Thoughts on Reaching My Half-Century

Tbilisi, September 12, 2018

The spirit of travel:  Western Australia, 1996

Tomorrow I will reach a temporal milestone that once seemed unimaginably distant:  50.  I don't think that I ever agreed with The Who ("Hope I die before I get old"), but I just don't think I imagined that I would reach this milestone of decrepitude while still feeling roughly the same as I did when I was 30.  This blog is mostly about travel, but travel through time is another type of travel, one that all of us, even the most homebodyish, undertakes, so I thought I'd look back briefly on my half-century. 

0-10:  Childhood in Thunder Bay (mostly)

With my mother in Ottawa

I was born in Ottawa late on a Friday the 13th; the woman in labour next door to my mother was trying to keep her baby unborn for another half hour to avoid bad luck, but my mother was just glad to get the entire experience over with.  (My high school friend Katherine was born on the same Friday the 13th, and the hospital in Thunder Bay burned down during her labour, so maybe there's something in the superstition?).  I was the first-born, and my first year was spent living in an apartment at 12 Somerset Avenue West, just across the street from where my mother now lives, 50 years later.

With my doting father, 1968

12 Somerset East

After a year in Ottawa, my father quit his government job in Ottawa and drove himself, my mom and me down to Ames, Iowa to do a PhD in forestry.  I spent 2 years in Ames, and then in 1971 my father took us back to Canada, to a job as a forestry professor at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, where he would work until his retirement.  I spent the next seven years growing up on the shores of Lake Superior, with one enormously enjoyable interlude in the summer of 1977 when my father taught summer school at the ETH in Zurich and took the family along to explore Switzerland while he worked.

Thunder Bay, early 1970s

Sailing with my cousin Cris on Lake Superior, 1973

Triumphantly riding my first full-sized bicycle

10-20:  Thunder Bay, Morogoro, Waterloo, First Travels

All four siblings together, 1980

First summer playing baseball, 1979

At age 12, I headed off to Morogoro, Tanzania, where my father had taken a 2-year contract teaching forestry at an agricultural university.  I was unhappy to be uprooted from Thunder Bay, but eventually grew to appreciate the incredible wildlife and adventure of life outside the comfortable confines of Canada.  This experience, more than anything else, got me thinking about travel as a way of life.  As well, since I was doing correspondence courses for high school, I had ample free time to read voraciously for 2 years, something that was far more educational than the formal courses I was taking.

Graduating from Hillcrest High School, 1986

I returned to Thunder Bay at age 14 for the final three years of high school.  I attended an excellent high school, with a number of top-quality teachers, and made a plethora of life-long friends.  I played tennis, played Reach For the Top (quiz bowl for high school), took part in mathematics contests and graduated in 1986 eager to study mathematics and physics in university.

Portrait of the traveller as a young graduate, 1986

Reach for the Top team, 1986

My best friend Hans and I headed down to the University of Waterloo in September, 1986 as roommates.  I enjoyed my first year at Waterloo, but burned out a bit in my second year and took a mid-degree gap year.  I spent three months bartending in London and gorging on theatre, musicals and other art in my free time, then spent a month Eurailing around Europe before heading to Budapest to start my Budapest Semester in Mathematics, a truly transformational experience both in terms of travel and in terms of learning.

My first semester in the dorms of West Two, Waterloo

20-30:  Further Studies, Further Travels

Budapest, 1988

My 20th birthday happened in Budapest, and I felt as though those 4 months, in the days before the Iron Curtain fell, were the most intense experience of my life up until then.  I learned a ton of mathematics while feasting on Hungarian food and wine and developing a taste for opera.  I headed back to Canada poorer in monetary terms, but immensely enriched in experience and knowledge, and certain that I wanted to travel a great deal more.

Off to the rink, Christmas 1989

With my sisters, 1990, rocking the big curls

My last 2 years at the University of Waterloo were largely enjoyable, with lots of tennis, beer-brewing, mathematics contests and socializing, and my first-ever bicycle trip (around the Low Countries, France and Germany) in the summer of 1990.  I did well in my courses and assumed naively that any graduate school would be glad to have me.  I applied only to a handful of places, and wasn't accepted anywhere, so I took an extra year off, applied to far more grad schools and then headed to Australia for eight months.

