Georgia: Svaneti, Mestia and Ushguli

**Blaster** · 07-03-2024, 12:08 PM

Svaneti Georgia Trip Report

In late March 2024, two friends and I took a two-week trip to the Svaneti region of Georgia including Mestia and Ushguli. There is a massive amount of drool-inducing ski terrain. The whole trip ended up being pretty darn cheap, $700 USD per person for everything thing but airfare for the 14-day trip.

Days 1 and 2. Tbilisi

While you can fly into Kutaisi, Georgia and be closer to the Svaneti region, Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, has a lot more to offer and was a nice way to spend a few days getting over jetlag. Bolt is the most common version of Uber there and worked pretty well for getting around places to far to walk. On the way to the airport at the end of the trip, our supposed XL Bolt ride ended up being a midsized hatchback with a roof rack. The driver was super game to strap ski bags on the roof so it all worked out.

Most of the places we stayed were homes where part of the building had been converted into guest rooms and the family lived in the other part. Each morning in Tbilisi, the matriarch of the guest house provided us with a huge breakfast spread and vodka (Chacha) shots before we headed out to walk around town. Not knowing much about Georgia customs, shots with breakfast were something we did our best to take in stride. This “custom” wasn’t shared at any of the other places so we still have no idea if this first place was playing a joke on us or thought it was something dumb American tourists would eat up.

The historic district of Tbilisi had plenty for 2 days of sightseeing. Highlights include the sulfur bathhouses. We opted for the cheap, $3, public option.

Tons of old churches and monasteries.

The great recession hit Georgia pretty hard so the main downtown has a bunch of big modern architecture buildings that are finished on the outside but unfinished/closed on the inside.

Stalin was Georgian and in the 1900s ran a secret underground printing press creating publications for the communist revolution in Tbilisi. Tours of the reconstructed compound, it was blown up in 1908, are led by an old member of the Georgian Communist Party. The guide only spoke 40 words of English and would do things like utter “capitalism” and spit on the ground. Once he learned we were from America gave us the extra long tour essentially to convince us to bring communism back to the U.S.. We received the full communist party line retelling of the rise of Stalin without the parts of mass murders, which ended up being one of the most memorable cultural experiences of the trip.

Our tour guide insisted we sign the guest book and also sign away any future political ambitions in the US.

In most of the restaurants we went to the expectation is you know what you want to order pretty quickly. A couple of times we had a waiter ask us what we wanted to order a few minutes after sitting down. When we asked for more time they actually rolled their eyes at us, walked away, and never came back. A different waiter did take our order a little later. Once we knew to figure out what we wanted quickly everyone was super nice.

Day 3 Drive from Tbilisi to Mestia
We rented a used 05’ 4x4 Nissan SUV through a company similar to Toro. It was cheap and handled the rough roads of Georgia. A couple of times we were glad to have gotten something with locking differentials for driving closer to the snowline. If you don’t rent a car the private cars called marshrutkas are pretty cost-effective ways to get around. For us having our own car gave us more flexibility to chase better snow conditions and see more of the country but wasn’t necessary. Georgia drivers are a good bit more aggressive than US drivers and things like lane lines or speed limits are more like suggestions. In most places where traffic slows at a stoplight or intersection cars will squeeze two abreast in single lanes or if another car wants to be in your lane they will just slowly edge into your lane until you let them in.

The drive from Tbilisi to Mestia took a bit over 8 hours with some stops at some old ruins and roadside food along the way. The sweet bean bread, Nazuki, only found in the town of Surami is seriously good. We passed a ton of livestock grazing the roadsides that seemed pretty car-savvy but it was still pretty unnerving to see a train of cars zooming at highway speeds within feet of a group of cows. The road up from the flat western plains of Georgia to Mestia is 2.5 hours of incredibly windy narrow paved roads up a river gorge. You do pass some cool completed and uncomplete Soviet-era hydro projects along the way. There is a domestic air service that flies into Mestia from Kutasi when the weather is good for quite cheap that sounded like a great option provided you don’t get unlucky with the weather.

**Blaster** · 07-03-2024, 12:09 PM

Day 4: Koruldi Lakes
Our first ski day had pretty low visibility so we opted for the ridge on the north side of town. Finding good tree skiing ended up being pretty tricky across the whole trip. The areas with trees tended to have pretty dense vegetation or were in the runout of massive slide paths. The best terrain is mostly above the treeline. Just outside of town, there is a dirt road that a snowcat service uses for guided groups or bumping groups up to ski the Chaladi glacier. Low clouds kept us from going too high above treeline but we were able to find some quality shorter runs between pastures and patches of trees. We dug some pits and found a lingering PWL that seemed to be gaining strength in spots.

