Chacha Slide: A Ski Touring Odyssey to the Heart of Georgia
- Henry
- 6 hours ago
- 12 min read
TO say Georgians are a reserved people is an understatement for the ages: as if to say Georgian wine is merely acceptable; khinkali taste plainly okay; and that it snows just a little in the Caucuses.
Sure, crack a joke or order a something off the menu like a local and the façade falls fast. Behind it is a friendliness and hospitality that is hard to beat anywhere in the world. But that façade is there, and it is universal and, honestly, fully understandable - why say anything when a grunt or a nod will do?
Which is why the broad, cheshire cat grin on our guide’s face stood out as much as it did, and as a joy to behold as we flew through the thigh-deep snow, thick fog, and tumbling snowflakes to where he had stopped on the side of the mountain, his orange jacket a beacon amidst the sea of concrete-grey.
“Again?” he asked, glancing through the cloud and driving snow towards the top of our line, lost further up the hill, his eyes glinting even behind his dark, dark sunglasses.
We didn’t need to be asked. We definitely didn’t need to be asked twice.
Svaneti was putting on a show for us. Tucked away high in the main band of the Caucuses, in the shadow of the indomitable peaks of Elbrus and Shkhara, Tetnuldi and Ushba, we had spent the week so far exploring what seemed to be every nook and cranny of this remote, isolated region. It had saved the best until last, the sheer joy of deep, deep powder on untouched lines, only accessible by ski touring up and up and up until you stared these great peaks square in their eyes.
Over the past week we had explored skiing around the town of Mestia and the extraordinary, otherworldly UNESCO World Heritage community of Ushguli – where 10th-century defensive towers serve as homesteads and hotels – as well as the hustle and bustle of the nation’s capital, Tbilisi. We had feasted on the best dishes Georgia had to offer and sampled (regularly and with gusto) local viniculture that can trace a history back thousands of years before the French or Italians got their mitts on a wine grape.
And we travelled – literally – the length and breadth of this small country, weaving between rockfalls in mountain gorges and stray cows (and pigs, and dogs, and horses) on the straight, flat roads of the Colchis plain on our journey into the very heart and soul of the Caucuses.
And we had skied some of the most unforgettable mountains it is possible to dream of.
This was our Chacha Slide; a ski touring odyssey to what seemed like the very heart of Georgia.
Seven Days Earlier …
The clogged, choked boulevards of downtown Tbilisi soon gave way to fast, open highways. We were leaving behind a city we had come to know and love well over the past few days, digging deep into a rich history and culture that exists tucked away between two indomitable mountains on the eastern edge of the Black Sea.
Georgia has sat at the crossroads of civilisation for millennia, once part of the ancient silk road that linked Europe and Asia. Caught between Roman, Byzantium, Ottoman, Persian, Mongol, Russian, Soviet, and once more Russian imperial ambitions, it has retained its own history, culture and language throughout, a testament to and origin of a reserved, understated but stoic national character.
Georgia’s language is unique, unrelated to any others including neighbours Armenia and Azerbaijan. Its food is its own, too, tied to the dramatic extremes of the landscape in which it sits. And whilst all three Caucasian nations have a vini-story dating back thousands of years, thanks to Stalin’s favouritism of his home republic it is Georgia that has fermented a really quite extraordinary contemporary viniculture.
All this is to say that our two days in Tbilisi had not been in vein; we picked our way carefully through wine lists until late in the evening, and gorged on khinkali, khachapuri, and lobiani – beef-and-pork dumplings, cheese-stuffed bread, and a bean stew (always served in a terracotta pot) respectively – as well as sifted through museums, galleries and cathedrals until our cultural cups were overflowing.
The extremes of this landscape, if not apparent in the cuisine, became clearly so as we escaped the city, climbing gently over a seemingly flat and endlessly green plain. Pockmarked by small hamlets along the side of the motorway, this baize stretched on endlessly to the dramatic peaks of the Caucuses, at first slate grey cliffs but rising and rising to become a ribbon of snowy-white framing the entire country, far, far off in the distance.
The road into the mountains and to Svaneti drives home how remote our destination was. In winter, this road in from the west is the only road in and out, and the local airport in Mestia – built in 2017 as part of a speculative flurry of investment in tourism infrastructure in the area – is seemingly closed every third day in winter due to the weather. To make matters worse, the small propeller aircraft flying this route from Tbilisi are too small to carry skis; we were faced with no choice but to sit back and allow our driver to slog out the journey.
Turning right pretty much as you hit the Black Sea coast, some five hours drive from the capital, for 130km this single road winds and snakes and weaves its way along the gorge of the river Enguri, which rises in Ushguli and has carved out this steep, unforgiving course through the Caucuses. Damned by the Soviets in the 1970s, it supplies just shy of 50% of the region’s electricity needs and creates and a long, tendril-like lake that forms far below the precipitous road.
