International (Europe/Japan/Southern Hemisphere) 2022 Republic of Georgia Trip Report

[Mattadvproject]

G'day gang,
Time for the last trip report of the season and our trip to Gudauri in the Republic of Georgia. I'm heading out tomorrow for 19-days. For followers of my previous Georgia trip reports (2019, 2020), you will remember that this was my final, aborted trip during the 2020 season and the start of the Pandemic. We left Denver on the 11th March, arrived in Munich on the 12th and then found out the US border was closing on the 13th, so we had to turn around. We all know the rest......

I'll be taking the same itinerary, Denver to Munich to Tbilisi with my good mate from Denver, Dave Liechty. Dave was with me back in 2020 as well. This will be with Lufthansa again. Apart from the 12 hour layover in Munich, this should be a relatively easy journey. There's no need for any COVID testing to travel Georgia if you are fully-vaccinated, so that's a nice change after all the stresses of trying to travel to Uzbekistan last month. It's great having that Denver to Munich flight, it makes it so much easier. I did have a flight change (returning earlier; now returning on the 25th March instead of the 7th April), so all up, probably spent around $850 for this flight. An absolute bargain!

We get in early in the 8th (4am) and then have a chance to catch up on sleep and then do some sightseeing around Tbilisi in the afternoon. Then on the 9th, Dave and I will be heading to the ski area of Bakuriani for 3 days of skiing, in the lower Caucasus. The forecast (currently) is for snow the whole time we are there. I've not been to Bakuriani before (resort number 93 on my list!) and I'm excited to check out somewhere completely new. Then we'll be back in Tbilisi on the 13th and meeting the rest of the group on the 14th, when we'll be heading up to Gudauri for the official start of our trip. I'll be reporting on all of this.

I'm keen to get back to Georgia, especially to vanquish the ghosts of our aborted 2020 trip but I do head there with a lot of trepidation. Obviously I am massively concerned with the terrible events unfolding in Ukraine and there are valid concerns that Georgia, having previously been a victim of Russian territorial expansion (2008), could be a future target. Needless to say, we are monitoring the situation and if there are any hints of troop buildup, any kind of escalation, then we'll be on the first plane out of Tbilisi or heading to the border with Azerbaijian (only an hour from Tbilisi, if that's not an option). As a group, we've spoken a lot about the risks involved, I think the consensus is that Putin is too bogged down in Ukraine, to make a move on Georgia during the time we will be there. It's crazy to be even have to have that conversation, but that's the current situation we are in...... anyway, we won't mess around if anything happens and we'll leave without hesitation. Everyone has comprehensive travel insurance to cover any loss, additional expenses.

The long-term weather forecast is also showing good amounts of snow during our trip as well. It would be a great way to finish off the season with a few more days of powder skiing. Fingers crossed all goes well. Thanks for following the previous trip reports for North Macedonia and Uzbekistan, I look forward to writing about this next adventure in Georgia. All the best!

- Matt

 

[Mattadvproject]

Lovely first day in Tbilisi exploring the sites with Dave Liechty. Favorite places included the Old Town, the old clock tower at the Puppet Theatre, the Bridge of Peace, Queen Darejan Palace, Sulfur Baths, Leghvtakhevi Canyon, traditional lunch, Narikala Fortress, Mother of Georgia Statue, Meidan Bazaar and some awesome Georgian wine tasting. Great start to the trip. Off to the Bakuriani ski area tomorrow for 3-days of skiing.



-Matt

 

[James]

What’s the atmosphere there with the war going on across the Black Sea?

 

[Mattadvproject]

What’s the atmosphere there with the war going on across the Black Sea?

I think a little tense, knowing that Georgia is a known target of Russia. How much active anti-Russian sentiment there is here, I'm not sure, there are or were, plenty of Russian's coming to Georgia prior to the invasion and they have been a big part of the tourism industry. How well received they are, I don't know at the moment. We did see one guy in a shopping mall when we were trying to get GEL (Georgian Leri) from the ATM with a blue/yellow hoody that read "F*ck Putin" on it. I did see one bit of anti-Russian graffiti saying "Russia, go back."

There is a massive amount of support for Ukraine though. There have been massive pro-Ukraine protests in Tbilisi, right near our hotel at the Georgian Parliament building and there is a donation center there too with a massive buildup of donated items in cardboard boxes under tarps. There are people selling Ukraine flags and many people wear blue/yellow pins. Ukraine and Georgian flags are everywhere, so it's clear that local people are very supportive of Ukraine at least, I just don't know how they feel about Russia.

