In Brief

Somehow I slipped behind in the blogging. But the red line on the map is up to date. I'm in Tabriz. And with changes of plan it looks like my final destination. My Visa expires on the 26th, and work is calling, so I'm getting on a plane from Tabriz. Only six days left in Iran.

It has felt like time was running short for a while now, so I haven't wanted to spend it in a coffeenet. But there's plenty of blog still to come. Episodes will include Castles of the Assassins, trailer gets run over, bike on a mule, interesting times in Tehran, tea leaves of Lahijan, swimming in the Caspian, Throne of Solomon and riding across mountains. So many mountains.

Tehran and away

So I got my visa extended. Checked out some of the sights I never quite got to see last time with all the running around. And tomorrow I'm away. Had enough of this city. Time to go back to the hills.
West and North. Caspian, Tabriz, Armenia, here I come.

Sanity check

I've been spending a lot of time by myself. Or effectively by myself, given my ability to communicate. So I've started to wonder if my sense of perspective is starting to slip. For some reason I find these biscuits funny.


Yes, there's inappropriate usage of Santa. And BOOBA. It has Boob in it. That has a peurile entertainment value. But it's "The Bit Cookie" that gets me. Every time. I don't even know how it's funny. It kills me.

Also, they're pretty good cookies.

Giro d'Alborz - stage 3

I had a short day yesterday. Got prepared. Had an early night. Slept well. I dress. Eat bread and dates. I'm pedalling at 5:30. The road is wet but the sky isn't. I'm still following the river. It's beautiful country.


I wind in and out of each gully that feeds the valley. With small downs, but steadily going up.

After a couple of hours it starts to spit. I go up a short driveway and shelter under the eve of a garage. I eat some cookies. Drink sugar and salt water. It's chilly. I've started out wearing my windproof cycling jacket. I get the waterproof jacket out of the bag. I have to look after myself today. No getting wet and cold. No dehydration. No hunger. My Visa expires tomorrow. I have to get back to Tehran today. The shower doesn't turn into much. I tuck the waterproof jacket between the tent and the main bag. I ride on.

After 4 hours on the bike I stop for a leak. When I get on again, this is what's in front of me:

The zigzag lines don't show up that well at this image resolution. But it's the end of the valley. Time to climb up and out. I'm ready for it. Yeah, that white patch is snow. I've picked up a bit of altitude. I'm down in the lowest gear and I turn the pedals over.

Before I get to the zigzags I can see, I go way right. Into a fold in the mountain. My legs and lungs burn. Have to get to the turn at least. I've only been back on eight minutes. At the turn I get a picture of Darband Sar.

Darband Sar 4542m

My legs and lungs burn. I've only been back on five minutes. Have to get to the next turn at least. I get to the next turn and stop. I lean my elbows on the handlebars and breathe hard. I realise I'm breathing fast and shallow so I slow it down.

My legs and lungs burn. I've only been back on two minutes. Have to make it to the next turn. The zigzags are shorter now. I should be able to make it. I get to the next turn and don't stop. I don't stop again. There's no anger fuelling this climb. There's just resignation. This is my life now. Just turning the pedals. Might as well get on with it.

It takes fifty minutes for the zigzags. On the top I savour the cool air and get pictures in both directions. I thought it would be down from here to the highway, but it looks like another zigzag climb first. That takes some of the fun out of the huge downhill I've got coming.

The valley behind. I've come through all those mountains.

First summit of the day

The road ahead

I don't hurry off the top. It's nice up here. When I go, it's quickly apparent that it won't be fast and fun. The seal is broken on most of the corners, so I have to ride it slow, pick a good line and wince as I crash through the bumps. I loop around a group of wild horses. They rear and gallop when I pass below them. There are beekeepers tending hives. Even with my jacket it's cold, but the chill eases as I get lower. I normally use two fingers on the brake and keep two round the grip. When my fingers ache I put another one to the brake. Now there's no room left between the brake lever and the grip. Four fingers on the brake.

I'm speeding up into a straighter section, must be near the bottom, when the trailer threshes. Flat tyre. I take out the offending metal swarf. Where is all this swarf coming from? Must be from parts shearing off these rubbish cars. I change the tube. My stomach says lunchtime anyway. It's beaten the clock, but it's close. I sit on a rock. Dry biscuits and tuna. And dates. A car passes, then turns around 100m up. Must be coming to see if I'm ok. No, just changed their mind about the hill.

