A cheese-fuelled hike-a-bike in Europe's last truly wild place
Then a hoon down the best unofficial single track in the Caucasus
Atsunta Pass had dwelt in our minds for weeks as the next big trial in our ride, a looming boogey monster that promised to test the limits of our stamina and willpower.
After the gruelling experience pushing our bikes up the hellish Juuku Pass, I felt nervous but mentally prepared for what I was in for. I was unnerved however by Cael’s repeated cautioning that Atsunta would be the same level of hard as Juuku, for a much longer distance.
I was also wary of the falling temperatures, having encountered unseasonably frigid nights in the mountains of Kyrgyzstan for which my lightweight sleeping bag, rated for 5 degrees, was woefully inadequate.
And then there was the unplanned, back-breaking difficulty of the previous two days, where the route had presented us with a surprise, lengthy hike-a-bike up a cruelly rutted and steep track for roughly 1200 vertical metres, so it’s fair to say our bodies were a little weary.
However, we’d had a moderately warm solar heated shower and a sleep in a bed, and woke to a clear, calm day on which to set out for the base of the pass. After a skimpy breakfast of one egg each and a stack of calorie-lacking tomato and cucumber, we set off along the river valley.
It wasn’t long before we happened upon an incongruous “cafe bar” on this quiet road, and were able to bolster the insufficient breakfast with an ample spread of khavitsi, (Tusheti’s answer to fondue, made from curd and butter) khinkali and kotori (cheesy bread).
I encountered a seemingly abandoned sheepdog pup who whined and followed us for several hundred metres, reviving my recurring fantasy of adopting one of these majestic Georgian symbols of strength and loyalty.
We acquired Russia proximity permits from a gruff border guard whose inhale sounded unsettlingly like Darth Vader, and had a quick scramble up to some medieval watch towers. These watchtowers have been restored for the benefit of tourists, and sit like lone sentries acting as a reminder of the marauding and invading this place has endured over the past thousand years.
The road vanished and in its place we have a winding single track that we occasionally share with meandering cows and fierce sheepdogs, guarding motley herds of sheep and goats against these strange two-wheeled beasts.
The day is slipping into a late afternoon glow, and the birch-covered flanks of the towering mountains seem to emit a golden light of their own.
We realise with some alarm that the light is dwindling fast and we still have a sizeable chunk of difficult, undulating trail ahead of us. At one point we have to haul the bikes over a large boulder and edge our way along the river’s edge. A pile of unmistakable bear poo in the middle of the track reminds us why the shepherds need their formidable dogs.
After much effort hauling our bikes up narrow, wiggling corners as shadow creeps across the valley, we finally clap eyes on a small clearing that marks the base camp of Atsunta Pass. A final loose descent and river crossing over a rickety bridge has us arrive ready to pitch camp just on dark.
I’m using a wet wipe to clean the sweat from my groin area when Cael mutters, “Isobel, there’s a guy there”, and far too late I see a man has emerged from the sole tent in the clearing and walked past us to a makeshift water tap to wash some tomatoes.
A few minutes later I emit a loud expletive at an errant tent peg, before realising again the man is a few metres behind me. Soon afterwards he seems to bark something at me in Georgian, and I assume, sheepishly, that he’s a pious man and is telling me off for being a crude, foul-mouthed woman.
However, he then approaches again, this time holding out a bulky sleeping bag. He gestures to me with a big grin and I realise he doesn’t care about the swear words but is quite concerned at the skimpiness of my sleeping equipment for the alpine conditions.
He seems to be a ranger of sorts whose job is to look out for foolhardy tourists, and after we’ve made dinner he invites us into a tent fashioned from plastic sheeting, toasty warm thanks to his wood stove. Expecting a tea, we are delighted to see he has a jar of hot chocolate which he supplements with a can of condensed milk.
We wake before dawn the next day to stillness and a clear sky. Waving farewell to our kind friend, we start up the grassy knobs that signal the beginning of the slow ascent to the pass.
We remove our shoes and socks for a small river crossing, which also marks the end of our time in the saddle until we reach the top. It’s all pushing from here, though we are pleased to find the track is an adequately wide ribbon of dirt, optimal conditions for hike-a-bike.
Many hours pass, and lofty peaks begin to poke out around us, the pale sun glinting off their distant snow-speckled contours. The plant life peters out and we eventually reach steep shale which is where the real work begins. Against an ever-increasing incline, I’m forced to push the bike two steps, rest, then repeat.
We decide to stop for “lunch” which is some bread and hard salty cheese we’d bought from our guesthouse owner. I present the ingenious idea of adding some honey, which helps aid the passage of the dry food down our gullets.
It’s a tough but truly magnificent final stretch as we propel our exhausted bodies upwards, as the valley opens and uncoils in every direction behind us in a colour scheme of slate grey and muted greens. Far below we see the river we crossed in the morning, a minuscule twisting serpent of sterling silver.
By the time we finally reach the pass there are flecks of snow blustering down from the heavens and glancing across the pass and down we can see only thick fog and the track appears more like a shambling staircase of heavy slate tiles.
We began our descent (Jack and Cael optimistically and enthusiastically in the saddle, myself firmly walking) as cloud billowed up from the valley below.
A steep, twisting, rutted track ensued, wide enough for the boys to manoeuvre their bikes through, but not without a slap of their rear wheel on the inside of each tight bend.
Their rear wheels largely locked up, Cael and Jack were essentially skidding down an endless pile of damp bathroom tiles, their only means of limiting speed by aggressively pushing the bike into the berms of successive corners.
I managed, to my great surprise, to ride some of the lower section, a tribute to many months of piloting my unwieldy bike through lumpy, difficult terrain.
Next we skittered along a sheer green face carpeted with an interesting subalpine plant, the track so narrow it left little margin of error for our fatigued faculties.
This led into a section of rolling, magnificent single track of perfectly compressed dirt that allowed us a period of flow after so much toil and careful precision, with Jack commenting he’d happily pay for a helicopter to the top of a track like that, such was its quality by mountain biking standards.
After handing our passports to two border guards who bore expressions of awe after watching our somewhat chaotic, noisy arrival to their hut, we are on to a rather sketchy, swooping descent of several more hundred metres down to the valley floor. The track has become a deep hollow lined with hazardous loose rocks and we swish through dry grass and fluttering seed heads.
Roughly 2000m of vertical gain lost, our brakes piping hot and brake fingers achy, we’re back on a valley floor and coasting along a gravel road.
After what felt like an inordinately epic journey for its 48 hour time span, the first fragment of commercial activity is a small cafe where we buy a slice of cake and a jumbo sized beer.
The beer proves premature when we realise the only guesthouse is not operational, forcing us into another 10km of mercifully flat riding to the village of Shatili, close to the border with Chechnya.
We roll our bikes into the garden of an elderly couple who rent out their rooms to wilderness-worn travellers, and sit down for a second cold beer.
Amazing views! Love the video.
Satisfying video! Thanks for sharing. Any recommendations for Latin America biking/hiking?