Dinner. Fried meat and potatoes, Chicken in a creamy garlic sauce, and cheesey mashed potatoes..

Information on snow and avy conditions is pretty hard to find in Georgia. There is a forecast out of Guldari but not Mestia. The Georgia Backcountry Ski and Avalanche Conditions Facebook group has some information but mostly of dubious quality. We found guide services in Georgia to be pretty tight lipped about avy conditions to non-guides. I ended up having the best luck with the Georgia ski guide office in Mestia. Which is sort of a clearing house matching people looking for guides with area guides run by the head of the IFMGA guide training program in Mestia. Once I showed them I could talk knowledgeably about avalanches and snowpits, they confirmed that what we had found was in line with their snow assessments with generally better snow stability at higher elevations.

Day 5: Tetnuldi Ski Area

Finally a clear view of the mountains around Mestia. Mestia has a ton of awesome stone Svan towers all around town. Despite being pretty small and remote the Svaneti area has a lot of Georgian culture. During the many times Georgia has been invaded over the past millennia, Georgians would retreat up the mountains to this area to wait out the invasion. We couldn’t figure out what days the bread bakery in Mestia were open, but it does have really good fresh bread for really cheap.

The forecast for the next day was for the sun to come out and things to warm up. The best high elevation access around Mestia is from the Tetnulidi ski area. The same one that hosted a Freeride World Tour stop in 2024. In Georgian style, the lifts don’t open until a leisurely 10 am. We decided to drive up early and skin up the resort to catch some of the south facing side country terrain before the sun got it. The final 4km of the access road to Tetnuldi ski area was by far the most rugged driving of the entire trip. It was mostly a 1.5 lane unpaved road with 1-2 feet of packed snow and 8 inch deep tire ruts. Tetnulidi has one of the most scenic ski area parking lots ever. There are plenty of marshrutkas and shuttles to get people without private cars up to the ski area. Paid parking is a thing here too but only costs $1.50.

The entire parking lot for the Tetnuldi ski area with Mt. Ushba in the background. It turns out rugged roads are a great way to incentivize people to take public transit to ski areas.

In keeping with most other relaxed approaches to rules, no one cared at all that we skied up the resort before it was open. A common guided route is to bump up the ski lifts, do a short skin, then ski down 3,500 vert to the town of Adishi. You can then take a marshrutka back to Mestia. The last bit of the Adishi run had melted out so we just skinned back to the ski area. As we were still figuring out the snowpack we opted for more conservative terrain.

It ended up being an absolute blast to crush shallow pow super g turns on these big open 20 degree slopes where you could haul ass and take in the view at the same time. There is another pretty slick shuttle option when you can ski down from the freeride zone in Tetnuldi down to the town of Zabeshi and get a taxi/marshutka back.

The only topo maps we could find, including Gaia and CalTopo, were older soviet maps that had poor resolution. There ended up being a bunch of steep creek ravines that were a pain to navigate around that didn’t show up on the maps.

The apres village at Tetnulidi. Cheap food and beer. Way better than Vail.

Mestia Dinner

Day 6: Tetnuldi Ski Area
The next day we decided to go back to the ski area and ride lifts for some side country. Our host in Mestia mentioned that the 50 lari (18 USD) cost of lift tickets to Tetnuldi was too expensive and that he could sell us some discounted tickets for 30 lari if we wanted. It turns out the discounted lift tickets were some season passes, with photos, of other dudes. Despite there being two uniformed cops at the base lift no one batted an eye at our passes and they worked fine. In addition to the north-facing freeride zone featured in the 2024 FWT stop, there are a ton of compelling south-facing chutes between the top of the ski resort and Mount Tetnulid proper.

After digging a pit and traversing some rolling side country we found that the chute we were aiming for was filled with a parade of 15 other folks. We ran into a lot of euros here who seemed just fine stacking a handful of parties in the same chute. We opted to sacrifice snow quality and ski a chute with more solar exposure to have it to ourselves. The scenery was great, we found a sweet cave, and the forecast called for another 4-6 inch reset that night.

Waiting for cars in front of us to get unstuck heading down from Tetnuldi.

On hearing that we were checking out the next day our host gave us a present of wine, homemade by a friend of his, presented in a Coke bottle.