My guess is that they are probably more anti-Putin, than anti-Russian in general. I will no doubt find out more about this..... thanks for the question @James .

 

[Fuller]

What an awesome place, thanks for bringing us along!

 

[James]

I was just in France coming back from skiing. Went to some WW1 and WW2 sites. The carnage and destruction was just incredible. From just two places in WW1, Verdun and Chemin des Dames near Reims, you’re talking 600,000 killed. Everything destroyed.
In Paris saw films of the evacuation to the south from the advancing Germans in WW2. Similar to what is going on in Ukraine right now.

 

[locknload]

Thanks, Matt. Stay very safe and have a blast. You do lead some incredible trips to interesting places of historical and cultural significance and nail some great powder lines. We'll talk when you get back. Looking foward to the trip reports!!!

 

[Mattadvproject]

Wed 9th March - Travel to Bakuriani

It was pretty cold and wet in Tbilisi when we got up, so hopefully big snow in the mountains. Our plan was to drive to Bakuriani, a ski area in the lower Caucasus, about 3 hours from Tbilisi. This was a new resort for me and I was excited to check it out. On the way we decided to take a stop in Gori, known for being the town that Stalin was born in. I don't think I was in the right mood (given what is happening in Ukraine) to hit the museum, but our driver stopped outside anyway and it was snowing, so a (mostly) indoor museum would at least keep us warmer and drier.

Price was 15 GEL or about $4.50 and the museum is in a massive old, Soviet-style building. The building was probably more interesting then the museum itself which was full of photographs, photos and statues. There was little English information given in the descriptions, but there was an English-speaking tour happening later on and if we were really keen to know more, we would have stayed around for it.

Outside, covered up with a roof and almost shrine-like, is Stalin's home that he grew up in. Whether or not that was in the original place or had been moved, I do not know, but it was a very ramshackle, small little house, viewed only from the outside. They also have Stalin's personal rail-car but sadly we couldn't seem to gain entrance to that. We stayed for about an hour and then hit the road. We did try and find the entrance to the Gori Fortress, but our driver couldn't find it so we kept on driving after a while.

I was in and out of sleep in the car (still very jet-lagged) and when I came to, we were on the mountain road. It was well past 2pm when we made a stop for lunch at a little restaurant at the side of the road. They had a large menu of traditional Georgian food and we had some big chuncks of BBQ pork and chicken, double-cheese Katchipuri and then some fizzy pear juice. The food was great.

We passed through Borjomi (home of the famous Borjomi water) and then it was about another 30-minutes to Bakuriani. We had a slight kerfuffle with our accommodation (taken to the wrong place in the middle of nowhere) but thanks to booking.com and Google maps, finally found the right place next to the Kokhta ski lift (looks like a 6-person lift). We had a walk around and found the ticket office (less than $10 for a day pass) and then walked to a small supermarket for breakfast items and then a quick beer on the way home. A pretty easy day but tomorrow we start skiing.

Our goal is to get a good lay of the land and if we can ski some powder, that would be a nice bonus!



- Matt

 

[Mattadvproject]

First day skiing in Bakuriani and yep, we found the goods! 8 inches of fresh and only 3 other people in competition for freshies, we liked the odds! Starting to figure this place out..... We are staying at Kokhta and we have a 2-stage 6 person, high-speed chair taking us to the top of Mt. Kokhta at 7,076ft. Steep, untouched pow in open glades awaited us. We skied untouched lines every lap. Then we figured out how to get to Mitarbi (apparently closed trails are still open in this part of the world.....) where more untouched lines awaited us. All for 35 GEL or $10. Will explore Tatra and hopefully Didveli areas tomorrow.

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- Matt

 

[James]

Do they stop the lift after you go through to save energy?

 

[Mattadvproject]

Do they stop the lift after you go through to save energy?

Most lifts need a rest after I've been on them......
Are you talking about the poma lift? That didn't seem to be running at all. We were wondering if it's only open on the weekends? It didn't really hamper us, it was only a 5-minute bootpack and very easy. Probably a good thing as the bottom lift at Mitarbi doesn't go down to the road and we were concerned that we wouldn't be able to get a taxi back to Kokhta where we stay because we couldn't see any any taxis at Mitarbi. Thankfully with our easy short-cut back, it wasn't an issue.

 

[Mattadvproject]

What an awesome place, thanks for bringing us along!

Thanks so much! Plenty more to come, Bakuriani has been great so far but the real skiing begins in Gudauri. Excited to have local guide support there as it makes life a lot easier....

