I went on a hike to abudelauri’s colorful lakes(idk how it translates lol). It was amazing, a bit hard for me since we had to walk on hills covered in snow which caused me to slip a couple of times but the hardest part was going down on snowy hills and muddy and rocky cliffs, i didnt capture any of that unfortunately since i was really tired and was just enjoying the moment but i wish i did capture it since my pictures show only easy parts, the mountain and the lakes. Tbf sliding down a snowy mountain was really fun, it reminded me about sliding with a sled with my grandpa when i was a child, but it was a bit dangerous since there where rocks, the first time i slipped i tried to stop by using my hands and i dig my hands in the snow for about 20 seconds, i immediately thoight of some movie trope where someone is falling and hangs on to the rope to stop and then has bloody hands lol, luckily i just got mild frostbite, after around 3 hours my hands where almost the same but it fully healed after 2 days, there was no external damage thankfully, but idk i think im being too “delicate”. Anyways it was wonderful here are the pictures. I wanted to upload them all here directly but after trying 4 times and failing everytime i just gave up. i also tried catbox but i couldnt figure out creating the folder or something and sharing only one link, anyways this is my burner mail so it should be fine.
Pictures are taken by my old Panasonic DMC ZX3. I prefer that cam to any phone since its still 4k and there is no heavy denoising causing smearing or the glow around the edges or anything like that. U used my cam as a point and shoot, which i love, i have not tried the big cams, i never really had the money for it but i think it will get on the way when hiking, but idk i might try that sometime.
edit: keep in mind i shot this pictures as a point and shoot, i primarily went on this hike to relax from my desk job, so the pictures that i took are really just a bonus from the hike
Yes this was in georgia in the south part of the caucasus. It was really good, im georgian myself but i still followed a tour guide, it is the safest way to do this and not get lost or anything like that since the mobile network doesnt connect at all, tbf its like that with most rural places here and especially near or at the mountain. I want to go on a hike again but the hiking gear is very expensive, i now want hiking sticks or whatever theyre called lol and some new drifit clothes since i only have 1 t shirt and 1 pants that my uncle gave me
Yeah when i went hiking in the Carpathians we didn’t have phone signal either past a certain point. It can be pretty scary especially if you’re on a multi-day hike and you know you’re at least a day or more away from civilization if something should happen, and you only have what you carry in your backpack.
I never went with tour guides but i grew up with family who had gone there very often and they were basically able to teach me how to be safe and what routes to follow and so on, so when i went on my own with friends i was able to be the “guide” (plus we had maps of course).
You do meet the occasional shepherd who might give you directions, but that’s about it.
I didn’t use hiking sticks when i was younger but now i think i will probably start using them as it makes it easier on the knees.
I think the absolute most important piece of gear to have are very good hiking shoes. Keeping your feet healthy is one of the essentials. Getting blisters when you still have days of walking ahead is not fun. Proper clothes in general relly matter a lot.
A small gas burner to heat up your food is useful too but i had to learn the hard way they don’t always work too well past a certain altitude. Other than that idk, i guess a good backpack that distributes the weight well. I never went hardcore rock climbing or anything so i can’t speak about that whole aspect.
And of course if you’re going to be camping make sure your tent is solid. One time we had holes in our tent and we were caught in a rainstorm practically almost at the top of the mountain at 2000m+ altitude. The soil was almost too rocky to properly anchor the tent so we sheltered it behind an outcropping so it wouldn’t be blown away by the storm wind. That was a pretty miserable night, with puddles in our tent, wet sleeping bags and so on. Luckily it was summer so the days were sunny and warm. You also get very easily sunburned at that altitude by the way.
Trust me, well-fitting shoes are essential for any walking, even a mile, about the neighborhood. Our feet are our foundation, and aside from blisters, ill-fitting shoes cause knee, hip, back, and neck issues.