I cruise the rest of the way to the bottom and start with the next climb. There's roadworks. They've ripped up the top two inches of seal in strips and patches. Sometimes I can connect up the seal, other times I have to ride the ripped stuff. At least they're fixing it. And it gives me something different to think about. It's the same all the way up. I pass the roadworks gang sitting in the grass drinking tea. They offer some but I can't stop. I'm on the last stretch to the summit when there's great views down the valley. I'm glad I'm not going down there. I take some photos.

Almost at summit number two for the day.

I don't bother stopping at the top. The roadworks are the same on the way down. Slower than I would like, but at least I'm not pedalling. It looks like a cement works at the bottom. Civilization. Yuck. The last zigzag is at the cement works gate, then I come out on the highway at the elbow of a hairpin. There are cars stopped and a few shops and restaurants. I probably should get some food and drink. But I don't want to stop. This highway comes from the Caspian. I'm already a long way up. It can't be too far to the summit, then it's down into Tehran.

I don't enjoy being in traffic again. Specially these idiots. There's no shoulder. It's hairpin after hairpin. There's constant near-death overtaking. I don't really care except when it affects me. I take to the gravel a few times. It's a rest anyway.

Kurdish women use the pull off areas to sell pickled green walnuts. It doesn't look like there's a lot of takers.

I sweat and turn the pedals. I mark my progress with the helpful signs spaced at 100m intervals. Uphill. Windey.

You don't say!

Then a different sign. Tunnel. Kandovan tunnel. The ride over the summit is supposed to be gorgeous. And with all the traffic going through the tunnel, I'd have it to myself. I don't like tunnels. Nowhere to go to avoid cars. No extraction. Choking on fumes. No light. Can't see what sort of road you've got coming. I've probably got time. It's 1:30. I eat roasted almonds and look up. It's not that high.

Insanity eludes me. I push the caked mud off my rear reflector and switch on my lights. I go into the tunnel. It's downhill. A car passes me near the start, but after that I'm the only one going my way. I just have to hope no-one coming the other way decides to overtake. I watch the light grow smaller in the mirror. There's no light in front. The road dips forward, and there's the exit. I'm out.

It's fast going down. I stay off the brakes as much as I can. There's a bus gaining on me in the straights. I give it some pedal. I like having my own piece of road. Eventually he gets me and I let him go first on a hairpin.

Karaj 75. Tehran 105. But I'm not going that way. Gachsar 5. That's where I turn. At the junction there's billboards for hotels. It's another river valley, and people are picnicking on the bank. I'm going up river. It's not that steep, but my legs don't feel like more up. At 2 I stop for my own riverbank picnic. Digestives. These ones taste burnt or something. Not burnt. Too much baking powder. Or something. They're not good. I stop a few short of the whole packet.

I rest for half an hour. I'm hardly back on the bike when it clouds up. Thunder cracks. Spits. I put on the rain jacket. Hail. Big enough to feel on my shoulder through two jackets and a cycle jersey. I'm glad I've got a helmet. The tyres hose me. Not this again.

There's a restaurant that's closed. I lean the bike against the wall, and take up a seat in the doorway. Three steps up I'm still getting splashed from the iced water gushing off the roof. I lean my head back against the jamb and close my eyes.

When I wake up it's eased. It's been half an hour. Just a light spit now. The clouds look like they're getting lighter. I'll go.

I keep crawling up the valley. Wasn't it only supposed to be 13 from the turn to the skifield? That might have been to a hotel. i've passed a lot of hotels already. But when I get to the skifield, Dizin, I just have to cross the 5km summer road to Shemshak skifield, then it's 55km downhill into Tehran.

I turn a corner and here's the skifield. The grassy slopes are covered with trails and ski lifts. Where does the road go? There's no obvious pass. There's a car coming down from the top. A lot of people are going to the top. Oh God.

After ten and a half hours and three summits, I arrive at this. Is this some kind of a joke?

Dizin skifield has a catalogue drop of 900m, with the upper slopes around 3500m. The road goes over the top. Higher than the top chairlift. This is ridiculous. When I start, I can smell the burning brake linings of the cars coming down. I could just hold onto somebody's window. Nobody stops. People clap, but it doesn't mean anything. There's a long way to go.