I had a great deal of fun in Australia, especially travelling around with Hans and another friend, Inder.  After a month in New Zealand, I arrived back in Canada penniless and spent my third summer treeplanting to rebuild my finances before heading off to Harvard to study astrophysics in the fall of 1992.

I had assumed for years that I would be a brilliant academic and win a Nobel Prize for decoding the secrets of the universe.  Instead, although I had a wonderful time socially, played a huge amount of tennis and squash, brewed barrels of beer and learned lots of Russian, I was a poor excuse for a graduate student, unable to motivate myself to work hard enough to succeed.  I was already on my way out the door when I got myself onto the game show Jeopardy, won $17,000 and decided that the money would help finance the start of a world travelling career.

July 1994 saw me headed to Egypt and Turkey on my first foray alone out of the Western world.  I had intended to teach English in Prague after that, but instead returned to Canada to earn a bit more money.  I tried my hand at writing code that winter in Ottawa, and it almost killed my soul.  I was rescued by a job offer from Japan to teach English on the JET program, and headed there, via a couple of months in the UK, Spain and East Africa, in July, 1995.

Fuji, 1996

I loved my life in Japan, working not terribly hard during the week and exploring Japan on the weekends, especially the mountains, either on foot or on skis.  After a year, though, I had itchy feet and headed off on a year-long traipse through Southeast Asia, Western Australia and South Asia.  My first view of the Himalayas in Nepal was life-changing, resulting in numerous return trips to High Asia and its high-altitude magic.

Summer of 1997, Thunder Bay

I rounded out my 20s with a year spent cycling around Europe, getting a TEFL certification, working in Toronto and spending a few months working as a bicycle guide in the Netherlands and France.  I spent much of the summer of 1998 on my first long-distance expedition bicycle trip with my sisters and their partners (the XTreme Dorks) across Pakistan, Xinjiang and Tibet, and celebrated my 30th birthday in France in September, back at work as a bicycle guide.

K2 Base Camp, Pakistan, 1997

Entering China over the Khunjerab Pass, 1998

The XTreme Dorks, Lake Manasarovar, 1998

30-40:  Getting Serious About Travel

Palmyra, 1999, long before the ravages of IS

The next decade was fruitful in terms of travel, much of it on bicycles.  I spent the winter of 1998-9 on a long swing through Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, then headed to Chile to teach English.  The Chilean gig didn't pay much and the English school folded, but I had a lot of fun, learned Spanish, skied a lot and then headed back to Japan to earn some money.  I returned to South America for several months of travel, including climbing Aconcagua with the XTreme Dorks, then went back to Japan to refill my coffers.

Family hiking trip to Macchu Pichu, 1999

Bolivia, 2000 with the Xtreme Dorks

With my sisters in Kathmandu, 2001

Nepal, 2001

Silk Road ride start, Xian, 2002

2001 was spent travelling with my girlfriend Joanne, cycling through Southeast Asia.  Eventually Joanne decided that cycling wasn't her thing and I carried on alone across Tibet.  2002 was supposed to be the year I cycled the Silk Road, but I was felled by rheumatic fever in Urumqi, China and had to abandon the plan 

for the time being.

Cross-country skiing, Thunder Bay, 2004

2004, Pamir Highway, Tajikistan

Another reunion with my sisters, Ladakh 2005

Two rather disappointing years followed, one rebuilding my health and strength in Canada and my bank account in Japan, and one spent slogging through a Bachelor of Education degree in Thunder Bay, as I had had my fill of English teaching and needed to engage my brain a bit more.  In 2004 I rode the central third of the Silk Road, from Urumqi to Tehran, and then went to Egypt on my first teaching gig, but lasted only 4 months as the students were too much to handle and I did more zoo-keeping than teaching.  I went back to Japan, my regular financial fallback position, one last time, after being caught up with Joanne in the great Boxing Day tsunami in December 2004.  I spent a year in Japan, with the summer being set aside for a Himalayan cycling trip in India with my sisters, then rode through Vietnam in the summer of 2006.

Mongolia, 2007

Nepal with my mother, 2007

The next three years were spent teaching at Yangon International School in Burma with Joanne.  It was a wonderful time to be there, and I finally got to enjoy the long holidays of the teaching lifestyle, with summers spent cycling in Mongolia and backpacking around Europe, and shorter breaks in the Himalayas, skiing in Japan and diving all over Southeast Asia.  I played tennis most days of the week, playing better than I ever had in my 20s. I welcomed in my 40s at a huge party organized expertly by Joanne at our palatial apartment in Yangon, glad to be where I was.

