Skiing at Oukaimeden: What Africa's Ski Resort Is Actually Like Now

Morocco has a ski resort. It sits in the High Atlas at over 2,600 metres, about an hour and a half from Marrakech, and for a certain kind of traveller the idea of skiing in Africa is reason enough to go.

The guides that describe it as an operating ski resort are working from an older picture. Here is the current one.

The lifts

Oukaimeden has a chairlift and a handful of drag lifts. What is hard to establish is whether any of them are turning on a given day.

Operation has been minimal for several years. The French-language record points to a run of disruptions since 2020: the pandemic, the 2023 Al Haouz earthquake, which struck this part of the High Atlas, and snow cover that has become steadily less dependable. A first-hand account published in April 2026 described visitors arriving in numbers while the lifts stood still.

We cannot tell you the date the lifts last ran, because no source we could find establishes one.

If skiing specifically is why you are going, confirm locally before you travel. A Marrakech hotel or a local operator will know the state of the mountain far better than any published source, this one included.

The rebuild

The resort is the subject of a long-running public rehabilitation that failed twice before finally reaching contract.

A 2023 award to a Franco-Moroccan grouping was cancelled. A second tender worth 75 million dirhams drew a single bidder, the Austrian lift manufacturer Doppelmayr, which was rejected at the end of 2025. Bidders had told SMIT, the state tourism engineering company running the project, that the budget did not match what was being asked.

SMIT relaunched it in April 2026 at roughly 100 million dirhams on a different premise. Imad Barrakad, SMIT’s director general, told Médias24 that skiing would account for only about 30% of the resort’s activity, the rest built around mountain sports, mountain biking, hiking and family activities such as tubing, a hedge against unreliable snow. The chairlift is meant to run year-round, carrying walkers to the ridge in summer as well as skiers in winter.

Phase I covers earthworks, a new chairlift, three ski runs and the year-round activities. Works are scheduled to take around twelve months, and whoever builds it must also operate the resort for at least two years afterwards. Barrakad’s stated target is full operation by late 2027 or early 2028.

In June 2026 the contract went to the French cable-transport manufacturer Poma SAS for 117.37 million dirhams, ahead of the other French bidder, MND France. Separately, the road upgrades on the approach from the Ourika valley, a 165 million dirham programme, were reported at 75% complete in April 2026.

The practical read: a new chairlift is being installed, which tells you what the existing one is worth counting on. Until it is in, assume nothing about lift-served skiing here.

What it is instead

Treat Oukaimeden as a mountain day rather than a ski day and it becomes a good trip.

The setting is genuinely dramatic. You climb from Marrakech through Berber villages and terraced fields into high, bare mountain country, and in winter the plateau carries real snow. For visitors who have come to Morocco expecting heat and desert, that contrast is the point.

In practice people come to see snow, sledge on the lower slopes, walk, and look at the Atlas from above. When there is enough cover, ski touring and hike-to-ski are possible for people equipped and competent to do it unsupported, which is a different proposition from a lift-served resort.

Outside winter the plateau is a walking and climbing destination, and a way to escape the summer heat. There is bouldering on the plateau and rope climbing on the cliffs nearby.

Snow, honestly

There is no snowmaking. The season is entirely dependent on what falls.

The historical window is roughly early January to mid-March, and recent seasons have been increasingly unreliable. Some years deliver good cover. Others deliver very little.

Check conditions the morning you go rather than assuming the season is on because the calendar says it should be.

Getting there

Around 78 km from Marrakech by mountain road, roughly an hour and a half each way.

The practical options are hiring a grand taxi for the day, driving yourself, or joining an organised day trip. Confirm what is actually included before booking a tour, particularly if it is described as a ski trip.

Leave early. Weekend traffic on the mountain road is real, parking fills, and snow or fog can slow the drive considerably.

Staying over

Accommodation exists but is limited. The French Alpine Club maintains a chalet on the mountain, and there are a small number of apartments and guesthouses.

For most visitors this works better as a day trip from Marrakech than an overnight, particularly given the uncertainty about what will be running when you arrive.

Is it worth it?

If you want to ski properly, book a trip to the Alps.

If you want to stand in snow in Africa, look down on the High Atlas, and spend a day somewhere most visitors to Morocco never see, it is a good day out. Go with that expectation and you will not be disappointed. Go expecting a functioning ski resort and you may well be.