**Blaster** · 07-03-2024, 12:10 PM

Day 7: Travel to Ushguli

Originally we planned to leave Mestia and head down the valley to ski out of the Mazeri area, but with snow levels higher than we had anticipated we pivoted to go to Ushguli early. We found it incredibly easy to change plans on short notice. The whole Svaneti region seemed to be pretty quiet this time of year and most of the hosts we talked to said that summer is much busier. We were a bit nervous about the drive to Ushguli, there are a ton of trip reports about sketchy roads on this drive. Most rental car companies won’t allow you to drive to Ushguli and there is limited parking there in the winter. However, a ton of work has been done on the road in the last few years and it is a good bit tamer than the access road to the ski area.

Ushguli Parking. We parked at 7,000 feet and the whole town looked up at the 17,000 foot tall Mt. Shakara.

Once arriving in Ushguli we quickly realized that most of the actual town is made of pedestrian-only roads and cars need to park a few hundred yards away. There is a ton of livestock in Ushguli and it snows so much that the only place to keep the livestock in the winter is in the paths and courtyards around town. Getting around Ushguli was a choice between walking a cowshit-covered path or skinning through adjacent fields. That afternoon, we had just enough time to skin from our guest house 1,500 feet up the local hill to take in the view before dinner. Ushguli and the whole Svaneti region gets a lot busier in the summer with a ton of hiking options between villages.

Day 8: Ushguli Town Bowls
The north facing bowls right above Ushguli were the most scenic place of the trip. I love the the Eastern Sierra with all my heart but this was way more scenic. These bowls also had some of the best north facing, non-avy terrain we came across. While you could ski from the town, driving a mile downhill from town made for a better tour. We ended up giving a ride to a pair of Austrians that we ended up skiing with for a few days.

Big views. Mt. Shakara center and Mt Tetnuldi far left.

Ushba and Elbrus in the back.

Leading into the trip we had heard a bunch about Georgia dogs who would just follow up all day for a ski tour. These dogs are pretty savvy and would mostly follow the slowest party around, take shortcuts, and manipulate tourists using cute looks to get snacks.

Ushguli dinner. Meat and veggie soup, bread, bread with meat, bread with cheese, potatoes, cabbage salad.

Day 9 Mt. Dadiashi
From the top of the town bowls the day before we spied some compelling terrain off of Mt. Dadiashi a valley over and decided to give that a go the next day. The valley up to Dadiashi felt very Alaskan with a ton of freeride lines all around. The terrain around Ushguli seemed to have had more prehistoric glaciation and a higher percentage of the terrain was skiable compared to terrain around Mestia.

Lots of glide avalanches from a heatwave earlier in the year.

Our euro friends centerpunched a big steep north face on Dadiashi while we skied some of the less consequential slopes at the head of the valley.

Downtown Ushguli in the spring.

One of the cool things about this area being so remote is that a majority of people out touring are figuring it out as they go. Folks were super nice about sharing information and route beta as you ran into people at the one bar or around town.

Day 10: Kareta Pass
Given the heat and freeze-thaw cycle of the past few days, we figured it would be worth trying for corn on south aspects. We went right up underneath Mt. Shakara to Kareta Pass. We skinned from our guest house and picked up two dogs. They seemed stoked to get out and take themselves for a ski.

Heading up towards the base of Mt Shakara with the Ushguli town bowls in the background.

We ended up doing a spicy ridge walk to bump over to a south facing chute that both dogs took in stride. Little dog even took the bonus scramble line.

Big terrain on Mt. Shakara that is still 6,000 vert above us. Only two parties have ever ascended this side in the winter.

5K of great corn. Big dog approves.

**Blaster** · 07-03-2024, 12:10 PM

Day 11: Rest day back to Mestia
Feeling pretty worked and with a storm coming in we took a day off and drove back to Mestia. We took a walk around Zabeshi.

Day 12: Tetnuldi Ski Area
With 4-5 inches of new snow overnight and tired legs, we opted to ride lifts and hit some sidecountry for our final ski day. There had been a pretty big glide avalanche on the exit for the freeride zone which made accessing the north facing terrain pretty hard/sketchy. After some chairlift laps, we started heading up to some of the south facing chutes above the resort. As we were skinning up some ski resort staff and their friends were playing around highmarking their snowmachine above the top lift. The sled ended up triggering a medium sized slide to the ground above where people skin or boot up to get to the freeride zone. While it became fairly clear that no one was caught in the slide pretty quickly it was a pretty disorganized, not confidence inspiring response to an in-bounds slide.

