Mestia Road Trip

There is a small town tucked in the mountains in northwest Georgia called Mestia in the Svaneti region. We heard stories about a ski resort with only 1 lift and lots of trees. After riding Gudauri for a couple months which is 100% above tree line, some forest riding was needed. The way the crow flies its less then 200 km from gudauri but on roads it is about 550 km. My girl and I left Gudauri on the "bus", a over crowded Mercedes Sprinter van at 5:30 in the afternoon. We met up with our friends in Tbilisi and loaded the Mitsubishi Delica. The Delica is a right hand drive 4x4 van that fit the 7 of us and our equipment well. Our last stop out of town was a supermarket where we loaded up on about $300 worth of alcohol... should last 7 people 4 days.

Where to fit all this alcohol?

Ohh.. that works

We got into the town of Mestia just as it was getting light. From the time we left Gudauri it had been 12 hours. Places the road was down to 1 lane because of slides and such. Mestia is best known for its "towers". Each family built these towers long ago and they still stand today.

Mestia at night.

The resort itself isn't very big. 1 lift about 2 km long. Maybe 8 or 900 vertical meter? There are 3 buildings. A restaurant at the bottom, one at the top, and a shack to sell tickets out of. The parking lot can fit 25 cars max. My kind of place. We rode for the next 4 days shredding every pillow line we could find.

The crew +2

Nanu

Demon

Nugzar and Andro

Contemplating beauty.

Of course the food was epic. 

khachapurri (bread with cheese)

Khinkalli (dumpling with meat)

Borshch

Fishy fishies. 

Our friends little one. He was cute.. but had WAY TOO MUCH energy!

 A few pictures of the riding taken from video. I really need to edit this but it will have to wait for a later post.

It was snowing on the night we were leaving. We almost stayed. The trip back took about the same amount of time. All night. The ride in the van was horrible but you seem to forget about that when the riding is so good. 

1st Month in Gudauri Georgia

When I got to Gudauri, I had no idea what to expect. I didn't know where I would live. I didn't know what the food would be like. I didn't know if I would be able to communicate. I now have a place to live in a hostel like hotel run by an old man named Rezo. He was one of the first snowboarders in Georgia and a very cool man. He speaks Georgian, Russian and German. Breakfast and dinner are covered in the rent. Usually with dinner the Georgian wine is flowing freely. New people come to the hotel every week so I have a chance to make new friends regularly. Most of the tourists here are from Ukraine or Russia. It is rare to see another American which I actually quite enjoy. The Georgian food is amazing. Khinkoly is seasoned ground beef in a dough that is boiled to cook the noodle-ish part and meat. You eat it with your hands and you aren't supposed to let the juices touch your plate. So there is quite a bit of sucking of the juices once you bight a hole in the khinkoly. Khajapuri is a flat bread that is fried with cheese in side. The cheese they use is like a "stinky mozzarella". It is quite good but also quite heavy and it fills you up fast. Lobiani is like Khajapuri but it has beans inside instead of cheese. It tastes like a fried burrito but its shaped like a pizza. For breakfast there is usually some sort of grain like rolled oats/wheat or oatmeal, or a bowl of stuff that tastes like cream of wheat but is either rice or noodles. Then there is Georgian sausages (tastes like Polish Kielbasa), cheese, oranges, bread, butter ect. Dinner is usually a soup of some sort and a main course of meat and potatoes. On special occasions there is Georgian BBQ which rocks my world. The Georgian red wine is great. Georgian Cha Cha is a "vodka" made from grapes, much like Grapa from Italy, Raki from Greece or Pisco from Chile. The good stuff comes in a recycled Coke bottle. There is also very good Georgian Cognac which is quite smooth and a favorite in the coffee while warming up on a cold day riding. There are also very good beers from Georgia. and cheep. A 2.5 liter bottle is about $3.

Georgian BBQ. Pork, beef, chicken, and lamb. 

Sveta. Our cook about 1/2 the time at Rezo house. 

Enjoying a Georgian beer with my Georgian lady friend Anna.  

Cha Cha

More Cha Cha

Now for the snow and the mountains. I lucked out when I randomly picked Gudauri. The Caucasus Mountains separate Georgia and Russia on Georgia's northern border. The mountains here are relatively "new" so they are very rocky an jagged. Gudauri doesn't have many trees so if the weather is cloudy, the light gets very flat. This would be my main complaint. For some reason the tree line is very low here. We have had many sunny days in Feb though to the point where much of the snow that we received in January was melting.

Ukrainians getting ready to shred. 

Wet windlip shlashes. 

Fisheye capture from Gopro footage. 

Waiting for a ride after dropping down to the "Georgian military road"

Getting a ride in the back of an old Russian Kamas dump truck. 

A few days later. After 10 days of no snow and sunny weather we decided to go trekking for fresh powder. The expedition turned out to be a success. 

Don't get into those jagged rocks. 

Stay on the North faces. The south facing slopes have huge wetslides. 

Some people have amazing style when they jump windlips. 

Finding fresh pow even 10 days after a snow? Am I in heaven? 

Look Mom.. I'm even wearing a helmet! 

Dumping one night. Huge flakes about 1" across. 

We woke up the next day to an amazing powder day.

Here is a quick video I put together with footage from that day. (and a few other days)