Assekrem

PeaksTamanrasset Province, Hoggar Mountains,Algeria

A Saharan plateau at 2,726 metres in Algeria's Hoggar, ringed by black volcanic spires, with a hermit's stone chapel of 1911 on top.

September·Quiet month

May–Sep

High Saharan summer. The spires and de Foucauld's hermitage still stand, but Tamanrasset bakes near 35°C and the plateau climb turns brutal. The licensed agencies pause their Hoggar treks until October — the one stretch when the sunrise trip effectively shuts.

Year-round The black volcanic skyline, the dawn from the summit and de Foucauld's hermitage stand every day of the year; the heat, the frost and the cool-season trekking window all turn with the calendar.

Assekrem is a plateau at 2,726 metres in the Hoggar mountains of southern Algeria, in Tamanrasset province, ringed by black volcanic spires and needles that stand out of the Sahara like the ruins of a city, with a hermit's stone chapel of 1911 on its summit, and it is driven up to from Tamanrasset for the sunrise, held on the eastern rim while the light works across the field of spires for a full twenty minutes. The Hoggar is the core of an old volcanic range, and the Atakor around Assekrem is its highest part, a landscape of plugs and lava columns worn out of the desert, with Tahat, the highest peak in the country, among them; Charles de Foucauld, a French officer turned hermit, built his retreat of dry stone on the summit in 1911 and lived among the Tuareg for eleven years, making almost no converts and writing instead a dictionary of their language, and the Little Brothers of Jesus who keep his house open it to whoever has walked up the last kilometre from the road. The hut beside the hermitage is a station where the world measures its air, one of the global network sampling the atmosphere far from any source of pollution. At dusk the skyline drops back to silhouette against a fading orange band and the sky fills, since there is no light for a hundred kilometres, and the guesthouse below the summit puts visitors up for the night between the sunset and the dawn. Most people drive up in a four-wheel drive over the rough track, but the Atakor is also walked, on treks of several days on foot and by camel with Tuareg guides between the gueltas, the rock pools that hold water in the valleys, and in winter the Sahara freezes here, with nights below zero, ice on the pools and in some years snow on the black spires. Tamanrasset is the Tuareg capital of the south and the base for everything. Assekrem is a hermit's rooftop in the desert, and the dawn from it is his view.

Worth knowing

Good to know

Sleep on the plateau and be on the summit before the sky pales — the whole thing is over in twenty minutes, and the stone path up takes longer than it looks.
November to February is the window — days sit near 15-20°C, cold but workable; from May to September the heat makes both the drive and the climb pointless.
The cold is what catches people out — nights on the plateau drop to freezing and the summit wind makes it worse, so bring a proper jacket, not a fleece.
Sort the agency letter weeks ahead — the visa on arrival is issued against a booked tour itinerary, so the paperwork has to be lodged well before you fly, not on the day.

Things to do

1
Hold the eastern rim through the whole sunrise
The east-facing edge is where people take up position, and the light needs a full twenty minutes to work across the field of spires. Then turn around: the Atakor lies open in every direction, hundreds of eroded volcanic necks with nothing beside them to give a sense of scale. Tahat, the highest mountain in Algeria, is one of them.
2
Step inside the hermit's house
Charles de Foucauld's dry-stone retreat still stands on the summit, and the Little Brothers of Jesus keep it open to whoever has walked up. Inside there is almost nothing — bare rooms, and windows onto exactly the view he had when he built it in 1911. It is a working religious house rather than a museum, and it is kept that way.
3
Wait for the stars over the Atakor
At dusk the skyline drops back to silhouette against a fading orange band, and then the sky fills. Tamanrasset, the nearest town, is 80 kilometres away and hidden below the horizon, so no light reaches up here. At 2,726 metres the air is thin and dry as well, and the stars come out in numbers most people never see.
4
Trek the Atakor on foot and by camel
Most people drive up for the sunrise, but the Atakor is also walked. Multi-day routes link the volcanic domes, dry valleys and Tuareg camps below the plateau, with camels carrying the loads and Assekrem saved for the last morning.