A wooden shepherds halt in the spring landscape of Alborz Mountains, Mazandaran, Iran. This hidden paradise has changed my life forever. It was the spring of 1998. I was 19 in a group of 4 friends (with Oshin Zakarian, Pejman Norouzi, and Reza Alagheband), trekking between Alamut Valley and the Dohezar Forest near the Caspian Sea. On a 4000m passage near Sialan peak, one of us (Pejman) slipped on a glacier and felt down. By miracle he was alive over 100 meters down but had several places broken. I didn't know how longer he will survive and we were hours away from the first village. I put off my heavy backpack and ran down the valley toward the first village but got lost alone in the dense forest for 3 days without food where I was a good food for wild life. In fact I had a close encounter with a brown bear in a full moon night but we peacefully separated! I survived with my very last drops of energy, when finding a small halt where there was a little fresh food and water inside a pot. Later I found out that the old man who owns the halt comes here only once a month in this season to collect some special flowers and that was exactly when I reached there! He showed me the way the next day. Our group up on the snowy mountain above the forest waited 2 days camping on ice, until Oshin (also a Dreamview photographer) decided to trek down and find help as they thought I'm probably lost or dead. He chose another way from the ridge instead of valley and got to the first village in 12 hours non-stop walking and brought back help. After a week of struggling for life on mountains our friend survived. See more Dreamview images of the mountain range and the lost paradise forest.