I like it much better from this side. Looking back from the top.

There aren't any words to express how happy I am when I get to the top. There aren't any words I can publish to express the hour and three quarters before that. I've left two dying cars stranded on the hill. Cars that passed me are stopped on top. People turn back from the view and I get a series of slow claps. I'm grinning. The driver of a 4WD coming from the other side almost breaks his neck with the wide-eyed double take as he passes.

It's cold so I don't savour it for long. The seal is broken again on the way down, so it's more hard braking and bouncing. At the bottom of the steep part I stop and eat. 7:30. 55km downhill, should get in around 9:30. It's all going well. It's a resort village strung along a narrow valley and gorge. I cruise fast through it as it gets dark.

Then there's a sign, Tehran right. I go right. It's uphill. What? This is total crap. I crawl up zigzag after zigzag in the dark, my way lit by corn roasting on hot coals. It's agonisingly slow. I'm barely moving. I don't really have anything left. The sugar is still going in, but not producing much output. I finally, achingly get to the top.

Fifteen hours in I'm ready to see these lights. Tehran.

It can only be downhill from here. It turns into an Expressway, and there it is. City Lights. Almost done. just have to survive the traffic. At one of the first intersections a car shunts my trailer. The tyre is wedged under his bumper and I can't pull it out. I yell and signal him to back up. On the other side of the intersection I check the wheel. It's still fairly round. Now I take pre-emptive yelling and gesticulating to a whole new level. An hour and a half takes me back into familiar territory. I stop at a juice bar for Carrot juice with icecream. Yes, that's right, the icecream goes in the carrot juice. It's really good.

Not a bad day. Well, it was an awful day really, for the most part, but it sure had it's moments. I figure I've climbed about 10,000m in the last week. 35,000 feet. It's an estimate. I've probably done more.

Giro d'Alborz - stage 2

The stroll back to base camp was pleasant. I repack the trailer, change into cycling attire and head down around midday. The track is dry enough but it's been rutted to hell. It would be fast and fun on a mountain bike. I'm on the brakes hard trying not to beat the trailer to death. I'm also trying to beat the weather. Thunder clouds gather and start to rumble around the top. I keep on the edge of it as it fills downwards, and only get a few cold drops. Same timing as yesterday. And two days before.

Back on the seal is slow too. All the rain has washed sand and grit all over the road. I take it slow through the corners. I roll through Reyneh without stopping. Ducking my head slightly as I pass the teahouse. As if that makes a flourescent yellow guy on a bike less conspicuous.

It's six km to a little village called Ab Garm. In a piece of brilliant naming, it translates literally as Hot Water. I get a room, then set about rehydrating and refueling myself with a vengeance. Then I wash and dry everything. All my rancid clothes. And the trailer. I soak in one of the thermal pools. I can't take it for long. I buy a few supplies for the road. Eat more food. A lot more. A whole fish, two plates of rice, a stack of bread, yoghurt, an onion, tomatoes. The great thing about eating sitting on the carpet is that no matter how stuffed you are, when you stop eating and lean back on the cushion, you feel better. I soak more. And have the best sleep.

Ab Garm

Mountain villages across the valley

I wake up with my alarm at 5 as usual for cycling days. I wake up again at 9. I packed last night so I'm on the road at 9:30. I'm going to go North 40km. Further down the valley, towards the Caspian. Into the green on my map. The scale is on the other half, so I don't know what it means exactly, but it's heading back to sea level. Then I'm going to go West, up a river valley through the heart of the Alborz Mountains. It looks like 55km to Baladeh, the only significant town, then another 65km to join the highway below the summit of Kandovan Pass. From there I close the loop South back into Tehran, maybe 70km. I have 2 days to do it. The km's aren't so big. But like I said before: in the mountain stages it's about altitude.

Stage 1 was Tehran to Reyneh. I had a three day interlude. Now, for Stage 2, I want to get to the summit of Kandovan. Leave myself a relatively easy day for tomorrow.

There's some huge steep downhill for the 40km. There's too much traffic. Too much slow traffic. I'm more than fast enough to carve out my own piece of road on downhills like this. But I keep getting jammed up in lines of cars behind slow trucks. And there's enough climbing to make my legs feel. Somehow it takes almost 2 hours to descend 1500m.

Would be a better cycle if more cars were following these road signs.

