After almost 100h of transport for the last 8 days (52h of boat, 33h of bus, 6h of train), it was finally time to exercise a bit our rusted legs for the first hike of our trip.

Mestia is known as the Mecca of hikers in Georgia, with more than 100 hikers starting daily their walk to Ushguli. But we were very early in the season, we were almost the only one there. 80% of the businesses were still closed. The mountains villages, completely deserted during winter because of the snow, were just starting to bloom again.

The hike from Mestia to Ushguli is a 3-day hike, with 3 main passes: one at 2500m, the second one at 2700m and the third one at 2900m. A local guy told us that without mountaineering gears, it was impossible to do the 2 last passes because of the snow.

The hike was incredibly beautiful, this nice mix of green with thick forests, white of the snow and blue sky was perfect.

Things started to get more complex when we reached 2200m: we had to follow a river in a narrow valley, covered by a snowbridge. Every 10 steps, the snow was cracking under our weight and we were falling in the river. Scary, dangerous, and not fun... The last part to the first pass was easier, following a 4x4 road, completely covered with snow.

We walked a bit down on the other side (South exposure this time, much easier), and pinched our tent at 2300m high to enjoy the evening sun while drinking some homemade Georgian wine.

It snowed most of the night. When we woke up the next morning, the tent was covered with ice, and everything around us was all white.

We walked down to the next city, Adishi, and drunk an overpriced coffee (the woman told us we were her first tourists of the season). 9km and 2 hours later, we arrived to the "main road" to hitchhike back to Mestia.