Alamkuh

Alamkuh or Alamkooh

The Takht-e-Soleiman region was unknown until 1933. Douglas Busk, a British mountaineer, discovered and surveyed the area. Later on, Busk along with Professor Bobek made a detailed survey of this area. In 1936 the northwest ridge (called Germans flank) of AlamKuh was climbed for the first time by German mountaineers, which was considered a great achievement among European climbers.

General information

Geological map of Iran it shows that AlamKuh is mainly made of Tertiary intrusive rocks; granite and diorite. Some Triassic and Jurassic sediments are also found.

The gigantic rocky block in the heart of Takht-e-Soleiman massif makes a one km long ragged east-west running ridge line that is entirely above 4700m, the western one-quarter of the ridge line makes the Alam Kooh section including the 4850m AlamKuh Peak, and the eastern part makes five horn-shaped peaks known as Shakhak#1~ Shakhak#5, the north face of this block creates vertical walls of AlamKuh and Shakhak (there is a perfect 350m wall under the summit of  Shakhak#5 sometimes it can be seen even more impressive than AlamKuh wall in some pictures) which have the height range between 350m and 600m(including steep glacier).

Climbing AlamKuh via all north routes are class five high altitude technical climbs which need hard struggling with rock, ice, and rock fall but the southern slopes of AlamKuh and the Shakhaks are steep covered with boulders and/or hard snowfields and they form  Khersan and Marjikesh glaciers. the southern routes are easy class three climbs at summer.

Anyway climbing AlamKuh by any route at winter is difficult and technical.