Saturday 13 July 2013

Day 4 - Carry to 1st Camp

We head off early as we need to pass through a checkpoint as well as get up and down before the really bad weather in the afternoon comes in and will be carrying quite a bit of gear and water today so it will be tough going.

We start with a drive from our village to the trail head and have a few interesting encounters. Firstly the checkpoint which is there to stop Georgian 'terrorists' from coming over the border into Russia - we all need to get out of the van and present ourselves individually with our passports at the small hut whilst the guards and their dogs inspected our vehicle which seemed a little strange as this was on the way to the border. Obviously when we head back through the checkpoint in the evening (which is when we could have undesirables in the van) we are simply waved through!

Later on we saw some of the artillery that was pointed at Georgia - not only does it appear too small to clear the mountains but I am not sure what the soldiers would do with the cows who seem to have laid claim to it?




After that we get out at what looked like an old Soviet military camp and from there walked along a river to some tourist camps and then up the steep but beautiful side of the valley. The lower section was very green but still very hot indeed - neither of which helped some of the group who weren't in quite the shape that they would have hoped to be for the trip.



We made pretty slow progress and towards the top I decided to kick on a bit to help my acclimatisation and so got to the top for lunch by myself. Lovely view but again miserable food and I end up throwing most of it away looking forward to another supper of shashlik but hopefully with a bit more nightlife as it is Saturday today.
We put up a tent and leave most of our gear there (sleeping and climbing gear for tomorrow as well as water for the next couple of days) before heading back down. I ask the guide about nightlife in the area but he doesn't think that there is much but if there is any it will be in the square where we were last night. It turns out that there isn't any as we walk from café to bar to restaurant without coming across anything lively at all that evening, but at last the shashlik is good.

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