It is a road that seemingly never ends. One one side steep-side cliffs loom over you, on the other they fall away into the lake or river with unnerving immediacy. It is dark and damp, the sun barely getting over the peaks that surround us. Occasionally we pass small communities nestled in cracks in the rock; mining or logging villages, a reminder of the Soviet-era exploitation of what has been, for millennia, an incredibly resource rich corner of the world.
Road conditions varied consderibly, too, and as we climbed higher and the first patches of snow began to reveal themselves huge swathes or road, once paved, had fallen away into house-sized potholes, feebily marked by small roadside signs. Through this rumbled aggregate lorries and lumber trucks, as well as coaches and supermarket delivery lorries. At times, and with alarming regularity, small shrines ensconsed in orthodox icons indicated where the journey had not been so forgiving. For all the agonising drama of the road to Mestia, there were signs that civilisation awaited us at the end …
After four hours from when we joined the road we arrived in Mestia, the largest town and de facto capital of Svaneti.
Four Days Earlier …
Mestia was bustling. All flights in and out had been sold out, and the cattle that wondered the streets were fighting for space with hoards of second-hand Japanese people carriers and backcountry enthusiasts.
The Freeride World Tour was in town, scheduled for the end of the week. It was due to take place over at Tetnuldi, what counts for a ski resort in this part of the world – three lifts, a handful of runs, but access to some incredible off piste nonetheless.
We had skied Tetnuldi a few days earlier as our warmup, getting to know our guide – and each other, to an extent – and getting out first taste of Georgian snow. This had been a poor snow year by Georgian stands, so poor in fact that the Freeride World Tour was cancelled a day later because of a poor snowpack in the Tetnuldi earlier; not that you could tell – snow depths still reach mind boggling figures by Alpine standards and the constant squall of snow coming off the Black Sea meant it was freshening up by the day.
We were still therefore able to fill our boots with skiing. Our guide, Avto, was excellent, combining a knowledge of the ski routes of the area that can only come from growing up there with a cracking taste in music and a real love of skiing and ski touring.
He led us, as most day started, to a farmyard in a small village off the main road through Svaneti. Starting off on this day we followed a hiking track, covered of course in snow, shallow but climbing all the time, following the course of a tumbling mountain stream.
Upwards we still climbed, past the concrete sides of a brand new mountain restaurant designed to service the hikers that swarmed this region in summer. Still onwards we trudged, passing a small orthodox chapel that featured trademarks of more traditional pagan religions. The cultural differences on show here were mirrored by the economic ones; much of rural Georgia is still impoverished, as demonstrated by a Grandma who approached us on our arrival in the farmyard to sell us water, beer, and salt for pennies.
This was a far cry from the bustling streets of Tbilisi glowing with an influx of foreign investment and expatriate Russian money from those fleeing the domestic fallout from the Ukraine War.
Sooner rather than later, we broke out of the trees, climbing up to a col, ever aware of the growing mountains around us.
As we reached the small col, the clouds moved from in front of us, and revealed, in all its glory, Mount Ushba.
This dual-peaked mountain was dramatic in every sense, looming high above us like Sauron’s tower would a Hobbit. The peaks were riven in two by a dense cleft of rock, bathed in snow and ice and shadow. Avto took a moment to explain to us the significance of Ushba to Svantians, of which he is one – Ushba was a farmer’s son who fell madly in love with the daughter of the sun, but doomed by her father to stand petrified forever; heartbroken and distraught, the daughter Tetnuldi prays to the moon, who fulfils her one wish and petrifies her, too, so the two mountains may gaze upon each other, always.
Ushba is also one of the world’ most difficult peaks to climb, something instantly understandable as you gaze upon it. It is dark and deeply ominous, with whisps of cloud swallowed and broken by the steely, icy faces. It is isolated, too, meaning the summit stands clear and alone against the backdrop of the sky. Presented by British climbers to Queen Victoria upon its first ascent, it was later “presented” to the Suanian people via an ambassador to court, so Avto tells us, his voice betraying a slice of pride in his region even if he is vividly aware of the farce in his story.
Turning our backs to the farmer’s son, as we transitioned and skied back down. Here the mixed nature of the snowpack showed its face, pockets of glorious powder on northwest facing slopes interspersed with pockets of crust.
The way up more than made up for any uncertainty on the way down. Here Svaneti and Georgia had revealed its face to us – both of them – and the meaning and importance of the mountains, the valleys and the forests that had sheltered the Suanian people for thousands of years was made clear to us.
Two Days Earlier …
We skinned right out of the guest house in Ushguli, up the steep lane that I guess passes for the main street of the village, and under the shadow of a looming Suanian tower; dating from the 10th century, these monolithic stone towers reaching 80ft high were originally built to shelter livestock and families from attackers or avalanches, both endemic threats to the region for much of its history.