 

[Mattadvproject]

Thanks, Matt. Stay very safe and have a blast. You do lead some incredible trips to interesting places of historical and cultural significance and nail some great powder lines. We'll talk when you get back. Looking foward to the trip reports!!!

Thanks Randy. The culture, people and food are just as important as the skiing in my opinion. If we get good skiing, then that is a bonus, but most places I've found seem to have good snow. I think only the NZ trip in 2019 was a bust, snow-wise but we still had a great time as it's a beautiful place and there was plenty of other things to see. There's still so much to see and I expect that I'll be spending more time in the 'stans and Georgia has more to offer too. Thanks for following, lots more to come......

 

[Mattadvproject]

12th March

Redemption day! What a great day. The previous day (11th) had been tough as there were really high winds and the new snow had turned to wind-crust. We only managed 3 runs before the top lift was shut down. So, we had a pretty easy day, not a bad idea as I think our legs were smoked from the previous day’s powder extravaganza.

We awoke to find only about 6 inches of fresh out of the front of the house but when we got off the top of the lift, it was much deeper than that. Where you didn’t hit any tracks from the previous day, it was knee deep in places. The wind-slab was gone and the skiing was smooth and consistent.

With the high-speed 6-person lift running at full-speed, it’s only about 3 minutes to the top of Kokhta. If you can do a non-stop lap, then your legs are majorly burning. We started with the show-pony line underneath the lift, with first tracks. The skiing was nice. Then we worked our way to the skier’s left, skiing a hidden path through the trees that we called the ‘Tweener. It hadn’t been skied the day before and it was really deep. We had a lot of faceshots on that run. We skied that one top to bottom without stopping. The pain of yesterday’s sore legs was long gone….

Then we hit a line we had skied before, a powerline, then headed further left again to an open face. The further left we went, the shorter the run but the sweeter the snow. We did another open face further left again and then hit a tighter line in the trees in between all of these runs. Deep, blower snow awaited us on every lap. My face was caked but I didn’t care, more snow awaited us.

Next up, hit up the skier’s right of the chair. This was still all untracked. We skied a couple of runs right next to the main groomed run, both sides were untouched. Thank you very much! Then we headed back into the trees to both sides for more of the same. We ended our 3-hour ski day with an exploration of the skies to the far skier’s right of the resort. We had only ducked in a little way before, but this time we really went in. We found a large, open face and made our mark on that, before hitting more trees on the way down. That ended in a cat track with a decent drop off a little cliff (thankfully we found some easier drops) and then onto the track. It was a quick traverse back to the lift on a blue run.

We did 4 laps in that zone before calling it quits. I think we did at least 15 laps in our morning, then headed back across the road to our little house for some lunch and a nice bottle of red wine. It’s funny, both Dave and I aren’t really wine drinkers but the semi-sweet reds (in our case, a Rtvelisi Kindzmarauli red, fermented in clay pots undergound in the traditional Georgian way), are really fruity and easy to drink. We’ve been enjoying the wines we bought in Tbilisi at the end of our ski day. Lovely stuff! We’ll enjoy some more Georgian food tonight and then head back to Tbilisi to stay 1 night at the Shota, before meeting the rest of the group on the morning of the 14th and our departure for Gudauri where big mountain skiing awaits. Can’t wait!

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- Matt

 

[Mattadvproject]

13th/14th March - Tbilisi and Travel to Gudauri
We have the team together! The trip proper starts. Everyone has arrived in Georgia. We have a small group; Dave from Denver (who you know already from our warmup in Bakuriani), Rob from Chicago, Rich from Denver and Eric from Tahoe. Unfortunately Eric had to stay in Tbilisi for an extra night as he is waiting on his board bag to show up from Istanbul still.

We had a lovely meal at the wine shop we had found in Tbilisi at the start of the Old Town and found out that the restaurant upstairs from the wine shop could serve us food downstairs, so we had an amazing meal (my rabbit stew was amazing) and all for the low price of $15 per person, we ate like kings. It was so good. Our little stray cat friend also enjoyed the experience and a warm lap.....

Then the next morning we had a couple of Mitsubishi Delica's come and pick us up for the 3-hour to Gudauri. We had a stop at the beautiful Ananuri (17th century) on the way and a nice lunch in front of a river and mountain backdrop. Then we made it to the Gudauri Loft Hotel, our base for the next 9 night's.

My good friend from 2019, Roma, was there working. He is a lovely guy and a great host. Excitedly, he brought out some of his new wines that he has started production of at his family's winery. The dry red and whites were lovely. We had a couple of pizzas for dinner, plus some Roma-inspired khatchapuri bread and then had an early night, ready for our first ski day today.

