The day began at 4600m in a mountain hut on the southern slopes of Mt. Damavand.  Our team of 5 were awake at 5 and ready to climb to the summit of the highest mountain in the Iran and the MIddle East.  The previous day, a climber had summited the peak and suggested -50 degrees Celsius with wind chill on top.  Nervously, we put on every item of clothing we were carrying.  The day ended 20 hours later in a natural hot spring in the basement of a hotel at the bottom of Mount Damavand.  Visible through the steam stood in the doorway an overweight Iranian taxi driver called Madhi, wearing nothing but white baggy Y-fronts and wildly waving a piece of plastic hose in his right hand.  The day of extremes, in a country of contrasts continued to suprise.

The wirlwind of our trip to Iran began on 14th of March 2011, when we landed in Tehran’s International Airport laden with skis, climbing gear, thousands of euros and a little trepidation at what lay outside the airport.  Iran was after all a member of the American’s ‘Axis of Evil’ and we were a bunch of naive Europeans unsure what to make of it all.  After a little under a week, we’d managed to climb Iran’s highest mountain, meet some of the friendliest and most welcoming people on the planet, skied the best lightest ice cold powder we’d ever laid eyes on.  We even spent Iranian new year with fantastic welcoming family outside Tehran.

This is our Mount Damavand story.

Day 1 – see the arrival story here.

Day 2 – On the 2nd day of the trip, we skied at the largest ski resort in Iran.  This is called Dizin.  Incredibly we were very lucky to have had a snowfall the night before, and as we drove up the windy road to the resort, huge fresh avalanches could be seen on either side of the road.  Bluebird sky, and deep powder were waiting for us at the resort, and like excited children we paid our $20 lift passes and headed up onto the slopes.

The lift system at Dizin is very old, based on bubble lifts and our fat skis didn’t fit in the outside of the bubble.  We clambered inside, skis and all and with half closed doors headed up the pistes.  There are only a few lifts at Dizin, but there was so much powder and so few people, that every run we skied for the whole day had fresh tracks.  To the right of the slope was Mt Damavand, looking vast on the horizon, and to the left the biggest crown release avalanche I’ve ever seen.  It was so large it had taken out at least a third of the resort, a perfect release from about 5 metres below the long cornice running the top of the slope.  The top pylon of the ski lift was so buried that you could walk ontop of it.

Back on the ‘safe’ side of the resort, the powder was fresh, light and fluffy.  Iran’s ski slogan is ‘Iran – warm people, cold powder’ and its so true – the conditions were incredible – the best powder I’ve ever skied.

We had a small feeling of being watched throughout the day.  In the morning a man introduced himself to John and the boys in the lift and said he was the head of security at the British Embassy!  Throughout the day he kept popping up and making comments.

Dressed in the most outrageous ski gear he certainly didn’t seem to be there for the powder.  We joked about what was going on and drew a few best guesses to the reason for his presence.

We skied all day, and arrived back at the van exhausted and exhilarated.  The rumours were true – Iranian powder might just be the best in the world.

Mt Damavand – days 3, 4 and 5

Given the positive short term weather forecast, it naturally fell that the day after Dizin, we had to leave at 5am for Mt Damavand.  5am in the Olympic hotel reception, Northern Tehran with our bodes aching – no one seemed too happy at the prospect.

We left the Olympic complex in the same van, with the same driver who worked with us all week.  With us was Hussain – our trusty guide who had been assigned to the group by Mohammed – our contact to the Iranian Mountaineering Federation.  Hussain is on the National Mountaineering team, and has climbed in the Himalayas several times.  He looked and proved to be very fit and an excellent host, really looking after us.

We drove for an hour before stopping for breakfast on the very edge of Tehran.  Hussain wanted us to try something local…  It was similar to porridge, but more gelatinous, with bits of meat in it.  The boys ate it, but Duncan and I couldn’t stomach it at all, especially after Henry said he saw a large bag of fatty congealed red meat behind the counter…!  It was wrong!

We pushed on, feeling a little worse for wear after breakfast and arrived in Palour, the departure point for Mt Damavand.  We organised gear in the car park of the Iranian Mountaineering Federation building there.

The road to the starting point of the climb was closed due to avalanche (surprise surprise!) so we took an alternative.  It was the second time in a few days we had seen a road totally wiped out by an avalanche.  In the Dizin ski area, the amount of avalanche activity was second to none, unbelievable (we wore transceivers in the van!).  Our drive Medhi drove for an hour to an alternative starting point for the climb and as the road turned to drifts of snow, we stopped and geared up.  We all carried full avalanche rescue gear, sleeping bags, stoves, food and plenty of warm clothes.

