adventure & travel

Adventure Georgia - Ghebi

The improv theater in search of the valley without wind and without avalanches

01/01/2026

The winter in Georgia was already at its best on our first ski tour

Teja Stüwe

Chiora

Johanna Korte & Till Mangesius

The weeks leading up to our adventure were characterized by snow, snow and more snow. That's why we all agreed on the goal of our trip: we wanted to be as safe as possible while having as much fun as possible!

Preparation and arrival

Like many others, we - Teja, Fritz, Till and Jojo - were drawn to Georgia this season. What had been on our to-do list for a long time was finally realized. At home, we got to know the area a bit and at least explored where we didn't want to go. In the end, we came up with a comprehensive and well-thought-out plan:

Flying off
Arrive
(Hopefully) collect the car from a dodgy-looking rental contact → more on that in a moment
Set off in the direction of Ghebi
Skiing or ski touring
Maybe drive to Mestia/Ushgulli
Flying back

Despite this "extensive" planning, surprisingly little went wrong and we were able to affectionately christen our trip "improv theater". The first highlight of the trip followed directly after our arrival. We (Till and Jojo) had already flown ahead and had the honorable task of picking up our vehicle. After some back and forth, we discovered the car in a relatively run-down backyard and shortly afterwards the police came round the corner with flashing blue lights and sirens.

The shock and uncertainty were great (being involved in an illegal car-jacking operation on our first day was not on our to-do list), but the policeman turned out to be just our official and mobile car rental office. After a brief exchange of cash, we were allowed to take the car with us and so began our adventure in this far-flung country.

The breathtaking view, like here in the mountains near Ghebi, was our motivation to plan the trip to Georgia.

Till Mangesius

South of Ghebi

Teja Stüwe & Fritz Crone

The first days of improv theater

The second day for us (Till and Jojo) was the arrival day for Teja and Fritz. For us, this meant picking them up at the airport and heading straight for the mountains to give our tired legs a bit of a run in the Gudauri ski resort. Unfortunately, the visibility varied between very poor and white-out as well as extremely wind-blown and compacted snow. But no matter, the main thing was exercise. As far as we could tell, the ski resort is relatively flat, but probably offers some cool freeride opportunities.

Oh well. After a short coffee break, we decided to head on towards Ghebi relatively early (around 2 o'clock in the afternoon). Everything back in the car and off onto the country's roads. Of course, we hadn't realized that the ski resort wasn't really on the way and had to drive back some of the way before we were really on the way to Ghebi. As a result, we had to look for accommodation on the way, and the choice was obvious: Oni.

On the map, Oni looked relatively large, at least with some accommodation. The reality was different and so we wandered around the town for about 2 hours, hungry, until we finally found shelter at the Madana Guesthouse. Unfortunately, she couldn't help us with food, so we ended up at Spar and bought pesto and pasta. Not a particularly local start to our vacation.

However, we had food, 3 ½ beds and we were warm.

A realization that only came to us a few days later, but was already noticeable in Oni: high season for tourism in Georgia is in summer. Many accommodations are simply closed in winter, perhaps because catering and clearing snow is too difficult, or because there really aren't that many tourists around in winter...

Who needs sleep when you can go straight from the plane to the ski resort?

Till Mangesius

Gudauri Ski Resort

Teja Stüwe

Proper ski touring at last

After we had familiarized ourselves a little more with the roads and other adversities, we were finally able to go on a ski tour in the sunshine on the second day. Starting directly from the small village of Chiora, we chose a relaxed, flat ski tour over a ridge to the north. The next Learing was already waiting for us here. Although everything is very high, the snow on the south-facing slopes gets wet and heavy very quickly. Admittedly, we weren't the fastest or the earliest, but we still learned something. The snow on the western summit slope was great and our first tour gave us a wonderful panorama and also insights into the snowpack (snow profiles).

Happy and tired from the first few kilometers and metres of altitude in the snow, we arrived at the car and set off on the adventurous drive towards Ghebi. Here, for the first of many times, we realized how lucky we were with the timing of our adventure. The completely snow-covered road had turned into a single-lane rut with traffic in both directions after several meters of fresh snow over the past few weeks, which had made the road impassable. With oncoming traffic, we had to hold our nerve and hope that the side wall of snow was soft. We were able to observe or experience one or two exciting maneuvers ourselves.

The anticipation is great before the first ski tour.

Till Mangesius

Chiora

Teja, Jojo und Fritz

Road adventure

The roads are not cleared, sometimes very slippery (here there were usually different opinions between passengers and driver) and the deep potholes are more or less filled with snow... BUT we have a borrowed four-wheel drive monster and of course an exaggerated confidence in our driving skills. At least that was true for 3 out of 4 people. The poor road conditions led to various near-death experiences for Teja, characterized by a warningly raised index finger and/or panicked clawing into various objects in the car's interior. However, the actual car incidents were limited:

1x getting stuck (90% Jojo, 10% Till)
1x unintentional drifting in a traffic circle with police observation (Fritz)
1x black ice sidewall drift (Till)

vs.

100 x admonishingly raised index finger (Teja)

In the end, we always arrived safely and we also got the deposit from the car back.

The locals (and us) can show off our driving skills here

Till Mangesius

On the way to Ghebi

Georgische Locals

Ghebi and the interior designers

We had more luck finding accommodation in Ghebi, in other words: after the fourth accommodation that was not open, a very nice resident of Ghebi referred us to one of the (it felt like) two open accommodations in the town. Once there, we were met with a rather poor parking situation, which is why we decided to leave the gridlocked road. This maneuver ended in a two-hour shovelling operation to free the stuck car, despite the hostess and all the neighbors immediately rushing to help.

As a reward, the next learning awaited us: prices are usually negotiable in Georgia and so our stay in Ghebi was not as expensive as we had feared. Instead of two double rooms, we managed to get a triple room for ourselves and even had dinner and breakfast on the spot. The Brilli guesthouse is superbly equipped and provided us with excellent food.

From our accommodation, we were able to walk straight through the village with our skins and within a few meters we were standing in front of a huge area full of opportunities to play. As our information and rescue options were very limited, we opted for the most defensive options.

However, after several snow profiles and stability tests, we then ventured away from the "baby" spines into a gully. The gully was already clearly visible from our first tour and had the perfect alignment, but it was still a good distance away. Solution: build a snow cave to save vertical meters.

One of the few peaks climbed on our trip and only by part of the group.

Till Mangesius

South Liich from Ghebi

Teja Stüwe & Fritz Crone

The plot twist comes at the end

No sooner said than done. Unfortunately, our interior designers hadn't taken the lack of snow depth into account, so the ceiling turned out to be a little thin and we had to start an evacuation in the middle of the night. As you can imagine, this was not the most restful night. On top of that, we had planned with too little food and only 25% of our team were able to cope, so Teja had to take over the traces the next day.

Nevertheless, we arrived, had a great descent and would all like to go back there again, only with more food and better interior designers. :P

We spent a total of four days in Ghebi and experienced a lot. You can follow the tracks of the tours under the photos in the gallery.

In keeping with this trip, we don't want to withhold one place from you: We take you to Mestia to the CloudBase Hut. Surrounded by untouched nature and a view of the Ushba, it offers exactly that mixture of adventure and solitude that makes Svaneti so unique. We will now take a closer look at this spot as our journey continues.

Thanks to Teja for tracking after the night in and in front of the snow cave.

Fritz Crone

South of Ghebi

Jojo Korte

Photo gallery

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