Mtianeti Tours: A Journey Through Legends
Mtianeti is vast: a land filled with a web of undulating ridges, lush pastures, fierce rivers, and forbidding peaks, dotted throughout by a handful of tenacious, ancient settlements. No matter how many times I come here, I feel like I’ve barely gotten to know it. There’s always some valley remained just around the corner for me, someplace to hike next year…. and when the summer season for visiting is so short, and there’s places out west in Lechkhumi or Samegrelo to visit as well, October can roll around quickly with the realizing that I’ve haven’t spent enough time up north in these endlessly fascinating places. Every part of this region is so uniquely different, with its own particular local culture, traditions, and perspective on the Caucasus; every visit leaves me with the contradicting emotions that I’ve learned and experienced so much, but that I still know almost nothing – and the realization that I need to go back and see what’s happening in the next valley over.
Mountains of Life, Mountains of Freedom
Khevi, Tusheti, Khevsureti, Pshavi, Mtiuleti, Khada, Gudamakari, the Aragvi valley. Places with names straight out of the legends, where life still feels like it’s been copied out of a legend. Vast peaks loom above, distorting the sense of distance and place. Steep valleys flow with rushing rivers, while ancient defensive towers spring from the green ridges, throwing you into the reveries of centuries past. These are places where the landscape itself is poetry, where mountain and valley harmonize into music. But it is not a Nirvana; the grip of winter holds, in some places, for more than half the year; on the highest peaks, the snows never melt. The mountaineers are sober, serious folk, keepers of traditions long forgotten by easy-living lowlanders; Christianity and paganism flow together at their stone shrines and holy places.
Travel With Me to Georgia’s Mountain Wonderland
When the brief summer overtakes these lands and the pastures bloom white with rhododendrons, travel here is something that sets the heart free. Hiking infrastructure has become more developed in recent years; a few popular routes will see a dozen or two foreigners traverse them every day, sheltering the night with local families at the most conveniently placed villages. More remote routes may require several days in tents, out of the sight of civilization, perhaps only meeting some horsemen or herders grazing on a high slope. Everything is possible, if your legs or jeep will take you there. Everything is glorious.
Kazbegi is perhaps the most famous place up here, but there’s so much more to be discovered deeper in the mountains, where far fewer tourists roam. Send me a message if you would like to travel to the remote parts of Mtianeti with me on a customized tour!
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Coming down from Datvisjvari Pass into Khevsureti.
The highland village of Bursachiri in Gudamakari.
A rushing mountain river in Gudamakari.
Defensive tower in the Aragvi valley village of Gremiskhevi.
The Green Lake of Abudelauri, one of three famous lakes on the trek over Chaukhi Massif.