Good for hiking, disappointing for butterflying

I hate cold, Iran has sunny shining autumn and winter days but they are cold nevertheless and I can't go for butterflying or investigate mountains in search of interesting flowers. so I'm stuck with my old trips and here is one of them, a gloomy one like these days of autumn.

Alamut tries to smash us every time and it succeeds every time

We are obsessed with Alamut. By we, I mean our small hiking group and by Alamut, I refer to an area in central Elborz, what is Elborz for God's sake? Elborz is a mountain range in north of Iran, one of our two principle mountain ranges.

In fact, it's not our obsession, it's one of my friend's. He is crazy about this area and forces us to come with him, why forces us? because every trek in this area is a loooong long trek which makes you crazy, it seems it never ends. By this trek we cut Elborz, we start from one side and crawl to another side, exhausted.

I've gone there five times, he has gone there seven times and each time this crazy man took a different trek to cut Elborz and so he has got lost there seven times, from little harmless getting lost to completely getting lost include starving and loosing hope, crying and all.

I haven't pictured its flora, butterflies and insects because until this spring I wasn't interested in them but next summer I will, so wait for me Alamut.

among fluttering beauties I'll always choose you

Now I want to picture one of my favorite hiking trek which is located in west of Iran.
I went there twice, both in the end of May which is with its sister June, the most beautiful months in Iran. In this two months we don't know where to go and we are crazy to just go anywhere but for two years in a row we ended up going to this same trek, Arasbaran.

Birdwatching (an entr'acte)

winter is coming :-( it's a sad news for me but all my friends are into birdwatching and they love autumn and specially winter. so, I decided to cover some of their birdwatching by this blog (they're a little lazy and not blogging yet).

well, I said (in this post) that we went to Semnan (a province in east of Tehran). we visited Parvar protected area, a valley near Damghan and Damghan Cheshme Ali, all in Semnan province.

and here is birding outcome of my friend Ehsan Talebi (he is a tour leader and specially talented in birding and hiking):

Pied wheatear