Mount Ararat H. F. B. Lynch (1893)—climbed the mountain. The first winter climb was by Turkish alpinist Bozkurt Ergör, the former president of the Turkish Mountaineering Federation, who climbed the peak on 21 February 1970. According to the fourth verse of the eighth chapter of the Book of Genesis (Genesis 8:4), following a flood, Noah's Ark landed on the "mountains of Ararat" (Biblical , "hare ararat"). Most historians and Bible scholars agree that "Ararat" is the Hebrew name of Urartu, the geographic predecessor of Armenia and referred to the wider region at the time and not the mountain today known as Ararat.
Caucasus Mountains over 4,500 m height with 300 m prominence. Mount Ararat (5,137 m) in Turkey is just south of the lesser Caucasus. The climate of the Caucasus varies both vertically (according to elevation) and horizontally (by latitude and location). Temperature generally decreases as elevation rises. Average annual temperature in Sukhumi, Abkhazia at sea level is while on the slopes of Mt.Kazbek at an elevation of , average annual temperature falls to. The northern slopes of the Greater Caucasus Mountain Range are 3 °C (5.4 °F) colder than the southern slopes. The highlands of the Lesser Caucasus Mountains in Armenia, Azerbaijan, and