There's no English sign at my turn off. But there's no other roads. I refill my water bottles from a hose. When I get on again my left knee clicks. With every down stroke of the pedal a click from my kneecap. Every different angle of foot, ankle, thigh, a different click. I stop. Eat. Massage my thigh just above the kneecap. Pushing the tendon to the outside.

When I ride again there's no click. But I feel fragile. I soon forget the knee. I climb up through a steep river gorge. It's narrow, so I have to go up and over every spur. The place is filled with quarries. And quarry trucks. Above and below there's hammering. There's no wind and the heat comes off the rocks like a blast furnace. When I look down sweat drips off my helmet rim, temples, eyebrows, cheeks, nose and chin. I'm going so slow some drops hit my shoes and they change from light to dark blue. I'm glad the speedo isn't working. It would make me cry.


I've been at altitude. The oxygen should be so thick down here my lungs don't know what to do with it all. But I'm breathing hard. My legs burn.

When I get a short downhill, it takes me to river level. I've climbed, but so has the river. That's altitude in the bank.


It's not a deep gorge anymore, but still narrow. I don't get far from the river, but I'm still up and down every spur. I stop for lunch at two. When I start riding again after half an hour it's cooler. Clouds cover the sun. Then there's a spit. A band of dark clouds behind me. I keep ahead of it for a while. I think about stopping to put on my jacket, but I'm keeping ahead. There's thunder behind too.

The blue that I'm aiming for gets cloudy too. I still think I'm keeping ahead, but every time the spits catch me they get heavier. Eventually I'm just riding in the rain. On the uphills I generate enough heat to not be cold. On the downhills I shiver. I try not to. It's like hiccups. You can suppress them for a while but then when one comes it's violent. I almost shiver myself right off the bike. Water streams across the road, and the spray from the tyres hoses my legs and back.


The rain eases as I ride up into a village. I've ridden an hour since lunch. With the extra climbing clothes, I don't have room for the 6 litres of water I was carrying on the trailer previously. So I stop at the shop for more water. I've just stopped shivering but I eat ice cream anyway. It freezes my brain. I get a heap of eclair toffees. He counts them out. 200 rial each. I take 30. Is this Baladeh? I can't even hope it is. Baladeh is 20km. That means I've done 35 kilometres since the turn off. I turned off at 11:30, so... I can't continue the maths. It's too depressing.

I head out of the village and maybe it's the icecream. Maybe it's the eclairs that I'm chewing non-stop, but my legs feel fine now. I'm doing better speeds. it's not a painstaking crawl. The scenery changes faster. It's taken me this long to get warmed up. At the pace I was going it could be 2 hours to Baladeh, then I should get a couple more hours in before finding a spot to camp. The weather seems to have finished it's outburst. I won't make it to the top of Kandovan, but maybe I'll get to the head of this valley.


After half an hour the sky goes black. There's thunder from every direction and I'm getting hosed with hail.

It's taken me an hour for the 20km to Baladeh. I rid through the long main street, but there's nothing that looks like a hotel. I want to keep riding. My legs have just settled into their work. Ready for a few more hours. If I don't get a hotel here, I'm camping. I don't think the tent will keep out much of this water. I'm shivering again. I go into a restaurant to ask where there is a hotel. Here. How much? 10. Can I look. The man gives a key to a boy and I follow him outside, through a doorway and up steep narrow stairs. The boy has turned the key in the lock but the door won't open. He goes back down and I wait dripping. The man comes. He tries the key. He pushes the door but it won't move. He shoulders the door hard and it crashes open. Double bed. Bathroom. No AC. Won't need that anyway. It'll do. The man leaves me. I carry up the trailer first. Then the bike. Don't know why I bothered washing the mud off the trailer and bag.

I run the shower and take off my shoes. The water's still not warm. Crap. I go down and ask the man. Hot water? What time? He does the eyebrow thing. At home when you nod your head upwards and raise your eyebrows it's a greeting. Here, I encountered it at a lot of bikeshops. From context I've worked out that it means either "I don't have any," "get real" or "get lost."

The bathroom is dark, so I flip on the switch. No light. I wash the road spray and grit off my arms and legs under the cold tap. The floor doesn't drain. I dry myself and turn on the light in the bedroom. Nothing. I take the working bulb from the hall and put it in my room. Still nothing. 10. I should have negotiated.

