Svaneti is a mountain region in the north-west of Georgia, in the highest part of the Greater Caucasus, and it is where our family has always lived. It is one of the best places in the country for ski touring and backcountry skiing, and Mestia is the base: a mountain town with stone towers, guesthouses and roads leading into several separate valleys, so the touring day can be chosen in the morning according to what the weather and the snowpack are actually doing.
The terrain around Mestia is varied. Tetnuldi rises to the east with open high slopes and long descents. To the west, the Becho and Mazeri valleys lead towards the Ushba massif, where the mountain scenery is as serious as anywhere in the range. Further up the region, past Adishi, the road continues to Ushguli — a cluster of traditional Svan villages under the Shkhara wall that can become a remote base for a multi-day trip when winter access allows.
What makes Svaneti unusual is not one single slope, but the combination: real mountain terrain, quiet valleys that see few skiers, and villages where people still live and work through the winter. You finish a day of touring in a family house with a fire and a proper Svan dinner, not in a resort complex.
Conditions here change quickly, and they change differently from valley to valley. That is exactly where local mountain guides matter. We grew up on these mountains, watch the snow all winter, and plan each day around it. Our ski touring in Svaneti is private or small group, so the plan can move with the conditions and with the experience of the people in the group — rather than the other way round.
In summer the same valleys become our Svaneti hiking and trekking tours, and we also arrange private transfers and jeep excursions in Svaneti. If you are planning a ski touring trip to Georgia, ask us about current conditions and we will tell you honestly what the season looks like.
