Mount Damavand
Interesting facts
- With about 4,667 metres of topographic prominence, Damavand ranks around twelfth among the most prominent peaks on Earth.
- The first recorded ascent was made in 905 CE by Abu Dolaf Kazraji.
- Volcanic activity here began some 1.78 million years ago, and a major explosive eruption shook the mountain about 280,000 years ago.
- Studies place a magma chamber only about 2 to 5 kilometres beneath the surface of the volcano.
- Measurements between 2003 and 2008 showed the volcano subsiding by about 5 millimetres a year while spreading sideways by about 6.
- Damavand was the first natural site registered on Iran's national heritage list, and a Damavand National Day has been marked each July since 2008.
- Among its glaciers, the Yakhar Glacier is the largest still surviving on the mountain.
- Its slopes shelter Persian leopards, Syrian brown bears and Armenian mouflon, and a local iris, Iris barnumiae demawendica, is named after the mountain.
- Damavand is often cited as the third-highest volcano in the Eastern Hemisphere, after Kilimanjaro and Elbrus.
Why it is worth it
Mount Damavand is a dormant stratovolcano in the middle of the Alborz range, rising to about 5,610 m some 66 km north-east of Tehran not far from the southern shore of the Caspian Sea. It is the highest peak in Iran and in Western Asia and the highest volcano in Asia, and its snow-streaked, almost perfectly conical summit stands far above the ridges around it. The present cone began to build around 600,000 years ago from flows of trachyte, andesite and basalt; the last eruption was around 5300 BC, but fumaroles near the top and a small crater lined with sulphur deposits show the volcano is not extinct.
No mountain carries more weight in Persian culture. In Zoroastrian myth the three-headed dragon Aži Dahāka lies chained inside it until the end of the world; in the Shahnameh the tyrant Zahhak is bound in a cave on the mountain after his defeat by Kaveh and Fereydun. The archer Arash is said to have shot his arrow from Damavand to fix the border of Iran. For poets it became a symbol of resistance to tyranny, most famously in Mohammad-Taqi Bahar's poem addressing it as the "dome of the world", and it appears on the 10,000-rial banknote.
The mountain draws climbers from around the world and is one of the Volcanic Seven Summits. At least sixteen routes reach the top. The most popular is the southern route, with a stepped trail and a shelter, Bargah Sevom, at about 4,220 m; the north-eastern route takes two days from the village of Nandal with a night at the Takht-e Fereydoun shelter; the western route is known for its sunsets and has a frozen icefall on the way. Hot springs rise at the mountain's foot, the best known at Larijan in the Lar valley, whose water is bottled across Iran.
Getting there
The main base for climbers is the Iranian Mountain Federation camp in the village of Polour on the southern side. The nearby town of Damavand is about 27 km away, and Tehran's Mehrabad International Airport (THR) about 78 km.
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
Mount Damavand is a dormant stratovolcano in Iran. It is the highest peak in Iran and Western Asia, the highest volcano in Asia, and the 3rd highest volcano in the Eastern Hemisphere, at an elevation of 5,610 metres (18,410 ft). Damāvand has a special place in Persian mythology and folklore. It is in the middle of the Alborz range, adjacent to Varārū, Sesang, Gol-e Zard, and Mīānrūd. It is near the southern coast of the Caspian Sea, in Amol County, Mazandaran Province, 66 km (41 mi) northeast of the city of Tehran.
Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0
35.95528, 52.10917per Wikidata