Around 100 of them are still standing, and they allow Ushguli to stand out from the towering mountains around it, especially when it becomes so regularly lost in low cloud and fog, and are a key part in cementing its status as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
We skinned up the lane and around the corner watched at all times by donkeys and dogs. Turning left, we joined the main road heading east from the village. In milder times, this is the other road in and out of Svaneti, but as it was the middle of winter the asphalt lay some 10ft below the base of our skis. Skimming the top of speed limit and “Welcome to Ushguli” signs, we pushed on and on into the crystal clear azure sky. Along the way, skin tracks bore away and up the sides of the shrinking valley and clusters of “S”s carved their way back down.
Turning a corner, a mountain face appeared in front of us; bare and barren, untouched and virgin except for a band of forest at its foot and a radio tower appearing over a false summit hundreds of metres above us. From the right angle a skin track could be seen appearing and then quickly disappearing behind the line of the summit, teasing us of what might lie ahead and taunting us of the effort left to get there …
Almost at the col that marked the edge of Svaneti, after nearly 10km of skinning, we dropped down to and crossed a snow bridge over a stream that must have been the source of the Enguri, meaning we had now followed it for most of its 200km length – by car and by ski. Turning almost 180 degrees, we started back up the other side, the backside of this nameless untouched snowface, and quickly found ourselves 1000m above the valley on the summit of a nameless peak.
Mountains fell away endlessly around us, except the summit of Shkara and, a little way off in the distance, the daughter of the sun Tetnuldi, towering over everything at nearly 5,000m. We were joined at the transition point by a handful of other groups, but they quickly turned right on their descent, disappeared over a ridge and were lost to their descents.
We waited. And waited. There were no birds this high up and little wind, meaning it was silent. The sun watched over us through a perfectly clear sky, and the white and silver of the endless, endless mountain peaks stretching on as far as the eye could see was the work of an artist on a vast canvas. Everywhere was still, the calm before the storm.
Setting off, we avoided the right-hand turn that the other groups had done and instead dove down the virgin face in front of us; the same face we had seen from the road which was now nothing more than a faint pencil line far, far off in the distance.
The next 1,000m of vert passed in a blur. Starting shallow, the line passed by the radio tower initially following our skin track, before turning away and gradually getting steeper and steeper, reaching a pitch perfect for just forgetting about the world and letting go; forgetting about the blisters, the exhaustion of five hours and fifteen kilometres of skinning, the idea somewhere in the back of your mind of just how alone you are out here.
I careened into the abyss, turning my back on the azure sky and instead focusing on the grey and white of the snow that was flowing up and around me. Avto, our guide, had set a track and I followed it closely matching his perfect “S”s as far as my legs would take me. We dove into the trees, thin, sparse birches that suddenly transitioned you from big line skiing to twitchy, tight skiing.
The last five turns drew us all back together before we stopped at the bottom for a late packed lunch. Towering over us was the mountain face; our mountain face. Once untouched, there was now five perfect lines stretching top to bottom; our own contributions to this incredible collection of art in a gallereic Caucuses.
Today …
The weather had closed in as it so regularly does in this part of the world. Cold continental air had mixed with more humid air over the Black Sea to create that most magical of substances, snow. This part of the world has a powder record that matches Japan, but its lack of proper infrastructure and isolation, even by Caucasian standards, means you have to really want to ski here; other areas, such as the well-invested infrastructure of Gudauri and the cat-skiing operations of Bakhmaro both boasted shorter journey times of an hour by road from Tbilisi or Kutaisi, Georgia’s second city, making Svaneti, Mestia and Ushguli the definition of off the beaten track, but the payoff already more than worth it.
Our last day once again took us straight out of the village, this time up a mountain face right behind the village overlooking the church itself built around a Suanian tower. Despite the thick fog and cloud that obscured everything, the church remained visible at all times, perhaps a sign of divine inspiration in sending us this new snow.
Our tour was short, terminating when the last of the trees – our signposts of the way back down – had passed away behind us and the cloud and snow became so thick it could be cut and sold as cheap building material. The snow and the wind howled around us, crawling into every crack in our clothes to freeze us to the bone, as we sought shelter in a small hollow whilst transitioning.
Setting off, we realised we had it good. The snow flew up and over our shoulders as we turned and turned, our skis, boots, knees and most of our thighs lost below the snowline.
“Again?”, Avto asked as we exited the worst of the wind and cloud. Again, we agreed, and followed out tracks back to the hollow where we turned around before. Another quick transition, another ski down.
I stopped, aware of losing track of our small group in the conditions. I saw the vague outline of the village at the bottom, one set of grey barely differentiated from another as the cloud seemingly sunk even lower and flattened the light even more. I stood atop the last pitch of the slope, the last pitch of the tour, and knew that this was to be the last pitch of this most incredible of incredible ski trips.
The flatness of the light meant it was impossible to pick snow from cloud. I knew there was a line there somewhere, but where was impossible to say. Rollers, drops, changes in fall line all were lost in this sea of grey.
So I let go.
I pointed my skis to where they would begin to run, and let go.
I trusted, more than anything else, the snow and let go. This incredibly soft, powdery, fluffy substance that had carried our hopes and dreams of the week like clouds carrying angels. And carry me it did, floating and flying back to Ushguli, this most incredible of finales complete.
