Shkhara Glacier and Lamaria

Above Ushguli a track runs to the source of the Enguri — to the place where the river you have followed all the way from Zugdidi simply comes out of the ice. It is a day walk, and the best one in Svaneti.

The route heads east from Ushguli along the right bank of the Enguri: about eight kilometres each way, three to four hours, and easy going, since the valley is broad and the total ascent is only two or three hundred metres. Towards the end the meadow gives way to moraine and the glacier snout appears, at roughly 2,300 metres.

Above it stands Shkhara, 5,193 metres, the highest point in Georgia and the culminating summit of the Bezengi Wall. That wall is a twelve-kilometre rampart of ice on the Georgian–Russian border and one of the most serious objectives in Caucasian mountaineering. Seeing it from directly beneath is a different experience entirely.

On the way, in Zhibiani at the top of Ushguli, stands the Lamaria church: an eleventh- or twelfth-century hall church dedicated to the Mother of God, with its own tower, an enclosure wall and fragments of painting inside. It sits where the path begins and should not be skipped.

The glacier snout is retreating fast. It has shrunk noticeably in recent decades and the ice edge is unstable, with rockfall and collapsing arches. Walking under the tongue or onto the ice without equipment and a guide is a warning rather than a suggestion.

There is almost nothing man-made along the path: a couple of plank bridges, a shepherds' camp and a line worn across the moraine. In high summer there are cattle and horses up here.

The view back from Zhibiani towards the towers of Ushguli is as good as the view forward towards the wall, and often better on the way home, when the evening light comes from the west.

Weather is a separate matter. The valley traps cloud and afternoon rain is normal. Start early, because on a cloudy day the wall is invisible and the point of the walk disappears.

Horses can be hired in Ushguli and four-wheel drives get part of the way up, but the last stretch is on foot regardless. There is water along the valley and no food.

The season runs from mid-June to early October; in May the path still holds snow and the Enguri is in flood. Allow six hours, which in practice means a full day with a night in Ushguli.