The Gorge

The walls rise 300 metres on either side. The gap between them narrows to 10 metres.

Todra Gorge — Gorges du Todra — cuts through the eastern end of the High Atlas, where the Todra River has spent millions of years carving a slot through limestone. At its narrowest point, the canyon is barely wider than a two-lane road, with sheer walls of reddish stone rising vertically on both sides. The light reaches the canyon floor for only a few hours each day.

The gorge is 40 kilometres long in total, but the section tourists visit is a 600-metre stretch at the narrowest point, about 15 kilometres from the town of Tinghir. A paved road runs through the bottom of the canyon. In the 1970s, European rock climbers discovered the walls and began establishing routes. Today Todra is one of the premier climbing destinations in North Africa, with hundreds of bolted routes on both faces, ranging from beginner to extreme.

At the base of the gorge, a cold spring feeds the river. Local families come on weekends to picnic and wade. Hotels and cafés have been built at the mouth of the canyon, where the walls begin to open. A few kilometres upstream, beyond the tourist zone, Amazigh families still farm the narrow terraced plots along the river, growing vegetables and fruit in soil watered by the same stream that carved the rock.

The geology is simple. The Atlas Mountains were pushed up when Africa collided with Europe. The river was already there. It kept cutting while the rock rose around it. What you see is the argument between water and stone, running for several million years, with water winning by the width of a road.