Iran Alborz Mountain Ski Touring

Overview

Iran is Asia's most unexpected ski destination: an hour above Tehran's traffic the Alborz wall rises into genuinely big mountains, and the dormant volcano Damavand - at 5,610 metres the highest peak in the Middle East - makes a superb ski-mountaineering objective. Warm up at Dizin and Shemshak, resorts with vintage lifts, empty midweek pistes and a young, welcoming local ski scene, and use the Tochal gondola out of Tehran itself, which rises to about 3,740 metres with a hut for acclimatisation nights. Then Damavand: skinning above 5,000 metres with sulphur drifting from the crater rim and the whole Alborz range below is a summit day to measure all others against. The season has a subtlety: the resorts run December to April, but Damavand carries dangerous wind-slab in deep winter, and most ski ascents go in April and May once the snowpack consolidates. Altitude, not technique, is what turns parties around, so respect the acclimatisation schedule. A local mountain guide is effectively mandatory on the volcano, and visas need arranging well in advance - check current entry advice for your nationality. Eight days with guide, transport and huts runs about £1,500, remarkable value for 5,000-metre skiing.

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Prefilled for 1 January 2027 — the next best-season window. Search on partner sites — opens in a new tab.