After 3 full home-cooked meals in Omalo, we hiked happily for some more beautiful days into the mountains. Our schedule involved only short hiking days, due to the position of water sources and several ascents. And after finding potatoes, garlic and an onion (that somebody must have lost unknowingly) on our first hiking day, we had more than enough food to take it slow ;)
Looking back to Omalo
We passed through a little abandoned village...
... and ascended steeply up in a pine forest, where we found potatoes, that somebody must have lost
Nice warning on this marked hiking trail, since there was a shepherd camp ahead. We prepared with stones, but apart from 2 horses, there was nobody there!
We left the pine forest...
... and made sure to take some wood, in order to cook at night
Beautiful views back on Omalo and the border mountains towards Russia
Up we go towards Oreti Lake, but not...
... without taking another break in front of this nice panorama!
Camping above Oreti lake with a magnificent view!
We were "visited" by 2 sheep flocks, but the shepherds kept them far away on the meadows below our tent!
Dinner is...
... lots of potatoes with garlic, onion and cheese - yummy!
Morning view from our camping spot
The trail went up and along the mountains...
...with beautiful views
Can you see Gerald on the picture?!
And then we went down to the river...
...had to cross it....
...and climb up again!
Since we didn't find the (not well walked) trail directly, we had to climb up some rocks and steep grassy parts to finally hit the trail with lots of switchbacks
Looking back down to the river
Looking back to the shepherd camp we had passed. Luckily, 2 men with 3 horses, who transported wood to the shepherds hut were directly in front of us and "fighting off" the 3 dogs :)
A beautiful wide trail along the contur line!
The rhododendron is already changing its colour to yellow and the willowherbs are turning red - the autumn is coming!
We found a nice camp spot in a beautiful valley
We finally made it up the valley to our next about 3000 m high pass
Looking down onto the other side of the pass
Luckily we didn't have to walk down all the way, but followed some trails below or on some ridges
Do you see the sheep? It's not a good picture, considering they actually passed us DIIRECTLY, but I was too busy and scared to take pictures before...
And here is the story:
We walked on this little path along the steep hill, when we saw 3 dogs in front of us, barking at us. Luckily they were far enough away. When the shepherd turned up in the distance, we waved and yelled and were happy, not having to deal with the dogs. Of course, we were already armed with stones by that time. But then the 2 shepherds were making the sheep flock go directly into our direction, the dogs getting closer to us! We yelled and thought that they were insane, but it turned out, they had both, 5 dogs and lots of sheep under their control. So we were standing in the middle of a large sheep flock at some point. But I was so busy, watching the dogs, that I just took a picture when we were out of the "danger zone" ;)
Continuing on the ridge
We set up an early camp on a wide ridge before Mt. Zetavi...
...and walked to the lake underneath the peak.
Some colourful algae in the water but totally drinkable!
We walked steeply up to have a nicer view - totally worth it!!!!
I couldn't get enough of this view!
Our tent (nearly invisible white spot) is at the right side of the grassy bowl, below the end of the light rocky band in the back
A beautiful morning
with some clouds and a cool wind
Following this ridge turned out to not be always easy...
Some light climbing was necessary, although this picture shows only the last bit which was rather easy. Again, I was too busy and nervous to take pictures in the actual exciting situation...
The last easy bit, before heading for the next ridge
You can still see the ridge we came from in the back
That's the ridgeline with the one spot of light climbing
And then we descended back into the forest, avoiding another shepherds camp on the way
Gigantic autumn crocus
Down on many switchbacks
A nice little stream with a pool. Although we were warm enough to take a bath, the water was so cold, that we only had a small wash up - I clearly turned into a wimp
And then we walked up steeply again, but had a nice forest camp spot for a change!
We left the river and forest behind, to climb up onto another ridge...
... if we would have turned left instead of right, the ridge would have brought us after only a few kilometers directly into Russia!
Ridgewalk at its best - and we even managed to be just in time to avoid a sheep flock :)
The giant hogweed is dying already - it is clearly getting autumn
We descended nearly 2000 m, mostly through diverse forests, but on some southerly exposed hills, the beech trees were clearly dying due to drought!
The second "cowboy camp" in a row on a little plateau above the river. As you can see, the leaves are already quite colourful. But that night, we had to get up to put the rainfly over - the first rain jn weeks! Actually only a few drops, as it turned out!
We followed the river down to the town of Artana, where we hitched to our next and last hiking location in Georgia: Lagodekhi
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