Nick,
You ever have to navigate by the bottoms of the mountains while the tops were obscured by cloud...say ceiling about 2-300 feet...but gin clear underneath? Did that one time flying from a field site 200 miles east of Bandar Abbas on the way to a drill rig in the middle of the desert inland from Lavan Island in Iran. What a novel trip...on Christmas Day as well! The terrain relief was very stark due to the rocky barren ground....made it easy to see the shapes of the peaks....the trick was to ignore the upper contours on the map and look at the lowest contour lines.
Turbulence could be fun there too....flying the Alouette III in real turbulence you could have temporary hydraulic failures due to cavitation of the pump while all the fluid hung out at the top of the tank....we are talking about industrial strength ups and downs!
Some of the prettiest photographs I have are of late evening flights in the desert there...with the stark mountains and interesting colors....same as the Cedar City-Bryce Canyon area of Utah....and down through Moab and Cortez area. For a real thrill ....fly off the North Rim of the Grand Canyon in really hazy weather from an altitude of 50-100 feet....really charges the batteries!