40-50:  More Travel, and Five Years in the Alps

Made it!  End of the Silk Road ride, Ayas, Turkey, 2009

The last decade started with my last year in Yangon, and then a year of travel.  I finished my Silk Road ride on Halloween 2009 in Turkey, then rode through the chilly Balkans, toured around Italy, Libya and Malta with Joanne, then flew to Ethiopia for some challenging cycling there.  I got back to Canada to find a job offer waiting for me at a school in Leysin, Switzerland at a school that my mother had taught at years before.

Ethiopian highlands, 2010

Terri in Ladakh, 2012

Latvia, 2011

My five years in Leysin were wonderful from the point of view of lifestyle and travel, although teaching at a boarding school eventually proved too intense for me as I burned out, had a nervous breakdown and was off work for 2 months and on reduced hours for another 5.  The rest of the time, though, I skied, ski-toured, hiked, cycled, played tennis and travelled compulsively.  2011 saw me cycling from Tbilisi to Tallinn, 2012 saw Terri (my partner since arriving in Leysin) and I hiking across Ladakh, then my heading to Kyrgyzstan to try to climb some high mountains (Peak Lenin and Muztagh Ata), an experience that made me conclude that mountaineering was not my thing.  2013 was a year for Togo, Benin and Iceland, while 2014 saw me exploring Indonesia, the Solomon Islands, East Timor and Papua New Guinea.

South Georgia, 2015

Wild camping out of Stanley, Botswana, 2016

The past three years, after leaving my job in Leysin in 2015, have been a whirlwind of "pretirement" for Terri and me:  hiking in Europe, a cruise to the Falklands, South Georgia and Antarctica, cycling in South America, a year spent driving around southern Africa in our beloved camper Stanley, and another year spent diving and writing a book on the northeastern corner of Bali, after the death of my father at age 85 in Thunder Bay.  Another spin around Namibia with Stanley, after a tour around New Zealand, and it was time to return to work, this time in Tbilisi, Georgia.  

49th birthday, Bali, 2017

I have to say that I feel relatively youthful at 50, although the onrushing sickle of the Grim Reaper does whistle in my ears occasionally.  My hair is noticeably greyer now, as is my beard, and my physical recovery time from strenuous exercise is enormously longer than it was in my 20s.  I tire more easily, and my memory isn't as razor-sharp as it once was.  But I can still cycle long days, hike over mountain passes and ski tour, so I'm not ready for my rocking chair just yet.  I hope to get another 20 years of active travel in before my body gets too old for this sort of thing, and to get some travel books published.  I'm not sure I'll see out my second half-century, but I am certain that I will have fun trying!

Atsunta Pass, Georgia, 2018

Our first weekend warrior expedition, from Juta to Roshka

An Ansel Adamsesque photo of Chaukhi

The impossibly contorted green felt of the high Caucasus

Tbilisi, September 3, 2018

Nana and Terri on Saturday morning

It's Monday evening after a wonderful weekend spent hiking in the Caucasus.  On Friday afternoon, Terri and I caught a shared taxi from Didube station to Stepantsminda, formerly known as Kazbegi, the tourism epicentre for hiking in Georgia's mountains.  It cost us 20 GEL each (about US $8) and we got there relatively quickly, in about two and a half hours, including two fuel stops and a tourism stop at Ananuri fortress.  By 8:00 we were standing in the rain in Stepantsminda, trying to figure out where the bed-and-breakfast joint we had booked on Booking.com was.  Eventually we called, and Nana and Alex came to pick us up.  It was a lovely, welcoming, big room, and after an overpriced but tasty dinner in town at a new restaurant, we slept the sleep of the dead.

Insect life in the wildflowers

Camberwell Beauty butterfly beside the trail

Saturday morning we awoke at 7:30 to Nana's tap on the door, bearing the first of a succession of trays groaning with a lavish breakfast spread.  We fed ourselves silly, made lunch from the rest of the feast and then shouldered our packs and walked down to the main square to find a lift to Juta village.  Within a few seconds we had a lift for 60 GEL and were zipping back south along the Georgian Military Highway, then east up the Sno Valley on a newly-improved gravel road.  By 10:00, we were in the village of Juta, a rapidly-developing tourist village, and on our way.  Ironically, although we had a new technological toy (a Garmin 64s handheld GPS) and a new paper hiking map, we left town in the wrong direction.  We had planned to climb the Chaukhi Pass, but we ended up heading towards the Sadzele Pass instead.

