“If I reach Gudauri alive, I will never go back”, I promised myself that evening. Sitting in an old Toyota with a broken front window on a snowy, dark, tiny and winding road from Tbilisi to Gudauri, I counted my blessings more than once. The driver laughed and answered that Japanese imported cars were cheaper, when questioning why he had the steering wheel on the wrong side, and kept overtaking trucks in the curves as if he had a capability to see in to the future. The road leading over the pass in Georgia is the only open road from Turkey to Russia, and it is heavily trafficated, despite being built as a normal small mountain road. It didn’t stop our friendly, but slightly mad, driver.
Arriving in the dark, I just noticed the muddy streets when climbing out of the car and the light of the various hotels on the mountains, but once welcomed by the hotel staff, we immediately felt at home. The old men in the lobby, the girl at the reception, the waiters in the restaurant, everyone immediately knew the names of our daughters and gave us the warmest of welcome. Most of the hotels are small family run establishments, with half board options for very decent prices.
After politely declining the vodka shot for breakfast we finally hit the slopes the next morning. We managed to find surprisingly good gear for the kids at the local rental shop and they even had good stuff for adults, both for freeskiing and ski touring, good to know.
The sky was blue and a light cover of snow covered the village and the mountain, it looked so different from the night before. Gudauri itself is a small village, quite spread out, but with a small centre close to the lowest lift, Gudauri 1. This is also the first lift everyone has to take in the morning, unless you live in the newly built ‘New Gudauri’ higher up on the mountain. The bottle neck was a fact the first morning and we spent more than an hour trying to buy lift passes with the rest of the tourists, mainly Russians and Ukrainians, and the occasional Gulf resident. The good thing is that ski passes are very cheap, for about 60 euro a person we could ski for the whole week.
Despite what happened in Gudauri at the end of last season, and which went viral globally, the lift system is very modern and high quality. At the top of the lift stations there are little stands, run by local women, where you can buy basically anything from sausages, beer, and snacks to toys, homemade gloves and beanie’s. The ladies are so cute and although their English is close to non-existing they always greet you with a friendly smile and as everybody in Georgia they seem to love kids. Everywhere we went our children got a small piece of chocolate or a pet on the head and a toothless smile. These little stands are great for a small break, but there are also full-blown restaurants where you can eat very well on the mountain, and again, for almost nothing. Georgians are quite proud of their food though, so don’t expect fast food, not even on the mountain. Things take time, but it is well worth the wait. Food is generally delicious and we ate so well the whole week, a lot of meat and salads, kchachapuri (bread with cheese) and khinkali dumplings, served with very nice local wines.
In New Gudauri you can find several restaurants, a small supermarket, a ATM machine and various ski shops. There is also a ski school where we found a group for our oldest daughter and a private teacher for our youngest one to polish her skills with. Their English level may be varying, but most of the teachers are Ukrainians with reasonable language skills and either way, learning by doing does not really require speaking.
From New Gudauri you take the gondola towards the top where you find a few more sit lifts to explore the higher regions. The highest lift takes you to 3270 meter and surrounded by summits above 4000 meters, the views are just stunning. Together with Ygor, a Ukrainian guide from one of the local guide bureaus, we took to explore the surroundings. From the top of the highest lift you can access several colouirs very easily and the conditions were amazing. Steep colouirs and basins leading down to new open areas. Many of the tracks lead down the backside so you need to make sure somebody picks you up with a car on the other side, but even so, you can easily manage two good runs per day. The skiers are typically more from Eastern Europe and central Asia, and this great mixture also added to the experience. There’s nothing bringing skiers as close to each other as sharing a good powder run and when you realize that the smile from ear to ear is shared with Polish, Ukrainian, Russians and American skiers (and the odd Swede) you can only pull that smile a bit further. The beauty of skiing around the world is that you realize we share the same passion no matter where we come from. At heart happiness means the same thing to all of us.
The ski area itself offers quite a lot and even for a week I would say you have enough to ski, especially if you ski with the family. For this season they have expanded the area further which will give even better access to slopes and off piste. The slopes are long and the snow quality is really good. You also have a lot of ungroomed areas between the pistes which can be fun for a bit of shredding. And if you are prepared to go off piste and also travel a bit from the resort itself there are endless opportunities. Ski touring is quite big in the area and one of the most famous excursions is to Lomisi monastery at 2200 meter, where you can visit the monks and share a cup of tea with them, before buckling up and charging down the mountain.
Georgia is an interesting country, with a very proud population and a long history. This shines through in the friendliness of the people, the food, the wine. It is quite new to tourism, but growing quickly. The alcohol culture among some of the skiing tourists can be a problem, which is contained by the local police that you see skiing regularly down the slopes, but apart from this, the area feels very safe and friendly. On the way back to Tbilisi we took the opportunity to visit some beautiful monuments, Georgian orthodox churches and old villages and the ride back during day time was much less scary. We did arrive in Gudauri that evening alive, and as many other emotional promises I have made to myself, I will also break this one. I have already booked my tickets for this year.
HOW TO GET THERE?
Flying from Dubai to Tbilisi with flydubai takes only 3,5 hours. www.flydubai.com
Hotels are easy to find on booking.com or directly contacting the hotels. We stayed at Hotel Donata, but other options include Marco Polo, GoodAura and Edelweis
SOME FACTS
Inhabitants: 3,7 Millions
Surface : 69,700 KM2
Language: Georgian
Currency: Georgian lari (GEL)