Leaving the van, finally on skins and skis and after all the preparation – we were heading up the mountain.  The initial day is two hours of skinning, along a snowed up road which gradually winds upwards towards the slopes of the mountain.  The air was ice cold, and the views behind us spectacular – standing proud with any of the great Andean, Himalayan or alpine vista I’d seen before.  The higher we climbed the better the view became.

We were all carrying full packs, except Hussain who hired a porter to carry his gear to the first camp.  After a couple of hours of technically very easy skinning, we climbed over a small prominence on the slope and were greeted with an incredible view of the Mosque camp.

This is camp 1, and were we planned to stay for the night.  The golden Mosque silhouetted against the summit of Damavand was an inspiring sight.  Beautifully designed and vibrantly colourful, the Mosque contrasted against some of the garish alpine huts in we were used to around Chamonix.  That said, once entering the Mosque, we all realised we weren’t in for the comfort of the Alps…

Inside the Mosque was a single room, with a hard concrete floor and a thin rug covering half of it.  In the corner of one side was a large frozen puddle of ice.  For some outrageous reason, Duncan, John and myself had decided to not bring roll mats and were in for a grim night. After a short afternoon ski up the slope, during which I managed to break my G3 Binding (this is another story), we settled in for the night.  The temperature dropped significantly from 6 o’clock.  Katabatic winds picked up and things got very cold very quickly.

I experienced a grim nights sleep, very cold and uncomfortable literally sleeping on a pair of gloves for padding.

Around 10pm another group arrived and began playing music and cooking eggs.  It was quite a surreal situation, in a half sleep in a Mosque in Iran, listening to Chris de Burgh wondering how much I could buy an egg sandwich (or a roll matt) for.

The night passed slowly.  I woke up feeling like someone had superglued my joints together.  Despite the discomfort, a glorious day greeted us outside the Mosque.  We left at 8am, with a climb of 1500m to the next hut.  The moderate route up follows very wide snow fields leftwards, with the destination – the new hut at 4600m towering above.  It doesn’t look far, but the GPS told us the summit was 3.6 miles horizontally from the Mosque, with 2500 metres of uphill in between.  A huge distance.

As the temperature increased in the sun, we gradually gained height on our skis winding gradually back rightwards.  The heat was intense and we stripped off to t-shirts and unzipped salopettes.  The burning began, especially given that I had brought factor 15 sun cream by accident.

The next stage of the climb involved steep windslab slopes crossing from one of the large snow fields, over a ridge and onto the slope to the second hut.  I began touring up the steep slope, and using the sharp edges of my skis to gain height.  I felt good, and had toured up steeper stuff in the Alps.  Suddenly both skis unclipped, the G3 bindings just unclipped and popped open.  Both, at the same time…  I’d experienced this before with the G3 – the bindings are dreadful.  Given the steep nature of the slope I slid a few feet before stopping.  One of the skis shot off down the slope, but luckily was grabbed by Chris 30 metres below.  I was getting less and less patient with these bindings.  The design is dreadful.  I made a note to email the makers G3 as soon as I got down…

After the drama we climbed onto the ridge and waited for Henry to catch up.  Henry was carrying a huge (‘Henry’) pack with camera equipment, which was slowing him down.  We fired the JetBoil up to rehydrate whilst waiting, and replenished the sweat lost after the heat of the earlier climb.

Another 45 minutes of climbing brought us to the second hut.  This new second hut is 3 years old and very impressive.  Inside its cold, but the position on the mountain is spectacular.  Luckily the rooms had roll-mats on the bunks, and for 5 people the cost was a mere $45 USD.  I was relieved as I wasn’t keen for another glove bivi.

The Katabatic winds started around 4pm and again the temperature began to drop rapidly.  The arctic skyline was spectacular and showed how cold it really was high up.  Mount Damavand can experience summit temperatures of -60 degrees Celsius.  Even in the temperatures we experienced which were far less, you’d last about 10 minutes in a T-shirt.

After a great dinner cooked by the hut guardian, we prepared ourselves for the following day.  We planned to leave at 5am for the 1200m climb to the summit.  Given our expectations of the weather, we stuffed extra warm layers into our packs.  John on the other hand just decided to wear everything he had with him for bed, and slipped into his sleeping bag wearing the whole package – including a GoreTex suit!

Several hours later we left the hut under windy and cold conditions.  The temperature was  thankfully not as cold as expected, but still around -20 at 6am.  We climbed up wind blown slopes making OK progress.  Henry began to fall behind, keeping steady but slower pace.  He had traveled within 4 days from 10m at home, to 5000m on Damavand.  The rest of us had acclimatised in the mountains before leaving for Iran.  We ascended on skis for around 3 hours before deciding to continue on foot due to the snow conditions.

We still had 1000m metres to the summit.  After an hour of climbing along a prominent and safe ridge line, Henry decided to call it a day.  He had reached 5000m, and just was not going fast enough to reach the summit before the strong afternoon winds kicked off.

