TO GET TO SHEMSHAK, you begin a slow, six-mile descent from Dizin's upper parking lot on a road that hugs the side of the mountain, hundreds of feet above the valley floor. Close to the bottom, two lifts rise on the right—each one arrow-straight and pointed uphill into a bowl. This is Darbandsar, Iran's only privately owned ski resort, which explains why it has the highest ticket price—around $12—and the only high-speed quad.

Further on is Shemshak, which is lower than Dizin and oriented east instead of north. The result is a warmer valley with a shorter season and wetter snow. People who prefer skiing here tend to talk about the steeper trails—indeed, it is no place for beginners—and the lower percentage of snowboarders.

That night we eat kebabs for the seventh straight day. My room at the Shemshak Complex Hotel is, alas, like something from a Krakow hostel. There are strange black hairs on my blanket, a shower that only trickles, and a drain that doesn't. But that's all right, because we wake up the next morning to more new snow.

"I can't believe it," Farshad says. "Your New Year's gift!"

For all of its flaws, the dreary hotel couldn't be better situated. If I were to leap out my window and time it perfectly, clearing the stairs and some scrubby trees, I could almost land on one of the lift chairs. We buy tickets from three guys at a table in a shack next to the lift. They've only just fired up the massive engine that runs the ancient two-seater.

It's a chilly, bluebird day. I wouldn't quite call the conditions dust-on-crust—it's deeper than dust—but the skiing is tough and icy compared with the miracle we experienced at Dizin.

"This is difficult," I say to Farshad.

"I think horrible," he says. "It's a good mountain, but I think not in spring."

Even so, it's amazing what a little hike past the out-of-bounds sign will do. We trudge through knee-deep snow up a knife-ridge. It's hard work, but the reward is a deep, steep field of untouched snow, not powder or porridge but something soft and silky, like fine sand.

At lunch, an Iranian woman stops me to ask where I'm from, speaking perfect English. She is Laila Amin, a glamorous middle-aged mom in a fur hat who's eating kebabs with her two young children. She went to Yale but now lives in Tehran. She's been skiing at Shemshak for 35 years. Dizin has too many snowboarders for her tastes, and she also finds its lift lines unruly.

Real estate here is booming, Laila says—slopeside chalets go for $250,000 and up—but skiing is cheap. "In Utah you pay $80 for a ticket, and I know an instructor who charges $100 an hour," she says. "Here, for $50, you can have an instructor all day."

"You like this hotel?" she asks. "It's OK, but if I took it over, I'd serve drinks to foreigners, like in Dubai. If they prioritize, this would be much nicer. But right now, it's the government, and they have very little interest."