By the time I've done all this the thunder has stopped. It's clear outside. Blue sky. I could have done another three hours, and be camping by the river in a grassy meadow with wildflowers. Instead I'm in this dump with no power, a scum pond in the bathroom, and probably bed bugs.

The short day today has left me a long day tomorrow. I pore over the different maps. I have about 6 that cover various parts of tomorrow's ride. No matter how much I look, it still looks like a big day.

I stroll the length of town. The bread smells good, but I can't be bothered with the queue. I buy sugar to mix in my water, and biscuits. I'm going to need a lot of sugar. I go back to my restaurant for dinner. There aren't any others. Well, kebab it is then. Lord of the Rings starts on TV. I watch the soaring opening sequence through the mountains and feel a little bit homesick. Frodo sounds funny talking Farsi. I don't stay to hear what Gollum sounds like. I have an early start tomorrow.

Mt Damavand - summit push

I wake up at 5, before the light starts, to look at the weather. There's some cloud. I wait for more light to get a better look at the cloud. I stab my knife into the cream carton, and it goes right through into my finger. No blood. Then I cut three sides to open a flap. At this temperature the cream is thick. I cut chunks of it onto bread and eat it with dates.

It's common to start an alpine climb before the light, but my only torch is the blinking yellow LED bike light. Not much use. And I need to be sure of the weather. Alone, at altitude, with this equipment, this is a fair weather climb.

My equipment has been bolstered significantly since leaving Tehran. At base camp, someone left a walking stick. Not an ice axe, but a lot better than nothing. Also, someone descending that day left their waterproof jacket and trousers hanging in the shelter. Score.

Under one of the blankets I found a windproof fleece balaclava and a fleece neck gaiter. All these gave me much confidence. Much more confidence. I didn't start with much.

My light leather hiking boots didn't get too wet on the way up yesterday. I was able to dry the footbeds in the evening sun. I tucked the inside out socks between my two shirts and left them there till morning. I don't know why I didn't get two pairs of socks. It's because I didn't want to carry any more stuff than I had to on the bike.

I start out at 6. Cloud comes and goes. Sometimes above, sometimes below, sometimes in it.

Up into the cloud.

Clear below

Clear above

Cloud below

The new snow has had 36 hours to settle. There's been a decent freeze and it's good walking. I follow a ridge of rock and snow. Pretty quickly it's too hot for the "warm" jacket. It's army surplus cotton canvas, with a fluffy acrylic liner and a hood. I bargained it down to $15, but then I only had $12.50, so I got it for that. There's no wind at all.

When the cloud comes in my optimism fades. But I look out at the weather and see if there's any real change. There isn't. When I'm in the sun it gets hot. I thought I was reasonably fit, and had a pretty good acclimatisation. But it's hard. I try to keep moving.

As it gets later in the morning the snow softens. I aim for the rocks. I jump up a few rocks at a time. Conserving momentum. It's more efficient. But after a few leaping steps my head spins. It goes black behind my eyes. The higher I get the worse it gets. After a while I decide to stick to a slow plod. There are some headaches. It could be altitude, or it might be dehydration. I'm used to drinking a lot of water. But I couldn't carry much up in my small bag. I spent yesterday afternoon refilling all the bottles from the running eves. But still, it's less than I would usually drink.

I get over the first shoulder and I can see further up the mountain. It's clear on top and there's a white puff. Volcanic smoke. That must be the top. Now when the sun comes out I sweat. I think about taking off the rain jacket, but the sun comes and goes too much to bother. From the top I'll look down into smoggy yellow Tehran to the South. And when the cloud shifts I'll look North across the gas rigs scattered on the gray Caspian.

Sunscreen and sweat

Snow and shivers

There's some icier patches and I think how much happier I would be with some stiff boots and an iceaxe. I must be getting pretty close. Snow starts to fall. There's been the odd snowflake before when I've been in cloud. This is graupel. It's a snowflake that has met super-cooled water, which has frozen on to the flake as rime ice, forming a sphere. 5mm diameter. Soft like snow, round like hail. They land and roll down hill, stopping in my footprints. It means there's convective winds. It may not be a good sign.

Thunder cracks hard above my head. Before it has finished rolling out I've taken two steps down. Thunder is not fair weather. In five minutes I'm back at the flattish spot where I'd stopped twenty five minutes earlier to eat a biscuit and answer natures call in the sunshine.

