Mount Kazbek Climb

Your lead guide collects you from your Tbilisi hotel at 9 am for the 3-hour drive north on the Georgian Military Highway, topping the Jvari Pass (2,379 m) and then dropping to the Tergi. You arrive in Stepantsminda, at about 1,750 m, in time for lunch with the mountain filling the skyline above the village. In the afternoon the guide goes through every item you brought: boots against crampons, harness fit, layers, gloves and sleeping bag rating. Anything missing can be rented from the climbing shops in the village. Over dinner you talk through the route, the weather forecast and the plan for the reserve day. An early night helps, because tomorrow is your first step up in altitude.

Today is about gaining height and coming back down to sleep, the classic way to let your body adjust. Walk from the village up the steep path to the 14th-century church of Gergeti Trinity (2,170 m), then carry on along the open ridge used by the Kazbek trail. The path climbs over grassy shoulders with the Gergeti glacier coming into view, and you aim for the Sabertse pass area at roughly 3,000 m. Here your guide checks your pace and how you feel at height. Have lunch with a wide view of Kazbek's summit cone and the Chaukhi peaks across the valley. Descend the same way to Stepantsminda for a second night at 1,750 m, eat well and drink plenty of water.

Load the pack horses in the morning and take a 4x4 as far as Gergeti Church to save your legs. From there you follow yesterday's path past the Sabertse area to the point where the horses unload, close to the snout of the Gergeti glacier at about 3,000 m. Shoulder your pack and rope up with your guide for the glacier crossing. In summer the lower ice is often bare and the crevasses are visible, but higher up they can hide under old snow, so you move steadily in single file. The Meteo station appears on the moraine above at about 3,650 m: a stone building that started life as a Soviet meteorological post in the 1930s. Settle into the bunk room, melt snow for water and turn in early.

Spend the morning on the glacier near the hut practising what you need for summit day. Your guide shows you how to walk in crampons on hard ice, how to use the ice axe as a third leg and how to stop a slide by self-arrest. You also practise moving together on a rope and what to do if someone breaks through into a crevasse. After lunch climb above the hut to the small chapel of Bethlemi, an old cave hermitage set into the rock face at around 3,900–4,000 m that pilgrims have visited for centuries. The view across the glacier to the summit gives you a clear idea of the route ahead. Return to the hut, rest and prepare your kit for a possible summit start the next night.

The alarm goes at about 1 am. After tea and a quick breakfast you leave the hut by headtorch, roped to your guide, and climb the glacier on firm, frozen snow. By dawn you reach the broad plateau at about 4,500 m below the summit cone, where the air is thin and the pace slows to a few steps at a time. The last section is a steep slope of snow and ice leading to the saddle and then the top, which sits right on the border with Russia. On a clear morning you look down on the whole central Caucasus, from Elbrus in the west to the peaks of Khevsureti in the east. The descent is just as demanding, and you are back at the hut 10 to 14 hours after leaving.

Kazbek makes its own weather, and strong wind or a fresh dump of snow can make the upper slopes unsafe even in August. This day exists so the summit attempt can wait for a proper window. If you have already reached the top, use it to rest, sort gear and walk down slowly to Stepantsminda, where a hot shower and a proper bed are waiting; we then shift the next day's descent forward. If the first attempt was turned back, your guide decides with you whether a second try at about 1 am makes sense, based on the forecast and how everyone is recovering. Either way, nobody is pushed upward against the guide's judgement on a mountain this high.

Pack up and leave the hut after breakfast. Cross the glacier on the rope one last time and meet the horses on the far side, who take the heavy bags. From there the walk down is long but easy on the legs compared with the way up, and the air thickens as you lose height. Look back from the grassy slopes above Gergeti Church for a final view of the summit you stood on. A 4x4 picks you up at the church and drives you down to your hotel. In the evening the team sits down together for a celebration dinner with khinkali, mtsvadi and a glass of Saperavi, and the guides hand out certificates to those who summited.

Enjoy a slow breakfast with Kazbek out of the window, cloud permitting. On the drive south you have time for short stops that climbers usually skip on the way up: the orange travertine mineral springs below the Jvari Pass, the Friendship Monument above the Aragvi gorge and the 17th-century fortress church at Ananuri on the Zhinvali Reservoir. You reach Tbilisi in the early afternoon and the driver leaves you wherever you need to be, hotel or airport. If your flight is the next day, ask us to book a room in the old town; after a week at altitude, an evening in the sulphur baths of Abanotubani is the best recovery we know.