Sports in Georgia

Sport in Georgia is either something you are taught or something that gets you into terrain you could not otherwise reach, and the offer divides cleanly along that line. The taught half is ski and snowboard instruction at Gudauri, with separate lessons for children and private sessions for adults, run by instructors who work the resort all season. The access half is the jeep: Tabatskuri lake on the volcanic plateau, the megalith sites at Gokhnari and Tejisi, the Pankisi gorge with its Kist villages, and the tracks into Tusheti and Khevsureti that no ordinary car should attempt.

Around those two poles sit the things that need legs rather than an engine. Week-long hiking routes cross the Greater Caucasus and the Adjaran highlands, horseback crossings run several days at a time, and fishing trips go out from Tbilisi to the reservoirs and mountain rivers. The mountains here are genuinely high — Shkhara reaches 5,193 metres — so the difference between a walk and an expedition is decided by altitude and season rather than by distance.

Practical. The ski season runs from December to April, with Gudauri holding snow later than the lower resorts. Lessons are booked by the hour or the day and equipment is hired at the base, so nothing needs carrying from home. Jeep days are long: the driving is the activity, not the transfer to it, and the tracks are rough enough that people prone to motion sickness should sit in front. Hiking above two thousand metres is a summer proposition, roughly June to September, and weather turns fast. Guides on the high routes are worth the money for navigation as much as for company.