Juta and the Chaukhi Massif

Juta sits at 2,150 metres at the head of the Sno valley, under a wall of rock that Georgians call their Dolomites. It is one of the highest permanently inhabited villages in the country: a scatter of stone houses and, these days, a rather larger scatter of guesthouses, with the Chaukhi massif closing the valley in front of it.

Chaukhi is not a single peak but a ridge of pale towers and spires, its highest point reaching 3,842 metres. The reason it looks so unlike the rest of the Caucasus here is the rock — hard, light-coloured and fractured into vertical lines, where the surrounding mountains are dark shale and grass. From the village a well-used path climbs for about two hours to the Chaukhi amphitheatre and a small lake below the wall. This is the standard half-day walk and it needs no technical skill, only fitness.

The serious route continues over the Chaukhi Pass at roughly 3,340 metres and drops into Khevsureti at Roshka, where the Abudelauri lakes lie. That is a long, committing day, clear of snow only from about July, and not to be started late or alone.

Juta has changed fast. Before 2012 it was a handful of families and a track; there are now cafés, a lodge above the village and a summer crowd. The Mokheve families who live here still farm and still go down for the winter, and outside the season most of the buildings are shuttered.

The valley floor is boggy in early summer, and the light is best in the two hours after sunrise, when Chaukhi is lit and the village is still in shadow. Wild flowers peak in late June and early July, and the meadows below the amphitheatre are as good a reason to walk up as the rock wall itself.