Terri climbing up towards the Sadzele Pass

The skies were grey and threatening, but the scenery and weather slowly improved as we marched upstream, along a newly-constructed dirt road leading to a border patrol post where our passports were checked, just as they were last month in Girevi, Tusheti.  The Georgians are keeping a very close eye on their borders with the rapacious Russian Bear, and border patrol posts are popping up everywhere.  We continued upstream, looking up at a back route up the Chaukhi Pass that requires ropes and mountaineering skills, then climbed steeply to the Sadzele Pass, at 3056 metres some 300 metres lower than the Chaukhi.  As we climbed, a succession of buzzards soared above us, and a huge eagle, possibly a golden eagle, hurtled past at almost ground level like a feathered cruise missile.  The view from the top back the way we had come was curtailed by clouds wreathing the summits towards the Russian republic of Ingushetia, but looking ahead we had clear skies and a view of a beautiful valley scarred by the construction of another new road, this time north into an isolated border area; again, the Georgians seem to be improving the ability of their border guards and troops to move quickly to any border area.

Feeling pleased with myself at the summit of the Sadzele Pass

It was windy and chilly atop the pass, so we didn't linger and descended steeply to the east, with the first two hundred vertical metres being uncomfortably steep and crumbly underfoot.  Eventually we reached the first stream in the valley, via a tortuous series of switchbacks, and had a delicious, long-delayed lunch, lovingly prepared in advance by Terri for easy trailside epicurean delights.  As we munched on khachapuri, ham-cheese-tomato sandwiches topped with slatherings of fresh coriander, boiled eggs and a luxury trail mix, we watched two Georgian cowboys leading four sure-footed horses down the precipitous trail with nonchalant ease.  Terri thinks that Georgian horses are particularly good at handling steep terrain that would ordinarily only be suitable for mules; we were both amazed that one of the cowboys actually rode his mount down the path.

Eventually we resumed our descent and finally decided to pitch our tents at 2340 metres in the Abudelauri valley, where we rejoined the trail from the Chaukhi Pass that we should have been following all along.  We were rewarded with sweeping vistas of the stone spires of the Chaukhi massif as we cooked up another delicious meal (pasta with tomato paste, topped with more cheese, olives and fresh coriander).  We got chilled lying outside on the grass eating and toasting the day with a small amount of Georgian brandy, and were both shivering as we crawled into our trusty Big Agnes tent.

Feeling pleased with life as I brew up some soup on my MSR stove

Not a bad scene to wake up to!

We slept soundly, and woke up to clear skies and 3 degrees Celsius.  The morning sun caught the rock ramparts of Chaukhi, making a striking backdrop to our morning muesli, tea and coffee.  We were walking by 8:40 am, losing altitude gradually as the landscape softened and became lusher, dotted with increasing numbers of wildflowers and full of butterflies, bees, crickets and a host of other insects.  It was impossibly idyllic, especially as the morning sun dispersed the frigid chill of dawn.  We made it into the village of Roshka, perched at 2000 metres and looking as though it would reward a return visit some weekend for some more hiking.  

The characteristic brushed green baize of a Caucasus hillside

We then struck out downhill along a narrow path that had both of us questioning our route-finding a few times (we were reassured by our trusty GPS), across overgrown meadows and down through old growth hardwood forests to the main Shatili-Zhinvali road.  We reached the bottom at 12:15, near a series of beautiful waterfalls and swimming holes, and found a driver waiting beside his Nissan Pathfinder for trekkers like us.  We negotiated a lift to Zhinvali for 80 GEL and sat back to watch the scenery fly by as we took the rutted, potholed road at a higher speed than seemed feasible.  The only thing that slowed down our manic progress was a huge flock of sheep and goats being driven down from the highlands after a summer of blissful grazing, an example of the millenia-old pattern of transhumance that typifies the high mountains from Europe across to Central Asia.  We descended the Pshavis Aragvi River, passing numerous side valleys that all beckoned us to return for more exploration some weekend in the future.  By 2:00 we were squeezing ourselves and our luggage onto a marshrutka bus and careening towards Tbilisi.  We hopped off 300 metres from our front door and were unpacking and hanging our dew-soaked tent out to dry before 3:00 pm, very satisfied with our weekend of exploring a new corner of the Caucasus.

