Chalaadi Glacier

The Chalaadi glacier flows down from the main Caucasus ridge and is the easiest glacier to reach from Mestia. That makes it the logical choice for a first full day in Svaneti: no guide, no mountaineering equipment and no dawn start are required.

The route is straightforward. From Mestia you drive north-east up the Mestiachala valley for about seven kilometres to a small parking area where the road ends. From there a path crosses the river on a suspension bridge, climbs through birch and alder forest, and then works its way up loose glacial moraine. It is roughly an hour each way, or up to three hours in total with stops and photographs.

What you will see:

• The suspension bridge over the Mestiachala — it sways, but it is entirely safe
• Dense riverside forest that gives way abruptly to bare glacial rubble
• The ice tongue itself, grey-brown with debris, with meltwater caves at its base

Keep expectations realistic. Like most glaciers in the Caucasus, Chalaadi is retreating, so the ice edge sits slightly further back each year. Climbing onto the ice or entering the caves is strongly discouraged: the surface is unstable and collapses are common. From the lower moraine the view is more than enough to grasp the scale of the thing.