This is part 1 of my Axis of Evil Ski Tour, to Dizin, Iran. I'll also be going to the newly opened Masik Pass ski resort in North Korea and at Penjwin in Kurdistan, Iraq. I first read about skiing in Iran in the Guardian. I am also considering a trip with Untamed Borders tour company (what other name could they possibly have!) to do the 4th Afghan Ski Challenge. 
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 As usual here are the photos on Google+ :-)

As part of my Axis of Evil Ski Tour, I'm at Dizin ski resort, Iran. It's 2 hours North of Tehran, halfway to the Caspian Sea. It's -10 degrees all day but skies have been clear the past 3 days, the sun warms you up if you wait a little. It's the biggest and best resort in Iran and same goes for any that I've visited. Not that this is saying much, I've only skiid in Australia...

At the bottom of the slope we're at 2600m+, higher than the highest peak in Australia, Mt Kosciuszko (2200m+). There is a full 360 degree vista not of snow capped peaks but massive mountains entirely cloaked in snow. Standing halfway down a slope - taking a rest from the moguls - the view is a simple, silent wonder. Another bit of magic here is the way the sunlight sparkles in the snow as you go up in the ski lift. You can sometimes see a whole slope twinkling like this as you pass over it, but only if none have skiid there.

Today I finally began to feel like everything is working out. I felt comfortable and in control skiing, something which I've only done 3x before, the last time being 3 years ago. I was able to lean in on the turns, slipping the outside ski back a bit whilst sliding the inside one around to the turn direction and down against the outside ski. It gave rhythm to my descents and made steep ones much easier to pull apart into a series of shallow zigzags. I also found the extra control meant the zigzags became less frequent, I could go quicker and more directly down.

Things most definitely didn't start off so well. First problem was I was extremely tired from all the overtime I'd been doing in the past 3 weeks, and staying up till my 350am flight didn't help. On top of this I was coming down with some sort of cold that others in the office had been getting the past fortnight. So it was with a grimly determined sense of humour that I confronted two challenges that met me as soon as I landed in Tehran.

The first was that Emirates left my baggage in Dubai, something they fixed up a day later by delivering it all the way to Dizin! It was a bit of a stress though having to go through all the paperwork, at least I wasn't the only one, about 20 were in the same boat.

The next challenge was that no one wanted to convert my Kuwaiti Dinars! It was the other way round at Kuwait airport where no one had any rials to sell me. Because of the sanctions I couldn't just go withdraw money from an ATM in Tehran. Luckily the travel agent had arranged someone to meet me and he was very friendly and helpful, even lending me IRR8,000,000 (about $USD320) in exchange for 100 of my dinars which he was successful exchanging in town the next day at above market rate! I was very glad to hear this because initially the hotel in Dizin offered to convert the money for me but at only 10% of its value! I think he'd never seen Kuwaiti Dinars before... Yesterday though he changed his mind after confirming the rate with the Central Bank of all things...

This was a silly oversight not taking a more familiar currency in with me. I obviously hadn't done my research and was leaving it all down to the travel agent to tell me what to do. Thing is, they probably did write about this but things have been too hectic in the lead up to pay attention. Also, it was kind of surprising to hear the money changers say they only accept Euros or USD - I would've thought given the sanctions that the latter would be burnt on sight! So yes, the sanctions are working as intended, making life difficult and confusing even for visitors. I'm lucky things have all worked out and really the issues were annoyances more than major problems.

To end on positive note, the most impressive sight so far has been Mt Damavand, Iran's highest peak at 5600m+. It's a stratovolcano, geology speak for one that's potentially active. It's a distinctive cone shape to the southeast of the resort and reminded me of Mt Fuji, which is about 2000m shorter and the same type of volcano. You can see the mountain in a couple of the attached photos.

The new Google Maps app doesn't have labs options so I can't make measurements anymore but I can make an estimate of the straight line distance to the mountain from here by observing 2 things. First, Google Maps says it's 185km from Dizin to Mt Damavand. Second, as luck would have it, the route is basically a semi circle! We know that pi*D is the circumference of a circle, so the circumference divided by pi must be the diameter, or the straight line distance between the two points. In this case I only have half the circumference, but no problem: (185*2)/pi=118km:-) Actually though there is a problem because the great circle (on the surface of a sphere) distance from 35°57′20″N 52°06′36″E to 36°02′57″N 51°25′02″E is about 63km, you can check it with this calculator. This is verified by OsmAnd, the openstreetmap based competitor for Google Maps on Android (enter the end point coordinates, then centre the map on the start point). Another thing to think about is the 118km I calculated should theoretically be less, if anything, than the great circle distance as it's over a plane.

This means all I can really say about the semi circularity of the route from here to Mt Damavand is it is nearly twice as wiggly as a semicircle... Because (pi*63)/2=98.96, a little more than half the distance on the road between the two points that started this whole thing. My eyes must be bad :-/