The High Atlas Mountains, Central Morocco

“As we flew home from the Teton trip, we swapped journals around and wrote messages to each other. Several people asked, ‘Did you remember to pack the mountains?’

Fourteen years later, my answer is still, ‘Absolutely.’

I’m writing this from my snow-covered village in the High Atlas Mountains of central Morocco. The mountains out my window aren’t as dramatic as the glacier-carved Teton peaks, but my life here has so many echoes of that week… There are the obvious ones, like the fact that I’ve worn long underwear and wool socks every day for months, and that I’ve got the raccoon-eyed tan of someone who wears sunglasses in the face of sunny snowfields. And then there are the subtle ones: I never imagined that I could draw before Greg Houda opened that door, and yesterday I helped paint a 100 square foot mural on the wall of a school. I didn’t value my creative writing skills before that week, and now I keep a daily blog, sharing my words with the world. My tree-hugging started long before the Teton trip, but I continue to cherish the lessons of “Creative Expressions in Nature” as I work as an Environmental Educator with the Peace Corps. (And before this adventure, I got to use them in my inner-city classroom, where I taught science.) Both in the classroom and out, I love sharing my love of nature.

But most importantly, the same joy in beauty, the same love of the soul-deep peace of mountain mornings, and even the same rejoicing in every one of God’s gifts…the same lights that illuminated the Teton Trip keep shining in my life, and I’m so very, very grateful for it all.

How ’bout you? Did you remember to pack the mountains?”

Liz Fuller
Peace Corps Volunteer, Morocco
1995 Teton Trip

The High Atlas Mountains, Central Morocco • photos by Liz Fuller