I'm in the sun again. It's 12:25. I was so close. I must have been 200m short. If I'd just started earlier. Or chosen a better route. Or had bigger balls. More thunder peels away my second-guessing. The sun is coming through a narrow shaft through layers of dark cloud. This has changed. It's not coming in and out. It's just coming in. The shaft closes, and I'm in thick cloud again. The graupel is heavier. There's wind now. It's time to get the hell out of here.

I put the army jacket on and replace the waterproof jacket. I put on the balaclava, folded as a hat. I pull on the waterproof trousers. My feet have been wet for hours, but I've been generating enough body heat for them to not get too cold. Now they will get cold. I pull cycling ankle socks onto my hands as thumbless mittens. I start down, following my tracks. The visibility is nothing. I have to track hard to keep in my footprints. Where I've gone over rocks there aren't prints. Each time I find tracks again is a relief.

The conditions are the same all the way to the hut. I recognise the changes in slope and features of rock and snow, so I know as I'm getting closer. Across the last snow slope I push big holes through the crust and sink up to my knees.

At the hut there's no water running off the eves. Too cold. Before I go inside I go down to the old hut to check for water. There's none.

I go in and change into my dry clothes. Two pairs of ankle socks, a pair of light slacks, two light shirts and a $12 army jacket. It's not the ideal clothing for waiting out a snowstorm in a stone hut at 4000m. It's only taken an hour to get down. I have a long afternoon in my coccoon of horse blankets.

I have found six blankets in the hut. Horse blankets. Horse blankets by weight. Horse blankets by greasy feel. Horse blankets by smell too if it was warm enough for smells to survive. I spend the afternoon in the coccoon, dividing the time between sunflower seeds and Koran. I take some photos, just for the activity.

My nest of horse blankets

The most prison-cell inspired mountain hut I've seen

At six p.m. it's lighter. I go out for a look. It isn't sunny, but the world has expanded from a 10m diameter. The snow has stopped. There isn't even a dimple left of my tracks.

I calculate the options for another attempt. With no stove, body heat is my only way to melt snow for water. And I don't have much of that to spare. Everything is wet. I can't get it dry. I can't start the climb wet. Today was the 21st. My Visa expires on the 25th. If I go down to regroup I'll have to cycle back to Tehran the way I came, or I won't have time to cycle at all. Neither of those sound good.

As the light fades I eat a chicken cassserole out of a foil-lidded foil tray. The Australians gave it to me. At least it's a change from bread and Tuna. I don't sleep all night. My left hip aches. I can't find a comfortable position. It's the weight of the blankets. On my back the weight pushes my feet down, twisting my leg in or out all the way to the hip. On my side the blankets crush my pelvis. I can't keep still. I need a hip replacement. I just want to sleep. Why won't it stop. Knowing it's the dehydration, not the hip, doesn't help. When there's light in the window I get a fitful couple of hours.

I finish the cream with bread. Pack and head out. I take the edge off the icy wet sock misery by leaving a pair of ankle socks on underneath. It's nice now. But the mountain has a lenticular cap. It's going to get messy up here. I'm going to the hot springs. Another good thing about volcanoes.

Damavand is under that lenticular cloud

Mountain style!

Cool rock shapes. Another good thing about volcanoes. As if you needed another one.

Mt Damavand - to Camp 3

I'm on the road at quarter to six, well slept and breakfasted. There's some traffic already, but I've mapped the fastest way onto the expressway. It doesn't quite work. When I get there, there's no onramp in my direction. I stay with the city streets for a while longer until I find an entry. Then it's just a matter of grinding uphill. I noticed as soon as I was on the bike that the speedo wasn't working. I lost the magnet from my spoke somewhere in my bike shop travels. But it doesn't matter. This is a mountain stage. It's all about elevation.

Without speed and distance, the speedo just shows time. So I take off my watch. That's one less random tanline.

I go uphill for two hours, past truck after truck on the roadside selling watermelons. Then I plunge downhill hard for five minutes. There's no fun in it. I lose most of what I've gained. Then I grind on again for an hour and a half. Down for eight minutes, not as hard. Through a town. Still losing a lot. Then grinding up ugain.

This time it's the real climb. There's traffic banked up behind slow trucks in low gear. It looks like holiday traffic. The families and couples all stare and wave. They can't believe their eyes. It is rather insane.