Can't wait to see the mountain and get out an explore. Today will be an easy warm-up day and a chance to dial in avi-safety skills.




- Matt

 

[James]

13th/14th March - Tbilisi and Travel to Gudauri
We have the team together! The trip proper starts. Everyone has arrived in Georgia.

So that was a nice appetizer!
Interesting mini van with a snorkel.

 

[Mattadvproject]

So that was a nice appetizer!
Interesting mini van with a snorkel.

Yes, those wagons are pretty cool, Mitsubishi Delica's, imported from Japan. They are right hand drive, high and low 4WD, great in the snow.....

 

[Mattadvproject]

March 15th - First on-snow day with the group in Gudauri
We were up at 8am for breakfast which was a really nice buffet with plenty of options. The sun was out and we had amazing views of the views to the south and west. We could see some of the massive crowns from some truly enormous avalanches that had run during the last storm cycle with more than a meter of new snow falling up high, several days previously. It was an ominously impressive sight.

The lifts don't open till 10am, so we had plenty of time. We started with our beacon check outside on-snow and then a quick review of the safety gear I was carrying. Then we headed down to the lowest lift (Pirveli, 6-person chair) to the ticket office to purchase our lift tickets. A 6-day pass cost 213.00 GEL or about $66 ($11 per day), possibly the cheapest lift pass in the world! Awesome.....

Then we headed up another 6-person chair (Soliko) and our warmup run was a tough, ungroomed, chopped up powder run near the communication towers. That was a tough start and although the snow was still soft and deep, probably not the easiest way to open our account. After that, we spent some time exploring the other 6-person lifts and skiing the mellower blue runs and untouched powder next to the runs. The snow was deep (60cm's had fallen down low a couple of days ago during a massive storm) and you had to really fine-tune your balance both fore/aft and side to side.

After several runs, everyone was feeling more confident and we were ready to head back to something steeper. We headed back to the same ridgeline we warmed up on, this time sticking further left and finding a long, reasonably steep powder run. We stayed left to get into the fresh. The views were amazing. Then we put the skins on and climbed another ridge (an easy 25-minute skin) to the top of a long, steep, very wide face on top of Mt. Chrdili. There were some tracks down the middle, but plenty of untouched to the skier's right.

I dropped in first and had a perfect long ramp, with consistent untouched powder turns. I kept my speed lower and turns shorter, skiing exactly 50 turns in total. It was an amazing run, a very memorable way to open the account. The rest of the group dropped in one at a time and there was much hooting and hollering to be had. After stopping to enjoy our tracks and take on some water, we headed to one of the outdoor restaurants for some late lunch (2:30pm).

The waiter was super friendly and sure enough, brought out some Cha-Cha (local white spirit or rocket fuel). I won't touch that stuff but Dave and Rich tried a shot and the expressions on their faces as they swallowed the firewater were hilarious. Never again they said! Once was enough for me back in 2019..... ha ha!

Then it was time to head back to the hotel area to finish off with a couple of hours of beacon training. We had a really nice Georgian guy (Davit from Bakuriani, training to be a local guide) come to watch and then speak to us about his gear and if we thought it was up to snuff. Unfortunately, it was hard to tell him that his old plastic shovel, small probe and outdated Ortovox early digital beacon, had all been superseeded. I showed him some more modern gear and how much easier it was to use and hopefully in the near future, he will be able to upgrade it. Anyway, he added me on Facebook and I'll try and help him out as much as possible, on his start as a potential guide. It was a heartwarming and lovely interaction, something I always look forward to in these parts of the world.

Then we had another nice dinner with our good friend Roma and met up with the owner and guides from Gudauri Snowlab and discussed our basic plan for the next day. We will be working with Sergey, a Russian guide who normally lives and guides in Chamonix. He's climbed 7 x 8,000m peaks, including Everest, so we are honored to be in his company. We'll see what the weather does as it looks like we are about to get more snow and that will limit visibility and where we can ski.

All in all, an awesome first day skiing and I look forward to more. 7 guided days coming up!

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- Matt

 

[James]

Beautiful!
Why are there Olympic Rings on that building?

 

[Mattadvproject]

Beautiful!
Why are there Olympic Rings on that building?

View attachment 163129

Good eye @James ..... I saw those same rings back in 2019. On doing some research, I think it can only be because Georgia wants to put in a bid to host the Winter Olympics in 2030 - http://gudauri.ski/eng/main/index/245......