Certainly quite
excited about the new snow that welcomed our arrival in Gudauri, we head
straight back to the resort to see what more is has to offer.
A blue sky with almost
no wind wasn’t anything to calm us down!!!
With most of the
right-in-front-of-you terrain that have been ridden on the last day, we had to
use a bit more imagination to get to some fresh snow.
One of the option we
chose was to hike towards the higher chairlift that goes to the top of Mt.
Sadzele. Since it hasn’t run for at least 3 days, we were pretty sure that we
would find some good snow. We put our skin and did the short climb up to the
top of a nice 400-500m untouched run. Babiche went first and we quickly found
out that there was a thick windcrust that was on and off…
Damn!
We thought we heard
some wind the past night but we never thought that it would have create such a
crust.
We change aspect by
dropping on the slackcountry on the north side of the chair that goes all the
way to the top of Mt. Kudebi. There we found better snow but the windcrust was
still present. We did a few laps there and finally got hope that we would find
some good snow if we find some that has been nicely protected.
To end this overall
great day of skiing, we did the short hike up Mt. Chrdili. From there, we can
drop back to the resort. There we find some great snow on which we carved some
long turns.
At nighttime, we catch
up with some French guy at the grocery store that told us about a great run that we were able to do.
We had to start down in Kvemo Mleta, next to the church right after the bridge there was a 900-1000m vertical run to do. At the top
of the hike, there is a monastery where some friendly monks lived!
We had our plan for
the day!
We catch a taxi and
head down. At the church, there was an apprentice monk who told us about were
the trail is usually.
We found without much trouble even if we had to share at
some point with some cows! That was the first time I had to watch out not to
step into some cow drops while skinning.
The skin up was quite
straight forward as a bunch of people has climbed up in the past days. As
mentioned by our French friends, we found some really friendly monks up there.
There was three of them of were permanently living up there.
They welcomed us
inside of their cabin. Two of them were mostly speaking Georgian with a bit of
German and Russian! One of them was speaking a quite broken English. While
mixing all the words we knew from all the languages we all knew, we were able
to understand each other and share a good time.
They offered us some
really delicious homemade wine, some cha-cha, some cognac and tea. We had to
decline a couple of shots they offered us as we still had to ski down!
After spending quite a
nice afternoon, we made unsure turns down to the valley bottom on some changing
snow conditions. We nevertheless were able to get some really nice turns on the
way down.
As we woked up under
another great day, we aim to the slackcountry of Gudauri. With a single ride
costing about 3$ (and if you manage well, you only need 2 of those), it’s
pretty cheap way to get to the top!
We head towards Mt
Bidara to hit the backside of the resort and ski towards Jvari Pass.
It was
fricking warm!!! We were all struggling with the harsh sun coming on us!
Babiche misses his mullet so much that he made himself one out of a nylon bag.
We kept hiking up to
the top of Mt Bidara at 3174m while my dad stayed at the pass soaking in the
sun.
Babiche was to ski
straight down the face we just hiked and I was to hike further on the mountain
ridge to get to a nice little ridge that was going down.
Babiche got some
various snow with firm snow on top and much softer spring-like snow lower down.
I kept hiking on the
ridge until I got to my run. There was a firm base underneath the new slabby
new snow. The top part has been already warmed up by the sun, so I wasn’t that
confident about the stability.
After 2 ski cuts and a
few safety turns, one side of the ridge I was skiing on went down… And down it
went! The slide went probably 1000m vertical. Only the top part slid on what
looked like an old suncrust.
I skied next to and on
the bed surface until I got to a lower angle ridge. My dad and Babiche skied a
different aspect that was less steep.
We made it safely to
the bottom without any new incident.
We were lucky enough
that a car saw us coming and waited for us to give us a ride back to Gudauri.
5$ later, 20 minutes of bumping into an old little truck, we were back at our
hotel.
We spend what was left
of the day drinking beer and enjoying the view on our patio!
The weather seems to
be stable for the next days, so hopefully, we’ll be able to get some other
great days of skiing!
Cheers,
evans
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