Anger keeps me going on this hill. Anger at the road for not yielding. Anger at the pain. Anger at the weakness that lets me feel the pain. I won't stop. I will have this road. This mountain. I will eat them up. I will own them.

At two o'clock I jump over a concrete edge barrier for a leak. I have lunch. Sitting there on sharp stones, the concrete at my back seperating me from roaring traffic, I drift to sleep. It is siesta time. So I lie down, distributing my weight so no stone is too sharp. And sleep until 3:30.

Five more minutes on the bike and I'm into a tunnel. Then out and on the summit. There's shops and restaurants. I don't bother stopping. The down hill is huge. I'm on the brakes hard most of the way. There's traffic, so I don't get room to ride a good line, and the shoulders and corners are all loose stones. Again, there's no fun in it. It's just altitude wasted.

When the steepness relents there's a village, with a statue of a mountaineer. This is Polur. I ask directions to Reyneh. I get off the highway, and climb gently up. The slopes are lush green and there are cars stopped everywhere with people collecting wild herbs and bunches of red poppies. I round a corner and there's Damavand.

Kuh e Damavand

If I'd left Tehran when I planned to, this probably would have been my summit day. But equipment and bike repairs weren't the only things keeping me back. My bowel motion to meal ratio had been up at 1:1 for a couple of days. About 300% of optimal output. I had a day without eating, which put the bowel motion to day ratio back into the normal range, but didn't really help with bowel motion to meal. And when I started eating again it was still 1:1. That was yesterday. I thought I'd just ride today anyway. Maybe cycling is the cure.

A sign post arrives. It points up a dirt track. To Gosfand Sara, Mt Damavand Base Camp. It's after 6. If I'd bought food already I could have camped here and gone up tomorrow. Reyneh was supposed to be at this turnoff. But it's not. This is what the guy in Polur meant when he said I didn't have to go to Reyneh. Crap. Another downhill without fun. I'll be going back up this tomorrow.

In Reyneh I get a stack of bread from the bakery. There's some wierd communication about number of loaves and price. They're flat. Are they still loaves when they're flat? Anyway, I end up with 12. It's probably more than I need. At the grocery store I get more essentials. Tuna, dates and Digestives. I want nuts - serious energy, but the closest they have is sunflower seeds.

Since I'm in town I might as well stay off the bread diet for one more meal. I go into the restaurant. Amazingly they don't have kebabs. Or rice. Or anything really. It's more of a teahouse. I get meat and tomatos with bread. It's not what I want. I can't even bring myself to chew most of it, but I know I need the fuel, so I swallow it like medicine.

The guy is friendly. No English, but we chat. It's a little bit painful, but he looks up words in my phrasebook to ask questions. He invites me to stay at his house. It takes ten minutes with the phrasebook, and it's still mostly sign language. All I want to do now is sleep, and in the morning go up early. Maybe I'm too tired to find a tent site. Maybe I don't want to get back on the bike. Maybe it's because I know I'll be going back uphill. I don't know why. But I say yes.

I hang around the shop until it closes. I'm so tired. But people come and smoke Qalyan and drink tea and eat and want to talk. It kills me. I have to sleep. His wife and daughter leave when we arrive. Their house is only one room. I drink tea, for politeness, then I sleep at 11:30. Finally.

In the morning we go back to the shop for breakfast. The same customers are there, eating the same thing: dizi. That's what they call it here, but I would call it ab-gusht. It's popular. I'll explain another time. It's ten before I get going. It takes me one muttering hour to get back up to the dirt track.

Before I go up I stop for bread and dates. Two cars try to go up the track but they get stuck in the first 50 metres and have to reverse down out of the ruts. I start riding in the low gears, avoiding the ruts and rocks, and the track gets better after the first bit. I enjoy it.

Still enjoying it.

There's a fork. I take the one with signs, even though they're in Farsi. After a couple of minutes there's a car in the road, and the man and woman are out talking to a shepherd. I go over to ask if this is the right way to Gosfand Sara. As I ask it starts to spit. It is the right way. By the time we are at the road again it is hail.

They invite me to sit in the car with them. I eat watermelon and wait for the shower to pass. Thunder starts. After two vast pieces of melon, it's clearly not passing. I'm going to go. They say it's three kilometres further. Outside the car the visibility is down to condition 1. Less than 10m. And there's contrast here, it's not just all white. The lady gives me cucumbers. Then a carton of cream. I don't get a jacket out. It's raining too heavy. By the time I did that everything in my bag would be saturated. More of a rainy sleet.

