Travel diary | Freeride adventure in Georgia

Day 1

We land at Kutaisi Airport at 2.55 am. Just 30 meters past customs, we are standing on the street where the cab is waiting to take us to our first accommodation. After breakfast, with fried potatoes and a kind of kebab, we drive to Mestia in the north of Georgia, a small town in the Svaneti region. Our cab driver skillfully manoeuvres us through the streets full of holes, cows, pigs and chickens. Five hours and 200 kilometers later, we arrive in Mestia. Every large house has a huge medieval fortified tower in its garden, making the town a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Mestia lies at 1500 meters and is our base for the coming days.

Day 2

We stay with a family whose life at home mainly takes place in the kitchen. The wood-burning stove is the most important thing in the house. This is where we cook three times a day, burn the garbage and dry our clothes. We feel that life here is pure. The locals are very friendly, everything is shared and everything on the table is homemade. Four generations live in the house and everyone has their own tasks here.

We discuss our options over dinner. First of all, we decide on the Hatsvali ski resort because fresh snow is expected. Hatsvali is not that high up and offers treeruns. It's a small resort with two chairlifts that run from Mestia up to the 2300-metre-high Mount Zuruldi. So we start our freeride adventure in Hatsvali for the next two days. There is more than 60 centimetres of fresh snow. The steep forest of spruce and birch trees offers a huge playground with lots of pillows. From the highest point of the ski resort, we walk further and further along the ridge and are constantly rewarded with new untracked turns. When we climb another 30 minutes from the lift, we don't find a summit cross, but a pack of dogs that happily run after us for the rest of the day. Even as we sit in the modern chairlifts, the dogs run along with us.

We have splitboards with us and have fun for the rest of the day in the very playful terrain - natural hits and gullies are waiting for us everywhere. After each descent, we hike back up the ski resort. Snow profiles that we dig tell us that the snow has settled relatively well at altitude, which is helpful for our planning for the coming days.

It's cloudy. But we keep seeing a few mountain peaks between the clouds. They give us an idea of how beautiful it must be to have a view of the mountain panorama with several five-thousand-metre peaks.

Day 6

We drive to Tetnuldi again. YES! The lifts are open today, 20 minutes late, but they are working. After a few laps of untracked deep snow right next to the piste, we hike up to a small summit at 3200 meters. Clouds and wind come up again and it starts to snow. I'm constantly watching how the visibility changes, ready to return at any time.

One thing I know for sure: I don't want to take any risks in Georgia. There is an Austrian Wucher helicopter in Mestia, but it's there for heliskiing. In the ski resorts, you have to rely more on yourself.

We reach our planned destination and start our descent. A long run in open, alpine terrain, then flat, comfortable terrain with a few small trees and a long, steep track through the forest. We often have to cross a small river or waterfall in the trail. There is no sign of life anywhere. Once in the valley, we find a path that leads us out of the valley. Finally a sign of civilization: two hunters with machine guns and binoculars look at us in amazement. A little later, we reach the medieval village of Zhebushi, where our cab is already waiting for us.

In the evening, I check the weather forecast again and decide to continue on to Ushguli the next day. Ushguli is the highest village in Europe that is inhabited all year round. But we don't feel like we're in Europe at all. Ushguli lies at 2200 meters and just a few years ago, Ushguli was completely cut off from the rest of the world by snow for six months of the year. Nowadays, the dangerous mountain road is cleared from time to time for the few tourists who dare to use it in winter.

Day 7

It's 42 kilometers from Mestia to Ushguli, mainly on gravel roads. We've caught the right day. The roads are clear of snow and rock avalanches. There are always small villages to the left and right, where only one or two families live. All the other houses are in ruins. But from the large glass fronts and the beautiful woodwork, you can tell that it must have been a rich area.

After two and a half hours, we arrive in Ushguli. However, the last road to our accommodation Angelina is too steep for the off-road vehicle. After several attempts, we give up and walk the last few meters. Not a word of English is spoken here. Communication is with hands and feet - and 'Madloba' (thank you).
Ushguli consists of four village sections. After a cup of tea and a coffee, we unpack our splitboards and explore the area. It starts to snow again.

It's surreal. We in our colorful Goretex clothing in a landscape where only a power line indicates that we have not landed in the year 1500. It's very impressive and quiet... An old stooped woman walks past us and a pig follows her at a meter's distance. A mother fetches water from a well with two buckets and a man rides past on his horse. You can feel how rustic and original life is here. Something that we have lost to technology and machines.

We take a short tour with the splitboards to a ruin on a mountain before returning to our accommodation. There we enjoy a delicious meal of various bean and meat dishes and plan the tour for the next day, a summit at 3100 meters, over a glass of wine.

In Mestia, we unpack our luggage again and everyone spends some time on their own. I visit the part of Mestia that I haven't seen yet. I enjoy the beautiful old architecture, the peace and quiet, the animals running around everywhere and the friendly locals. But I also see that the tourists bring money and the young people want modern concrete houses and four-wheel drive cars. The beautiful old houses are falling into disrepair and everything is slowly being modernized. But a part of their culture in harmony with nature is probably being preserved. In the evening, we meet up at the coffee house, where a movie is always shown in the back room from 7 pm.

On our last day, we drive to Tetnuldi again. Again, Tetnuldi is just high enough for us to have good deep snow - and the lifts work. We do lots of first lines directly under the lift and shape the natural hits for more airtime.

The way back to the airport is exciting, just like every car journey here. Our new cab driver sometimes drives at 140 km/h on roads that are still full of holes, cows, pigs and dogs. Whenever I ask him to slow down, he does so for a maximum of two minutes. I can only relax again at the airport.

I think back to the Georgian adventure with great pleasure. I won't miss the car rides, but I think Georgia is a very beautiful country for freeriding, especially for touring in a wilderness that is hard to find in the Alps

If you want to go on a trip to Georgia with Irian as your guide, you can find more information here.