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KERMANSHAH – IRAN - NORTHERN PARAU EXPEDITION 2017 – 2018 Gianluca Selleri, Alfredo Brunetti Severe, jutting mountains, limestone pavements and seemingly bottomless holes in the rock, the Persian nights illuminated by the military forts that guard the mountain passes: we are back on the northern Parau massif in Kermanshah Province, at the edge of the Iranian Kurdistan and less than eighty kilometres from the border with Iraq. In purely human terms, the second La Venta expedition to Iran was a unique experience whose powerful, penetrating sensations have left an indelible mark on those who participated. It is difficult, actually, to think back to the mountains of the Parau and simply envision the brutal ruggedness of the high plateaus, the plunging shafts with snowfields, the caves. You cannot help but experience again the colour of the massif, the dusty dryness of the air that burns your lips and nostrils, the view from the camp overlooking the limestone mountains and valleys behind it – a landscape of countless well-defined and thus-far unexplored dolines – the unexpected deliciousness of the food, and all the sensations that things such as these reawaken in the mind. Just as insistent is the memory of our Iranian companions, their combination of coarseness and civility, warmth and formality, stubbornness and deference. And the caves? The Parau – that extreme offshoot of the Zagros Mountains – surely induces the same effect in every speleologist, a spellbound captivation, like a child Landscape of Mount Kuh-e Parau
on a trip to the funfair. The vastness and ruggedness of the limestone pavements with their countless unexplored swallow holes, the monstrous Qala Cave, which drops down to 563 m, the crystalline hues of the lake at the bottom of the Gholan Shaft and the beauty of the concretions in the recently discovered Ghizhalan Cave: it is a spell that is impossible to escape, that represents the real reason that we have returned to these half-unknown mountains and attempt to shed some light on an even greater part of the vast darkness they harbour in their depths. The Ghala Cave is an exceptional geological phenomenon, a huge natural chasm that opens at an altitude of around 2,800 m and reaches down some 563 m towards the heart of the Parau massif. Around 400 m from the mouth is a terrace of enormous blocks, where a trickle of daylight is still visible. It is formed from an unstable cone of fallen detritus that has got caught in the shaft, and overlooks the final section of the cave. Those who wish to reach the large chamber at the bottom face a dangerous descent. At the foot, they will find a stretch of mud leading down to an underground lake, which is fed by the incessant dripwater and an underground stream at the bottom of the shaft. As part of this expedition, the first professional photographs were taken to document the cave. The mouth of the Ghizhalan Cave (current known depth 450 m) opens at an altitude of approx. 3000 m
