Mountain Heaven, a family run ski business best known for organising apartment and chalet holidays in the French Alps has decided to offer guided tours to ski areas in Iran next season.
The move comes after the easing of United Nations sanctions against Iran, and a fact-finding mission to the country’s ski resorts by Mountain Heaven’s Nick Williams at the end of last winter.
“It was one of the best skiing experiences I have ever had,” said Nick.
Iran has a long history as a ski nation and is home to around 20 ski areas including some of the highest in the world. It has a reputation for powder snow and warm hospitality, as well as comparatively low prices for visitors from Western Europe and North America.
Mountain Heaven are initially planning to run two trips with up to around 20 people on each trip. Each trip will be eight full days long and include three of Iran’s leading ski areas – Dizin, Shemshak and Darbandsar as well as sightseeing in Tehran.
The trip, excluding flights, cost starts from £1100 based on two sharing with a £150 supplement for a single room. The package includes airport transfers, guiding throughout the tour and entry to sightseeing attractions in the cities as well as most breakfasts and dinners, but does not include lunches or lift passes – both of which are around half the cost of equivalent ski areas in the Alps.
Although Nick reports Iran is a friendly and welcoming place and physically getting to the ski centres from the UK is relatively straightforward, with the main resorts quite close to capital Tehran, Mountain Heaven advise that travel to the Islamic Republic does have certain issues to be aware of.
A visa is required (Mountain Heaven will help with this) and anyone with an Israel stamp in their passport may well be refused entry. If you are admitted to Iran, having an Iranian visa in your passport means that afterwards you will no longer be able to take part in the ESTA Visa waiver programme to enter the US but will qualify for a full 10 year visa.
Mountain Heaven also point out that vegetarian meals and other special diets are very hard to obtain, that women most wear head coverings in public at all times (although that’s not a practical issue on the ski slopes where men do likewise to keep their heads warm) and that apres ski is much more low key than in the Alps. This last point, and the alcohol ban, Mountain Heaven say, make holiday costs once in Iran very low!
Full details are on the company website.
