Kabir Kuh

Kabir Kuh, “the great mountain”, is one of the long, folded ridges of the Zagros, running north-west to south-east along the border between Ilam and Lorestan. Its highest summit, Kan Seifi, reaches about 2,790 metres. For centuries it was the great divide of the region: Lorestan lay on the near side, Pish-e Kuh, “before the mountain”, and the land of Ilam on the far side, Posht-e Kuh, “behind the mountain”, the name the province carried until the twentieth century.

The range is a classic Zagros anticline, a long arch of limestone rock folded by the slow collision of the Arabian and Iranian plates, with steep flanks cut by gorges where streams have broken through. Its slopes are clothed with open forests of Persian oak, which once covered much of the central Zagros, and shelter wild goats, wild boar and many birds of prey.

Part of its northern side, in the counties of Darreh Shahr and Badreh, has been protected since 2001 as the Kabir Kuh Protected Area, covering some 179 square kilometres. The mountain has long been part of the seasonal life of the region's Kurdish and Lur herders, who move flocks up its slopes in summer.

For walkers and climbers it offers wild, little-visited country, with springs, oak woods and views over the folded ridges of the Zagros, at their best in spring when the slopes are green and the wild flowers are out. In summer the heat of the lowlands to the south makes its cool upper slopes a welcome refuge, while in winter its summits are often white with snow.