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Season Diary - Day 13

Henry
1 day ago
2 min read

Saturday 21st February 2026 - Tetnuldi, Georgia

The first day of a long awaited odyssey to the very heart of the Caucasus

So, here we are.

After a whirlwind couple of days in Tbilisi, Georgia, and a mammoth 9hr transfer across the entirety of the country - I'm never complaining about the transfer to Tignes ever again - it was finally time to get out and see what Georgian skiing is all about.

We are in Mestia, buried deep, deep, deep in the heart of the Caucasus, around 150km up a twisting, failing gorge road from the nearest other civilisation.

The Svanetti region, of which Mestia is its biggest settlement, occupies an opening in the valley above this gorge, and to no surprise of anyone has been virtually inaccessible until the last 15 years when the road was paved and a small handful of ski lifts and infrastructure put in to attract visitors to this region.

Since then, skiing in Georgia - and especially Svanetti - has really taken off. Word is beginning to spread about rhe country's Jappow levels of snowfall, only with shorter flight times, no queues, exceedingly cheap prices, and, dare I say it, better food.

So, here we were, hopping in the back of our guide's van for the half hour drive to Tetnuldi.

To call Tetnuldi a ski resort would be an overstatement. Much like Scotland where I was a month or so ago, there is virtually no resort base, a bare scattering of four lifts, and three runs. We warmed up and down most of these, the turned off cutting under the start hut for the Freeride World Tour - now cancelled but originally scheduled for later in the week - and scored out first proper turns of Georgian snow.

And it was brilliant. Like Jappow, it was light and fluffy, and like Jappow it was deep, seemingly endless.

Unlike Jappow, it was steep, far steeper than the vast powder meadows and tree lines we skied all those years ago.

After our Japan trip in 2020, I resolved that if I would do one of these again I would need to be fitter and a much, much better skier. Fitness I have been working on, but that would be tested later.

Now was about technique. With a touring setup I had finally fallen in love with after a year of messing around, I sent it down the face and found my flow state. This was much more like it.

All those weeks of skiing with the Ski Club, of the Reps Course and using Ski Test to work on my technique, and those years of being pushed harder and further around Val d'Isere by this same group meant I was, finally, able to send the lines I had always dreamt of sending.

Now I just had to get to them ...