The Hoggar and Assekrem

In the deep south, the Sahara rises into the Hoggar - a highland of volcanic plugs and organ-pipe basalt where erosion has left a skyline of spires more Gothic than geological. Its high altar is Assekrem, the plateau at some 2,700 metres where Charles de Foucauld built his hermitage in 1911 seeking the emptiest silence available; the small refuge and chapel remain, and the walk to the rim for sunrise - peaks igniting one by one across a hundred kilometres of ranges - is among the desert world's great rituals. Tuareg guides run the routes from Tamanrasset, camps under star fields that city eyes disbelieve.

The landscape

• Assekrem sunrise - the basalt ranges igniting from the hermitage rim.
• The hermitage - de Foucauld's 1911 refuge and chapel, still kept.
• The spire fields - volcanic plugs and organ-pipes along the pistes.
• Tuareg camps - tea, bread in the sand and the deep-desert night.

When to go

October to March for cold-clear desert days - nights drop below freezing on the heights, and that is the trade for the sharpest light. Summer is dangerous heat at lower elevations.

What to expect

Travel here runs exclusively through licensed local operators and permits - the framework that makes the deep south visitable; plan weeks ahead, and check current arrangements when booking. Comforts are camp-level, roads are pistes, and the altitude chills harder than deserts are supposed to. The reward is scale and silence nothing else matches.

Nearby

Tamanrasset's Tuareg market town and the pistes toward the Tassili ranges.