Georgia 26.07. - 01.08.2022
Again, I will rather show lots of pictures instead of writing much!
Back in Mestia, after another week in the mountains, this time with mostly incredible nice weather - and this after I thought there will always be clouds in the Caucasus :)
But things didn't turn out like planned. The route we wanted to walk, turned out to be looking really scary - potentially possible but rather steep and over a glacier... instead we spend a beautiful day in the surrounding of huge mountains and glaciers and took an easier route to Lalkhori, where we had planned to walk to anyways.
From there, it was an hour bumpy drive back to Mestia to resupply, take a shower and eat lots in our fancy and cozy guest house - at least I think it's like a luxury hotel ;)
But enough text, here come beautiful mountain pictures in incredible bloomy surrounding:
Walking out of Mestia in sunshine
A bridge over a big river - we will later learn, that bridges are not necessarily a thing to expect...
Up the mountains through a gully...
... nice forests but a thunderstorm is approaching...
... so we spent some hours in our tent until it passed and left only wet plants and some fog!
Walking higher up, the clouds start to open up...
... and we start to see more of our surrounding
Walking in flowers!
And then we see our planned route....
... and that was my face when I saw, where we were supposed to walk up! If you look on the previouse picture, the route would have been up the left river valley, over the visible glacier and mountain to the right 🙈
We decided to skip the route, set up out tent and have a lovely day walk in the surrounding the next day!
The day started with clouds...
... but the day turned out to become sunny. So we walked up the little green ridge in the background and set up our tent a little higher.
Flowers are still wet from the fog
Tent spot a little higher. Then we walked up the little peak on the right in the picture.
Full physical involvment by Gerald for a good picture ;)
No words needed for the next few pictures!
Up on the mountain, we got a full 360° panorama!!!
Gerald, me and the Ushba in the background - and lots of horseflies (I chose a picture without one buzzing through the picture ;))
Our usual midday-chocolate-break
Sunset-view without having to leave the tent ;)
Next morning, there was even some frost in the valley
Returning on the route we came from, towards Mestia. But we decided to pass Mestia and walk to Lalkhori on a slightly different route than most tourists.
Looking back - the little peak of our daytrip on the left
Down again
A long raspberry-stop!
Luxury dinner: noodles, Zucchini, wild thyme and peanuts - we picked the Zucchini and wild thyme on our way!
And then I picked the first (barely) ripe blueberries!
The butterflies love the blooming meadows and our swet. It is really nice, that there are hardly any animals (and thus dogs!) in the mountains - on the other hand, wr also see no wild animals. Sadly it seems like the Georgian were hunting too much...
A relaxed day walking a ridge above Mestia with beautiful views
Again, watching the sunset from our tent - Ushba in the last light!
And this is how the sunrise looks like from the tent :)
Wet meadows in the morning...
... but beautiful sunny days!
And then we were back on the main hiking "highway", discovering that there is no bridge across this wild glacier fed stream - at around 2 pm, it was roaring wildly and stones were rumbling in the river.... So we decided to take no risk, but spend a relaxed afternoon in a little birch patch.
And as expected, the next morning the water level was low and we were able to cross the river safely, only getting wet boots.
Looking back down onto the glacier, feeding the stream we crossed
Before descending down to the road in Lalkhori, we walked trailless over a beautiful ridge, which was in parts over 3000 m elevation!
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