by Mike Finkel with photography by Marc Muench
Feb 2000, Vol. 4 No. 5
In addition to state-sponsored misogyny, ill-tempered ayatollahs, and a death sentence on Salman Rushdie, the Islamic Republic of Iran is home to quite a few ski resorts. I learned of the resorts a couple of years ago, when I came across a photo of one in an old National Geographic magazine. I later telephoned the Iranian mission to the United Nations, in New York City. An official there not only confirmed the resorts’ existence, he was driven to near poetry as he described majestic peaks in Iran’s northern highlands and great quantities of light, dry powder, the moisture sucked out of the snow clouds on the trip across the Iranian desert. He mentioned modern ski resorts, with hotels and gondolas and midmountain restaurants, and said tens of thousands of Iranians were avid skiers, men and women included.