges at their best.

© 2001-26 Zishaan Hayath