A single two-week trip definitely doesn’t make me an expert but I’d describe the avy and emergency response culture in Georgia to be tons of big, consequential terrain with very few rules and pretty limited emergency medical services. We finished up the ski trip with a couple of laps on the cruiser south facing side country ridges.

Day 13 and 14: Kutasi and Tblisi
We split the drive back to Tblisi into two days spending a night in Kutasi. On the drive from Mestia to Kutasi, we stopped in Mazeri to scout future ski lines. Our hunch to skip Mazeri (5,300 feet) due to high snow lines was validated but there is a ton of amazing terrain if you come earlier in the spring or winter.

There is a fat couloir off Mazeri peak.

Kutasi is a good bit smaller than Tbilisi and ended up being nice for a half day of city touristing before the 5-hour drive back to Tbilisi.

Churchkhela. Nuts candied in grape juice, delicious.

Other random tips

Booking.com worked well for accommodations.
There are ATMs in Mestia, but Ushguli is cash-only and has no ATM.
There are three main eSIM options for phone service. Our group used Magti and Celfi. Magti was slightly better than Celfi but required going into a physical store where Celfie did not. We had decent service in town in Mestia and Ushguli.
There is unclear information about Garmin inReach’s in Georiga. Garmin has Georgia on their list of countries where they are prohibited with an asterisk that only the SMS function is prohibited. I brought my inReach Mini and showed it to the customs agent on arrival. He didn’t speak much English but showed it to someone else, gave it back to me, and said “No SMS”. I also asked the Georgia Guide Office in Mestia about this. There was a bit of a language barrier but they said their guides carry satellite phones and that the SOS function is “not supported” in Georgia. No idea what that means. I never turned the device on and nothing else came of it.
Glide avalanches on steep grassy slopes are pretty common mid-late spring as things heat up. There was an unusually large glide avalanche cycle during a heatwave in late February that year. We found they end up limiting skiable terrain. For my next ski trip there, I’ll probably aim for March and be wrapped up before mid-April.
Maybe it was luck but we skied way more new snow than corn and were glad we didn’t bring super skinny skis. “Freeride” gets thrown around a ton in the ski world but there is a ton of “freeride” terrain in Svaneti that begs to be skied fast on bigger skis.
The food in Svaneti was great. Heavy on the bread, meat, and cheese. Being a vegetarian would be fine. Gluten-free would be hard.

Khachapuri. A bread boat of cheese, egg, and butter.

The best ski guidebook we found is “Still Wild Freeride In The Mountains of Georgia” by Oleg Gritskevich. We came across it at the end of our trip. It’s not comprehensive but has a bunch of good options. However, in true Georgia style, it is pretty willing to point you toward some massive avy death funnels. The other guidebook out there “Svaneti Heart of the Caucuses” was pretty meh for ski tours. It was more of a hiking and trekking book.

Fat Georgian death funnels in Ushguli. The guidebook has a run down the main looker's right gully.

Feel free to PM me if you have any questions or want more detailed beta. My biggest piece of advice is to make this a longer trip. Poor visibility really shuts down the best ski terrain and a longer trip gives you better odds

**zion zig zag** · 07-03-2024, 12:55 PM

I can’t wait to read this. Georgia is definitely on my list for a trip.

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**rod9301** · 07-03-2024, 02:01 PM

I spent a year mountain climbing around the world and Georgia was my favorite country. Climbed Mt kazbek, in July plenty of snow and would make a great ski.

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**Tap** · 07-03-2024, 03:13 PM

would you change the font color to white in all the posts?

**::: :::** · 07-03-2024, 04:20 PM

cool trip, thx for posting

**climberevan** · 07-03-2024, 07:38 PM

Very nice! It's cool to read about some guys just figuring it out rather than throwing money at the problem. Georgia is def on my list!

**byates1** · 07-05-2024, 08:38 PM

So sick. Thx for the TR. Rad!

**Yukonrider** · 07-07-2024, 12:48 PM

I am currently planing to visit Georgia to ride motorcycle around for two weeks in September, well timed. Any way to make the font white so its easier to read?

**climberevan** · 07-07-2024, 01:33 PM

Originally Posted by Yukonrider

I am currently planing to visit Georgia to ride motorcycle around for two weeks in September, well timed. Any way to make the font white so its easier to read?

On my app, black font is the only readable color...perhaps you should change your background so it's white, like paper...

Or you can highlight the text, which should make it show up. It's worth the read.