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