The Ski Resort with Rock Carvings

At 2,600 metres in the High Atlas, Africa's highest ski resort sits on a plateau covered in prehistoric rock engravings that nobody has adequately explained.

Oukaimeden — the name means "the meeting place of the four winds" in Tamazight — is 75 kilometres from Marrakech, a winding drive up through walnut groves and Amazigh villages. In winter, when the snow falls, Moroccans drive up to ski on a handful of runs served by a few ageing lifts. The skiing is not the Alps. The snow is not guaranteed. But it exists, and the novelty of skiing within sight of the Saharan horizon keeps people coming.

The rock engravings are the real surprise. Scattered across the plateau and the surrounding hillsides are hundreds of petroglyphs — carved images of animals, weapons, geometric symbols, and human figures — dating to the Bronze Age, roughly 2,000 to 3,000 years ago. The animals include elephants, rhinoceroses, and antelope — species that have not lived in the Atlas Mountains for millennia, evidence of a climate and an ecology that no longer exists.

The engravings are not fenced, not labelled, and not protected in any systematic way. A few are beside the road. Others require a short hike. They are worn by weather and foot traffic, and each year they become a little harder to read.

In summer, when the snow is gone, Oukaimeden becomes hiking and mountain biking terrain. The plateau is green with wildflowers. Shepherds graze flocks. The ski lifts stand idle against the sky.

The two identities of the place — winter sport and ancient art — exist in complete indifference to each other. The skiers do not come for the carvings. The archaeologists do not come for the skiing. The plateau accommodates both.