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.