Alum Kuh is Iran's answer to The Diamond on Colorado's Longs Peak: a high-altitude bastion of vertical granite more than 1,000 feet tall.
At almost 16,000 feet, it's the second highest point in Iran. The catch was that in early June, Alum Kuh was plastered with snow; it looked like a snapshot of the Alps in winter. Our group of a dozen-odd Iranians and Americans, sponsored by our respective alpine clubs, would have been better equipped with ice tools and crampons than with the rock shoes and chalkbags we had.
Our plan to climb alpine rock for five days was out of the question.
But we all eked out some climbing. Boulder's Jenn Flemming and I pioneered a three-pitch route on a granite buttress an hour's walk from our hut at 12,400 feet. Another day, one Iranian-American team succeeded on a mixed rock and snow route up the main face of Alum Kuh while eight others, led by famous American climber Jim Donini, hiked steep snow to the summit ... or so they thought. They all shared a laugh back at the hut when the weather cleared: They'd missed the true summit by half a mile, having climbed a minor sub-peak instead.
A poor weather forecast drove us down from Alum Kuh on June 12, a day earlier than planned. But we avoided Tehran that day because of anti-government protests. It was the second anniversary of the disputed presidential elections that placed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in power as the current president of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
During the following week, our two groups -- the Alum Kuh group and the other that climbed Mount Damavand (Iran's highest peak, at 18,442 feet, and the highest point in the Middle East) reconvened in Tehran, toured the ancient Persian capital of Isfahan and shared a celebratory dinner with members of the Alpine Club of Iran.
This climbing and cultural exchange, whose first half occurred in Wyoming's Tetons last summer, required more than two years of planning.
After two weeks in Iran, I felt like a privileged guest. Strangers have never treated me more graciously. Everybody I met seemed to love Americans. Many went so far as to thank me personally (in excellent English) for visiting their country.
Four weeks ago, my first article about this trip generated 22 online comments and several personal e-mails -- more than half of which were inflammatory. One commenter called me "immature, reckless, and beyond stupid" for going to Iran. Another called the climbing exchange "a selfish, incredibly foolish move." And yet another labeled it a "narcissistic sojourn" that "put our nation at risk."
Fair enough. Our mainstream media would have us believe that an American in Iran is nothing more than a target for terrorism. I certainly had my own fears upon landing in Tehran, which I admitted in my last column. But this narrow mindset is absurd, if not embarrassing. It reminds me of when George W. was in power, when much of the world assumed that every American was a war-hungry, right-wing zealot.
Much of the commentary about my last column compared our trip with that of the three American "hikers" who were imprisoned two years ago after illegally crossing into Iran. This is ludicrous. The three Americans had no visas, no official invitation (a visa requirement), and their actions were suspicious to the Iranian government. I'm not justifying their imprisonment, by any means. I'm emphasizing that there is no similarity whatsoever between their trip and ours.
Our American Alpine Club-sponsored climbing and cultural exchange set out to build an ongoing relationship between Iranian and American climbers. For this it was a huge success, and another meet of some kind is already in the works.
More important, this exchange fostered a dialogue and understanding between the people of our two countries -- people who live half a world away but share similar hearts and minds.
Chris Weidner: Boulder Daily Camera
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