The south wall of Chaukhi, seen from our campsite

Bucolic scenery near Roshka

Terri and I would love to return both to Juta and to Roshka, perhaps to stay indoors and do some day hikes through the spectacular scenery, unencumbered by heavy backpacks.  In two weeks' time, when I will be celebrating my 50th birthday, we might well spend the weekend in Juta, this time climbing partway up the Chaukhi Pass to get a view of the spectacular north wall of the mountain, described as Georgia's answer to Torres del Paine and the Dolomites.  In the meantime, we hope to buy a vehicle this weekend for easier access to the remoter corners of the country; we are hoping to buy a Mitsubishi Delica, a rugged 4x4 minivan that would be a perfect vehicle for camping, carrying skis and bicycles, and handling the rough roads of the Georgian backwoods.  We are hoping to spend most weekends away from Tbilisi, getting to know the wonderful countryside and mountains of this appealing and enchanting country.

An ovine traffic jam on the way out of Roshka

Return to Tusheti

Tbilisi, August 28

The hard-won top of the Col de la Croix 

Since I last updated the blog, I have finished the second draft of my book (while in Bali), and then travelled for nearly 2 months around Namibia with Terri in our beloved camper Stanley before leaving him in storage for the next couple of years near Cape Town.  A month of catching up with my mother and working further on my book followed, and now I find myself in full-time gainful employment for the first time in three years as I start a two-year teaching adventure at an international school in Tbilisi, Georgia.  I will update my blog retroactively with stories of our trip through New Zealand in February and March, and of our Namibian escapades as well, but for now I want to keep the blog up to date by writing a bit about a trip that Terri and I did as a welcome-to-Georgia adventure.

Myself with former LAS students Ashley, Eric and Arshia

I arrived in Georgia on July 29th, bleary-eyed from two successive night flights, and was picked up by my school and taken to our new home, a spacious two-storey three-bedroom place in the far northern suburbs of Tbilisi, in a neighbourhood called Dighomi.  It's a rapidly-developing part of town, with plenty of new houses on sizeable lots being built.  It's also close to the US Embassy, so many American diplomatic families live nearby and send their children to our school.  

Reunited with Steve in Leysin

After two days I caught another night flight to Geneva and spent three nights in my old stomping ground of Leysin.  I picked up 40 kg of ski and mountaineering equipment to bring back to Tbilisi, and caught up with a number of friends and former students in the village, as well as riding a road bike for the first time in three years around a couple of my favourite local routes, up the Col de la Croix and around the Col de Forclaz-Voettes loop, the latter with my cycling and skiing friend Steve.  I was definitely a lot slower and more leaden-legged than I was three years ago, but it felt indescribably good to be riding in the beautiful
Alps again.

Yet another night flight, my fourth in eight days, brought me back to Tbilisi on August 4th, more bleary-eyed than ever.  The next morning Terri arrived from New Zealand and was promptly whisked off to dinner with Ardak, a former student from my Leysin days, in Georgia to visit her father.

Myself and my Kazakh former faculty daughter Ardak

Roadside picnic during landslide break below the Abano Pass

There was no rest for the jet-lagged the next day, as we got up early, shouldered full backpacks and set off for Ortachala bus station for a 3-hour marshrutka minibus ride to Telavi, the capital of the picturesque, historic Kakheti region of eastern Georgia.  Kakheti is abundantly fertile, and it was a feast for the senses.  We zipped past vineyards and stalls selling churchkhela, delicious snacks consisting of strings of walnuts dipped in thickened grape juice, along with peaches and melons.  Finally, in Telavi, we tumbled out and boarded smaller, tougher 4x4 Mitsubishi Delica minivans, the workhorses of Georgian mountain travel, for the crossing of the high, rugged Abano Pass into the legendary Tusheti region.

