Having co-operation of "Davoud Mohammadi Far", Iran Mountain Zone is going to publish short paragraphs from history of mountaineering in Iran in a weekly base. These paragraphs will be extracted from notes and following books of Mohammadi Far :
1. History of mountaineering in Iran - M.A. Ebrahimi & D. Mohammadi Far , 2003
2. A chronological history of Iran’s mountaineering and caving - D. Mohammadi Far , 2005
3. Mountain’s lady - D. Mohammadi Far , to be published
4. Directory of mountaineering and caving in Iran - D. Mohammadi Far , to be published
5. Calendar of mountaineering history in Iran - D. Mohammadi Far , to be published
References are in hand and are listed in mentioned books.

Website Manager ­ November 2006

Esfand (12^th month in solar calendar, February 19 - March 20)

Esfand 22^nd, 1377(March 12, 1999)
Ten years ago, on March 12^th, 1998, national mountaineering team of Iran, left Tehran for Katmandu, capital city of Nepal to ascend Mount Everest. It was the 1^st Iranian expedition on Everest from south western route. The expedition members were:
1-Saadegh Agha Jaani Kalkhoran(leader) 2- Fereydoun Bayatani(medician) 3- Homayoun Bakhtiari 4- Hamid Olanj 5- Jalal Cheshme-Ghassaabani 6- Hasan Najjaarian 7- Rasoul Naghavi 8- Reza Zarei Toudashki 9- Abbaas Ali-Nezhad Ghale-Jough 10- Bahman Rostami 11-Abolfath Saghaei 12- (late) Mohammad Oraz 13- Mohammad Jodaeian 14- (late) Davoud Khadem 15-Eghbal Aflaki Agh-Bolagh 16-Mahmoud Moghaddam(camera man) 17- Ahmad Ghanei(camera man)

Esfand 16^th, 1376(March 7, 1998)
Saeed Moslehi climbed up "Nava" ice fall in a rope with Farshad Khalili on Saturday, March 7, 1998.
"Nava" is the name of a village 90 km farther than Tehran beside the road to Amol. There is a waterfall outside the village, which gets frozen in a shape of icefall during cold seasons. As they reported, the first pitch with 50 meters height and mostly vertical is the hardest portion of this icefall. They placed 11 screws in this pitch.

Esfand 23^rd, 1355(March 14, 1977)
Attempting for two days, the first winter ascent of Mt. Alam-kouh via German flank was accomplished on Monday, March 14, 1977 by a polish expedition.
Before polish expedition, Iranian climbers had arranged three expeditions to climb this rocky ridge; Bahman Shahvandi led two expeditions in 1970 and 1971 and Jalal Forouzan led the third expedition in 1980. The first attempt got disastrous, when Fereydoon Najah and Ahmad Farzin-Nia were hit by an avalanche to their death and the later ones were unsuccessful too.
German flank is attributed to west ridge of Alam-Kouh, which was climbed by two German climbers, Ludwig Schtinawer and Wolfgang Gurter for the first time in august, 1937.

Esfand 27^th, 1347 (February 17, 1969)
On March 17, 1969, Ebrahim Babaei, Gholam-Hossain Vahhaab-Zadeh, Mohammad Arzi, Bijan Saadeghi and Kiyoumars Baba-Zadeh from Arash Mountaineers Group of Tehran opened the first route on Bistoon Wall. Located 30 km out of Kermanshah city in the historical site of Bistoon, a 1200 meters high limestone wall with the width of 5 km is considered as one of the most popular spots in Iran for rock climbing and big wall activities.
They placed sixty nine pitons all over the route, which was from difficulty category of 5.9 (YDS grade) during six days of technical climbing. The route was divided to 30 pitches with the approximate length of 40 meters, which finally led them to Bistoon Peak in the height of 2850 meters above sea level after 8 days of endeavor in a rainy weather. In the last push, they bivouaced in a camp in the middle of the wall, where there is a small hut nowadays. This event was the first ascent of Bistoon wall which was documented in IMF’s bulletin and Arash Group archive.
The next year, Saadegh Karbaasi and German Harry Rost climbed Bistoon wall from approximately the same route. Harry fell during a traverse though Saadegh manage to control the fall.
Also Arash Group’s climbers, who were led by Kiyoumars Baba-Zadeh repeated the winter ascent of "Arash" route in January, 1982.

Esfand 1345(March, 1967)
On March, 1967, a team of mountaineers composed of twenty students from university of Waseda in Tokyo, arrived at Tehran in order to ascend mount Damavand. Iran’s Mountaineering Federation appointed Hussain Adili as their guide toward " Rineh" village on south slopes of Damavand.
On seventh day, Japanese students set their B.C. 3400 meters above sea level on south face of Damavand and setting up two camps in the height of 4300 m and 5000 m in the next four days, Nakayama, Tojita, Takachi and Sato succeeded to step on the top of Damavand, the highest peak in Iran at the height of 5671 m.
Hanoma, the leader of Japanese expedition, who had topped mount Lhotse, the fourth highest mountain in the world in 1966, said: "there were no difficulties to reach Damavand’s top, but storm, like the one I had experienced over Lhotse the previous year"

Esfand 10^th, 1328 (March 1, 1950)
On Wednesday, March 1st in 1950 colonel Mansour Mazini were chosen to head Mountaineering Federation of Iran (MFI).
Dr. Fazlollah Moshaver (vice president), colonel Gholam-Reza Mansour (secretary) and Ali Shakouei were his colleagues during his presidency, which lasted to October 8, 1953.

Esfand 26^th, 1312 (March 17, 1934)
Jahangir Emam was born on Saturday, March 17, 1934. He validated as mountaineering instructor in 1958. Also he took the membership of Damavand Ski and Mountaineering Club, search and rescue team of Iran’s mountaineering federation and found mountaineering group of firefighting organization.
Among his mountaineering experiences, Jahangir along with Bahman Nasehi are the first Iranian, who ascent "Yakhar" glacier on NE side of Mt. Damavand in 1965. He was so much experienced in underground exploring besides.