One reason for Dizin's surge was that it captured the attention of important people. General Fatollah Minbashian, jefe of the shah's ground forces, built a large home across the road from the lifts. The low-slung mansion is often mistakenly referred to as the shah's "winter palace," but belonged to Minbashian and served as the big man's crash pad for ski trips. Minbashian took up skiing with great fervor. He forced his security detail to take lessons until they were good enough to ski in formation behind him. He even wrote a ski manual.

The clouds break. Massive peaks rise before us, slathered in white. I'm pretty sure I hear Farshad say "yum."

"I think it is perfect for us!" he says.

Pulling into Rudbarak, the last village before Dizin, we stop beside a large sign depicting the grimacing face of the deceased father of Islamic Iran, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. He's at the head of a wedge of notable martyrs from the Iran-Iraq War, the 1980–1988 conflict that left an estimated one million Iranians and Iraqis killed. The air is still and clear, and here, for the first time, we hear the call to prayer, a mournful song echoing in the valley.

In the morning we hit the slopes. An old gondola car hangs from a decrepit stone arch, marking the entrance to Dizin, a massive three-sided bowl that, at 8:30 A.M., is nearly devoid of activity. The ski area is a vast panorama of white, rising dramatically and stretching so far from one end to the other that you could probably plop a couple of American resorts in the valley and still have room for expansion. We park near a car full of Iranian kids listening to Farsi hip-hop while chugging Red Bull and lacing up their snowboard boots.

After picking up my $9 lift ticket, I run into Farid Lotfi, a bearded 30-year-old with iron- cross earrings and the leathery skin of a resort regular. He pops out his iPod earbuds and informs me that he's the freestyle and boardercross champion of Iran and that his sponsors include Rip Curl and Palmer. He considers his boast a moment, then qualifies it. "The village boys are strong," he allows. "After them, I am the best."

When he's not training, Farid cobbles together cash by instructing. Today, he has two young students to deal with. He says we should give him a call later and perhaps "make a party."

In the U.S., our vision of Iran is of a barren and intolerant desert populated by teetotaling zealots. In reality, the country has a diverse and well-educated population of 70 million and is in the midst of a Western-flavored youth boom. The open secret around these parts is that Iran's more prosperous young people do not lack for entertainment. One day on the slopes, a young tech entrepreneur tells me that a black market services Tehran apartments, delivering beer, wine, and hard liquor as well as drugs like cocaine, ecstasy, and speed. These delivery services operate at a high level of risk—the penalty for dealing drugs can include execution, sometimes by public hanging.

Twice during my trip, I smoke pot with locals, but never in front of Farshad, who wouldn't allow it. The first time is in a Tehran apartment, where a friend of a friend grows his own. The second is on the lift at Dizin, with two Tehran businessmen in their thirties, enjoying a powder day on the mountain. If you have money here, they tell me, anything is possible.