Mount Damavand is a near-perfect volcanic cone rising 5,609 metres above the Alborz range north of Tehran, the highest peak in the Middle East and the oldest symbol of Iran, and it can be walked to the top without ropes. On clear mornings from late autumn to early spring, when fresh snow has recoated the summit and before the summer haze sets in, the cone floats above the Tehran skyline seventy kilometres away, the way Fuji floats above Tokyo. The mountain is in every Iranian's head before they see it: in the Shahnameh, the national epic, and in older Zoroastrian myth, Damavand is the prison of Zahhak, a tyrant with serpents growing from his shoulders, chained inside the peak until the end of the world, and the mountain appears on banknotes and in poems as the country itself. It is a volcano, and only sleeping: the summit crater is crusted with yellow sulphur and vents warm gas, and the last stretch of the climb is walked in air that smells of it.
The classic route is the southern one from the village of Polur, three or four days moving up through staged camps. Green meadows at Goosfand Sara give way to endless scree, and mule trains still haul gear and water from the meadow up to the Bargah-e Sevom hut at 4,220 metres, the mountain's old logistics in daily use through the summer. From there the summit day starts before dawn, and in the safe window from July to September climbers reach the crater rim as the sun comes up over a sea of cloud with the Iranian plateau spread far below; the altitude is the difficulty, not the terrain. The mountain is also seen whole from below. From the green summer pastures of Lar National Park, on its western flank, the flawless cone stands with its snow cap above a plain where flocks graze and shepherds camp, the view that painters have used for centuries. Damavand is the mountain Iran measures itself against, and it lets you stand on top of it.