Dramatic hillsides below the Abano

I had been in Tusheti before, back in 2009 during the final leg of my Silk Road bicycle ride.  I rode my bicycle over the Abano and almost didn't make it; I had to camp beside the road partway up, worn out by the relentless steep grade and rough road, and then continued over the top into a magical landscape that stole my heart away.  This time, I thought it would be much easier sitting in the comfort of a minibus seat, but I hadn't reckoned on the weather.  It had rained torrentially a couple of hours before our departure, and the downpour had caused landslides that roared down the precipitous slopes of the pass and buried sections of the road.  We, along with dozens of other 4x4s, were stuck for hours until an ancient Soviet-era bulldozer hove into sight and set about pushing tons of boulders and mud over the edge of the road with nonchalant disregard for the vertical drop just centimetres from the centre of gravity of the vehicle.  In the meantime we shared in an impromptu feast of fish, khachapuri (cheese pie, the staple snack of Georgia), chicken and melon served up by some of the stranded drivers, washed down by some chacha, the eye-watering schnapps distilled from skins left over after wine-making.  Eventually the road was cleared and we roared up the pass, down the other side and back uphill to Omalo, the capital of the Tusheti region, where we spent the night in a pleasant little guesthouse and ate a lavish spread of local treats.

Galloping home in Omalo

Day 1:  August 7, Omalo to Pharsma, 24 kilometres

Wildflower

Wildflower

Terri woke up feeling not at all well; something she ate disagreed with her, and her jet lag probably didn't help matters.  She bravely decided to walk anyway, and to do a double stage; we were worried about getting back to Tbilisi on time at the end of our hike, and decided we could use an extra day at the end of the walk.  The first half of the day involved a couple of steep grunts uphill, first to the top of Omalo village and its impressive medieval defensive towers (a leitmotif throughout Tusheti), and then another to get into the Pirikita Alazani valley.

Omalo fortress

Psychadelic moth

Tusheti is located to the north of the Caucasus watershed, and the Pirikita Alazani River flows east out of Tusheti into Daghestan, on the Russian side of the mountains.  This was all new territory for me; in 2009 I had only ridden as far as Omalo's towers, and had done no hiking, so I was glad to see fresh vistas.  After the second climb, it was a long downhill to the village of Dartlo and its collection of towers, then an even longer level slog along the river, past the village of Chesho and its impressive outlying towers (located high up atop a long ridge) to our final destination for the day at Pharsma.  The scenery was magnificent, with the north-facing slopes mostly clad in forest of hardwood and cedar, while the south-facing slopes were open grassy meadows grazed by huge herds of sheep and the occasional cow.  Tusheti is only really inhabited in the brief summer months, when herders from Kakheti drive their sheep and cattle over the Abano Pass to fatten up on the lush grass and produce huge amounts of cheese, butter and wool.  Tumbling whitewater streams incised profound gashes into the green felt of the hillsides, while above us 3000 and 4000-metre peaks towered into the azure sky.  It was impossibly idyllic.

Another striking butterfly

Towers above Chesho

Terri was pretty worn out by travelling, illness and the rigours of a double stage and was keen to sleep indoors, but there was no room for us at the inn, so we ate a huge meal in a trail-side restaurant and then slept under the roof of its patio after closing time, as we were concerned about impending downpours.

Day 2:  August 8, Pharsma to Kvakhidi Meadows, 17 km

Fresh snow dusts the peaks above the Atsunta

Stone drywall construction

It did rain in the night, although not too dramatically, and by the time we were ready to leave the skies had cleared completely.  It was an easy stroll up the river to Girevi and its border guard post, where we showed our passports and got a border area permit while a curious puppy tried his best to devour my wet socks which were drying on the outside of my backpack.  From there we made our way steeply uphill past Girevi's beautiful towers and further upstream, staying high above the river.  The abandoned village of Chontio was spectacular and its elegant drywall construction and feeling of utter desolation reminded me forcefully of wandering around Mystra and Monemvassia in the Greek Pelepponese back in 2008.

Looking towards Chontio

A meadow viper (I think)

The mountains continued to dominate the skyline, and looking at the map we realized that the line of the highest peaks, a mere 7 kilometres to the north, marked the Georgian-Russian border.  We continued to oscillate vertically, climbing high above cliffs and then dipping down to ford rivers, before finally descending to the main valley floor and a campsite in a large meadow at about 2400 metres above sea level.  We set up Terri's trusty Big Agnes Copper Spur tent, cooked up a delicious dinner and shared some of it with Antoni, a personable Austrian with whom we had played leapfrog all day along the trail.  There were a good dozen other trekkers in small groups:  four Americans, five Russians, Antoni and a Brazilian couple.  There was also a large group of older Austrian trekkers who arrived not long after us but whose baggage horses didn't show up until after sunset, leaving them sitting around without food or tents for hours.  We were in bed relatively early, ready for the exertions of the Atsunta Pass the next day.