I ride about twenty metres, then the wheels spin. I can't start again. The dust has turned to slush. I try to push the bike. The bike slips sideways into a rut. When I get one wheel straight the other slips. when I get both wheels straight the trailer goes sideways. I push. The tyres are huge donuts of mud. The brakes acquire mud until they are so clotted the wheels won't turn. I push at it with my fingers but I can't get ot off. I free enough for the wheels to tun. I push. The wheels haven't revolved once and they stop turning again. I push. The trailer doesn't track. It's slides at an angle to the bike across the sloping road. I push. The trailer is a plow. I'm freezing. I get the bike up onto the grass. It's not really grass. It's tufts of vegetation and rocks with the same mud in between. It's no better. It's so cold. I'll never get there like this. I have to leave the bike. I wrestle the bag off the trailer and onto my shoulder. I should lock the bike. But I can't get the key. I should leave the lock unlocked for moments like this. I slide and slip up the track. A momentary gap in the cloud shows me a golden spire above. I know I'm going to make it. It still takes forever to get there, numb, through thick cloud, hail, rain sleet and peeling thunder.

When I walk into the compound, I can barely see most of it in the gloom. Inside a doorway there's maybe ten men cowering in the dark. They've come off Damavand today. I put my things down in a corner and start looking for dry clothes and a towel. I'm given tea. A guy comes in, he's from the Mountaineering Federation. If there's anything I need, ask him. Is there a shower? He looks at me like I'm an idiot. What do they have? Well, nothing. Is there a toilet? Everywhere is toilet. It's better behind a rock.

I wash the mud off my arms and legs under the icy torrent from the eves. I change into dry clothes. I'm given tea. I don't really warm up. Groups come off the mountain most of the afternoon, and the cars disappear from the compound, until I'm the only one left cowering in the dark.

Afternoon view from the shelter at Gusfand Sara, Damavand Base Camp.

I'm glad when it get's dark, because I can get into my sleeping bag. My ultra-lite sleeping bag. It's a horrible damp penetrating cold. With silk liner, bivvy bag and all my clothes it takes most of the night to stop freezing.

I'm glad when it gets light because it means I can get up and start moving. Generate some body heat. There's no rain. The cloud layer is just below and above is Damavand. There's a lot of new snow.

I head down into the cloud to retrieve the bike. Hoping it's still there. It is.

In the hour it takes to get back to base camp, the cloud has risen. I decide to wait. I spend most of the morning sitting on a piece of cardboard in the doorway eating sunflower seeds. Husking them with my mouth.

Damavand in the morning. Compare snow cover with day before.

Right where I left her

The cloud beats me back to Base Camp

When I've eaten a whole packet of sunflower seeds, I decide it's time to get stuck into that Koran I've been towing around for two months. In my sleeping bag.

I'm asleep when the Australians arrive. I met them in Esfahan. It sounded like we would be here at about the same time. I didn't expect to see them today. They walked in. They have a guide. They're going to head up.

I decide to go with. There's no wind. No rain. Just cloud. With a guide who knows the way it will be fine. I pack. I pay the Mountaineering Federation guy the summit fee. I'm ready. They're not going up. They're going to go down for three days, then come back. I need to be back in Tehran then to extend my visa. This is my window. In an hour or two I'll pop out above the cloud into glorious sunshine. They're not convinced. They're paying for a guide so they may as well listen to him. But now I want to go up. I've talked myself into it. The Mountaineering Federation guy says the hut is easy to find. I go up.

I love the mountains in the cloud. It's good to be moving. The track is well worn. With the fresh snow and low visibility I have to scout around in a couple of places. They said it takes four hours. Some people more, some people less. In 3 and a half I see the hut. I'm happy with that.

Camp 3: the new shelter

Looking down from the new shelter. The old shelter and, more importantly, the cloud layer.

I'm right about the cloud too. I'm happier with that. I spend the evening sitting in the sun. I'm still freezing mostly, but the sun feels better. I like it better up here at 4000m in the snow than down at 2950 in the mud.

Filling in time with sunflower seeds. Lucky I had practice husking them with my teeth, because I can't feel my hands.