7th – Going back up

We had a much needed late morning with breakfast at 0900 before packing our bags (no one seemed to be having issues with the weight limit) and taking off towards Damavand after a short briefing.

Damavand seen in the distance when coming outside in the morning.

The clouds at the summit are not clouds but sulfuric fumes being vented

We were put into some run-down jeeps that brought us up to 3400m mostly on twisty dusty roads. On arrival we had our bags and all the kitchen equipment put on mules for the ascent. The walk up to the camp at 4200m where we will be staying the next 3 nights was technically easy but it was a long slog. On the way up we could see clouds gathering around the summit and fairly quickly after arriving they got dark and started sinking.

After departing around 1200-1230 we arrived at the main building at the camp at 1730 without any incident from the clouds. Arriving I had been struggling a bit with the altitude but after a while with relaxing and watching the chaos roaming the camp it improved significantly.

As many other places logistics depend on our four-legged friends.

We had been told we would have access to 16 beds (i.e. for everyone in the group) and an 8-man tent if you preferred that. I decided on a bed in the dorm but I quickly realized that the dorm had near 50 beds with a another 20 on a half second floor, and there was a complete mayhem of people arriving, leaving, cooking and generally being themselves without acknowledging that there were others around. I quickly returned outside and grabbed the last free spot in the tent, and while the sleeping conditions are more cramped and you still get the noise from the rest of the camp you still feel you have more privacy than in the dorm.

Due to the unpacking of the kitchen and getting things in order it took some time dinner wasn’t ready until around 2000. At this point the sun had set behind the mountains and the temperature had dropped significantly to chilling 5-10 degrees.

Tomorrow we will be heaving breakfast at 0900 before leaving an hour later for an acclimatization walk; one that likely will be relatively short to save energy for the summit attempt the following day.

The clouds slowly drifted away without giving us any rain which was nice, but this is the first period of the trip we are having clouds drifting around so I don’t know if this will change anything from what we are used to. It also looks, when looking at the view from the camp, as if some of the clouds have spread out below us.