Day 3:  August 9, Kvakhidi Meadows to Khidotani Ridge, 17 km

Crossing the snow bridge

Pollinator at work

It was not a restful night, with a Biblical downpour keeping us awake in the night.  In the morning we were the first trekkers to breakfast, pack up and start walking, a highly unusual situation as we are usually among the last to leave a campsite.  We marched upstream, along a valley that was now much narrower as we approached the source of the river.  The banks were a riot of colourful wildflowers, and I spent a lot of time trying to shoot macro photos of the blossoms.  We crossed a rather precarious snow bridge; we had been seeing patches of old snow, sometimes several metres thick, at the base of avalanche chutes ever since Girevi, but this was by far the largest so far.  It surprised me that so much snow survives until August at such a low altitude, but it must reflect the sheer volume of snowfall over the long winter.  We forded the main river (a cold, unstable and rather unpleasant task), then headed up a tributary before turning away from the valley and clambering steeply up a grassy slope that turned into a long uphill slog across a soggy scree slope.

Yet another pretty wildflower

Antoni fording the chilly river

It took a few hours to climb up to the summit of the 3431-metre Atsunta Pass, and we were rewarded for our toil with views of the inside of a cloud and 5-degree temperatures.  As we descended abruptly into the Khevsureti region the cloud began to spit hailstones onto our heads intermittently, while thunderclaps sounded only seconds away over our heads.  When the clouds finally dispersed, we found ourselves on a broad grassy ridge surrounded by 4000-metre peaks dusted white with fresh snow.

Trekkers in the mist:  atop the Atsunta

Fresh snow dusting the slopes above the Atsunta

A brief moment of clarity on the Khidotani Ridge

We made the most of our ten minutes of clear views before the clouds returned, and then traversed endlessly across a steep slope before a cruel uphill and a final descent to a campsite oddly lacking in a clean water source.  No sooner had we set up our tent than the heavens opened on us for two hours and we crawled into our tent, eschewing cooking in favour of cold food and hard-earned sleep.  It had been a long, hard day, and the rain seemed like poor recompense for our efforts.

Day 4:  August 10, Khidotani Ridge to Shatili, 20 km

Wet flowers

Terri teetering above the muddy torrent

We awoke to a soggy world, hungry after our frugal repast of the night before, and cooked up sizeable portions of oatmeal before leaving camp with Antoni.  It was a steep descent to the Andaki River through the lushest fields yet of wildflowers, a quilt of violent pinks, purples, yellows and oranges.  The path was less slippery and muddy than we had feared, even after the torrential downpour of the night before, and within an hour we were beside the river, a grey mass of liquid mud, swollen by runoff.  A few dodgy bridges led over the river to a jeep track; one bridge consisted of a slippery log and a rusty pipe, millimetres above the raging waters, that required a great deal of concentration.  After that, it was an easy, almost flat stroll through wilderness, fields and the occasional village to the towers of Mutso, then on to Anatori, where the river led north to the closed Russian border barely a kilometre beyond.

Badland scenery between Anatori and Shatili

Anatori necropolis

Anatori was a lonely promontory high above a confluence, with a few old stone plague houses full of bones from the victims of an 18th-century epidemic.  From there it was just a short stroll upstream, past eroded conglomerate pillars reminiscent of Cappadocia, to our endpoint, the medieval tower village of Shatili.  We had anticipated spending the night there and then returning to Tbilisi, but we found Antoni, the two Brazilians, the four Americans and a handful of other trekkers waiting for us to fill up a chartered minibus that they had arranged.  Minutes later we were off along another dodgy mountain road, over a 2600-metre-high pass (less alarming than the Abano Pass, but still dangerous-looking).  Four hours (and a flat tire) later, we were being dropped off beside the highway, a short walk from our house, and our Tusheti adventure was over.

Blossom and insect

More wildflowers

I loved this walk for its combination of nature, big mountains and historic, picturesque villages, as well as its vast proliferation of wildflowers.  The Caucasus is a magical part of the world, and it was the memory of my bicycle rides through various Caucasian valleys in 2009 and 2011 that lured me back into teaching.  I am looking forward to returning to the mountains this coming weekend for another traverse, this time from Juta to Roshka, and I will post about that trip next week.  I hope you enjoyed this blog post and its pictures, and that it inspires you to get out into the mountains, either here in Georgia or wherever you find yourself in the world.

Tired, wet but elated at the end of the trek