Its was a great effort, really sad to see him go down and we watched him as make his ski descent back to the hut.

The distances on Damavand are very deceiving.  In the Alps, its easy to judge roughly how long it takes to go from a to b by looking at the slope and surrounding mountains.  In the Himalayas, or on larger peaks than the Alps, such as Damavand everything goes wrong.    Distances that look short take hours and slopes that look tiny turn into huge expanses spreading as far as you can see.  The upper section of Damavand is like this, and gradually we toiled up the ridge making progress towards the false summit that awaited us at 5200m.  The wind picked up on the upper part of the mountain and the group met at the final sheltered spot before moving up from the ridge and onto the exposed summit slopes.  Here in the safety of the rocky shelter, we could just smell sulphur from the vents on the summit slopes.  The rocks had a very mild tinge of yellow, but nothing compared to what awaited us above.

We set off, knowing there was no break between our current position and the summit.  The upper slope spread away up gradual switch backs towards the ridge at the top.  A plume of sulphur bellowed from the top of the mountain, thankfully with the wind being pushed away from the summit itself.  The rocks turned to a yellow tinge then very yellow, and the air became rife with a bitter tasting sulphurous odour.  Hunching into the windy, I climbed upwards, pace dictated by a mild headache and the oxygen-less air.

After reaching the summit slope and rounding a small rocky promontory I was confronted with a fantastic view of a sulphur vent billowing from the upper slope.  The smoke poured from the ridge into space and the sound was incredible with the wind.  A video of this is below.

After videoing the vent, I climbed onwards and a few minutes later reached the summit, the highest point in Iran and the Middle East.  The date was 19th March, and four years previously my Dad had passed away after a long illness.  My Dad was deep down proud of my climbing, and the thought was with me as I made the final few steps to the top.

On top was Hussain, who summited a few minutes before me.  We celebrated and waited for the boys to arrive.  The summit temperature was only around -20 so out of the wind was bearable.  We sheltered in a small alcove between two rocks.  The view of the surrounding mountains was out of this world, spectacular and different to mountain panoramas of the Alps.  On the summit there was a strange bronze sculpture and two frozen, mummified sacrificed animals that looked like goats.  When the boys arrived, we took some quick pictures and quickly descended.

After 100m of walking downhill, we stopped to put our skis on and begin the ski.  We planned to ski all the way to road-head that day, so had to be quick.  As I was putting my skis on, I fell through the crusty snow which had about a half metre gap between the snow and the rocky slope underneath.  A huge plume of sulphur escaped and went straight up my nose and in my lungs.  It was grim and I retched with the acrid taste of it.  Most of the group had a banging headache which prevented much continuous ski style as we set off.  After a few turns, we had to stop and let the headache recede before continuing down.  Chris was skiing telemark at 5500m which just looked exhausting to even watch.

The lower we went, the lighter our heads and better our turns became.  The snow was fantastic from the summit to the hut.  We stopped for a few photographs and arrived at the hut 45 minutes after setting off.  Henry met us at the hut, and we quickly packed up before carrying on to thick air, food and the pleasures of the valley 1000’s of metres below.  Packing our gear in the hut, we all had a thick layer of sulphur on our faces and clothes.  All our gear stank of it.

We clipped in outside the hut and started the second stage of our descent to the Mosque and then the valley.  The snow gradually got worse and with tired legs a few people stacked it.  As we crossed huge couloirs and ridges, linking the lines together and aiming for the road far below.  The daylight got better and better and we took hundreds of photos with Damavand in the background.  In one couloir a Iranian wolf ran across the slope with a dead animal in its mouth.  We also saw a Golden Eagle circling above the same couloir lower down.

Eventually we reached the golden Mosque camp, and continued down down down.  The snow got worse the lower we went, providing hilarity with some outrageous cross skied stacks.  It was the worst snow I’d ever skied.  In a little under a week in Iran, I’d skied the best and worst snow of my life, but loved every minute of it.

Five hours later we checked into the Hotel Damavand.  The hotel had large baths in the basement and the other lads were already inside the steaming hot water.  The same sulphur that billows from the summit of Damavand was heating the bath water we lounged around in.  I climbed inside and aching legs and arms felt instantly soothed.  We were in great spirits, and had full stomaches after finishing the final descent to the road head and eating a huge meal at a local restaurant.  Our hotel was in a place called Larijan, where every building is heated by the natural hot water.

Despite being knackered, everyone was in great spirits – less than 5 days in Iran and we’d already climbed our objective and had some truly unique experiences.  It was at this point that Madhi, our faithful taxi driver opened the door and stood proudly in front of us with baggy white Y-fronts and a long piece of rubber tube used to guide the water into the bath in his hand.  He laughed but not as hard as we did, realising how lucky we were to see such an outrageous sight.  Welcome to Iran, the land of warm people and ice cold powder.