A GEORGIAN ADVENTURE

Lifestyle
Reading Time 5 Minutes
Uroš Mijatović
Uroš Mijatović archives

How does Georgia become home to every ski nomad?

Why does one keep coming back to Georgia after spending a season there? Because you get attached. You get attached to the terrain, you get attached to the people, you get attached to the timelessness and the food. You're more likely to get attached to the snow and snowy mornings when you're looking for shovels around the house instead of coffee. Speaking of coffee - you get attached to the view that accompanies the first cup of the morning, you get attached to the dogs bravely wandering around all over the place. In some places it seems as if the dogs and cows compete for the best roads or corners. 

My winter of 21/22 at the Gudauri ski resort was one of the most varied, beautiful, frightening and ski-filled seasons I have ever experienced in my career-loving way of spending time on the snow. I will be forever grateful for the friendships and experiences I found in Georgia.

I became a ski teacher for a reason. I enjoy travelling and am not quite ready to settle down in my career, I can travel to a new destination every season. Well, at least that was my initial idea. So why did I return to Georgia as soon as I felt I needed a break in France last March? Readers familiar with the work of a ski instructor will know exactly what I am talking about. Sometimes, Georgia is just what you need. 

I think that the simple skier can find in Georgia what has been mostly lost over the past years in the Alps. Isolation from the modern world, connection to nature, affordability and the kind of snow that makes edge tuning seem like an April fool’s joke. Less stress and less racing to the cable cars so they don't close in our face. Of course, Georgia is home to countless other adventures that border on unbelievable.

The first time I went there, I was alone and without any expectations. After watching countless YouTube videos, I was sure that there would be no shortage of skiing, but I had no idea what was really in store for me. I had the misfortune of falling ill on arrival in the capital Tbilisi, which meant I didn't get to see the interesting city before we took off for the hills. Luckily, there was a pharmacy close to the hotel and antibiotics were readily available without a prescription. After a few days of battling the illness, I travelled to the Gudauri ski resort in an organized transport with the other ski instructors. I felt bad that I couldn't walk a kilometre in the city in a whole week. Later in the season, it turned out that there would be plenty of time to see the city when I visited a friend in the hospital who got hit in the head by a gondola on the ski slope. So much snow fell in the night that the piste became higher and the gondola lower, and he was not paying attention and kept looking back while skiing. True story. 

If I philosophise a little, I can easily draw a parallel between the snow in Georgia and the Georgians. Both are welcoming and tempting, you can never get tired of them. Georgia is only cold at first glance. At the very first contact you get the feeling of being welcomed and cared for. I will never forget the smile on the face of the boss's mother, with whom we stayed, when we greeted her in Georgian early in the morning and how she welcomed us by the fireplace when we came home after a full day of ski lessons and a short ski tour in a second-generation golf. While being driven in this retro car we managed to persuade the taxi driver in broken Russian to connect to the radio to listen to some Yugo-rock hits. We also hitchhiked a few times and sat in the cab of a truck in a snowstorm as it happily took slowly down a mountain pass and into the valley.  

The spring skiing there is incredible. Snow is plentiful - in fact, sometimes most of it falls in March. The locals and local seasonals call this phenomenon “Miracle March”. The altitude and the thick snow cover make ski touring possible for longer. The day is already so long that tours at altitude can start after the lifts close. Just right to end a day’s skiing on the dance floor and for the ski boots to barely dry overnight, if the mood takes you a bit too far. 

Last March we went to Mestia with a few friends. This visit went well, apart from a complication with the luggage of two friends at Vienna airport, causing them to join us a few days later. Unfortunately, the highest lift at the Tetnuldi resort was out of order, so we left some of the terrain for next time. Mestia is much further off the modern tourist track, so it was quite unusual to see more and more foreigners there, hunting for fresh powder just as we were. But that does not mean that Tetnuldi and Hatsvali, the only ski resorts in the region, are overcrowded. Mestia is becoming a popular touring and skiing destination, which of course goes perfectly with freeriding. There is no shortage of accommodation. You can choose between hotels and a number of nice Airbnb accommodations, housed in picturesque historic buildings dating back hundreds of years. That was the option we went with. A traditional Georgian breakfast was served next to the warm wood fired stove every morning, with a chauffeur waiting at the door to take us to the resort after a short stop to refuel his Japanese car on the way.

I am returning to Georgia again next season. Hopefully to a new region I have never been to before. This time I'm definitely taking my Playmaker 111 skis, which I missed on the previous trip due to the amount of snow, but the Playmaker 101 was great for manoeuvring on snowy roads and everyday skiing on the slopes. I think they will keep being my favourite skis for a long time to come. 

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