Tbh i mostly love hoking because my school did it regularly and now im at my pc for 16 hours a day, hiking is more of a relaxation time for me, sure my muscles are sore but i feel like i could so the same trail without regreting it. Also i didnt mention this was a day hike, we hiked for about 7 hours, got there by 12 and went home by 7, the distance really wasnt far as well it was around 9km, but it was mostly just uphill and downhill rocky and snowy roads, also we gained 500meters. I never was on a multi day hiking trip but after this hike i really do want to, but again if i do that i have to get a bigger backpack, right now i have a patagonia backpack that is 25L, it is very good but its small for a two day hike even and ut was expensive. I completely agree about the shoes, last year i went on a 16km hike with timberlands lmao and my feet where broken basically, they where sore for a week, same with the backpack, i went with a regular school backpack and my back was basically injured for a week. Now a week before the hike i bought north face hedgehog mids and they where amazing, except the snow which it slipped a lot in, but in the mud or wet rocks or anything else it was amazing and totally worth it.
Since i dont know much about multi say hikes, i believe from day to day basis you have less km’s to walk yes? So if this hike was 2 days long i would easily do 3.5 hours a day right? Or is it the same as in the first day you do climb and do 7km and the second day you again do the equal distance and time?
For me it was something my family was always into so i fell into it as well. Yeah hiking is relaxing for me too, at least mentally.
The last big hike i did is more than ten years ago now, but i still enjoy one or two day trips.
I usually had a 70 or 80 liter backpack i think, because of having to carry part of the tent, plus sleeping mat, sleeping bag and supplies for however many days. If you only go for a one or two day trip you obviously don’t need one that big. The girls in our group had smaller ones, maybe 50-60L or so.
As for typical distance or hours in a day, that depends entirely on you and your group’s level of fitness and what kind of route you plan. You can take it easy or you can push yourself. I find the first option much more enjoyable.
For example my last big hike was supposed to be a week long and cover about 45 km, but we cut it short at around 30km after five days because a person in our group was not feeling well. Might not sound like a lot but when you’re going up steep elevation, difficult terrain, with people of varying fitness levels even 6km a day can be a challenge.
We basically hiked from the late morning, after we got up and everyone had breakfast, until the late afternoon when the sun started to go down because you don’t want to be caught in the dark without already having made camp. On average I would guess 6 hours spent just hiking, though some days were shorter, others longer.
The first day is usually spent getting through the forested part of the mountain. Depending where we would start this could be at least 6-700m elevation difference you need to climb. Then camp at the altitude just before the forest ends and there’s only small bushes, grass or rocks.
Then the second day we would push for the summit ridge and reach it by the end of the day and camp there. Then the next couple days we would hike along the ridge from peak to peak, and then at some point start descending again mirroring the first and second days but in reverse.
The second day was always the hardest because that’s when the steepest constant climb happens. Might only be a fairly short distance but it’s brutally steep elevation all the way up. Almost 1000m elevation difference. Once you’re up on the peaks there’s some ups and some downs but not that much, so it’s more relaxing and you can go for longer distances.
Going back down at the end is actually where you have the highest risk of injury because that’s when you’re exhausted and likely to go faster than you should, and it puts a lot of stress on your joints.
A typical day would be like this: wake up at 7-7:30, eat, fill up on water (we would usually camp near a stream), slowly pack, and start walking at around 9-9:30, hike until some time after midday, pause a half hour for brief lunch break, then hike until 16:30-17:00 (depends on how fast we were when we would reach the site we wanted to camp at), set up tents, make dinner, and by the time you’re done eating it’s usually past 19:00 and getting dark, and you don’t want to be wandering around in the dark so we would just chat, maybe play some card games sitting around the tents and then go to sleep.
The highest peak we climbed was just above 2500m (actually the highest one in the entire southern Carpathians range, which is not much compared to the Caucasus that goes up to 5k).
We wouldn’t usually make fires because once you’re past the tree line there’s nothing to burn. But we did have a campfire on the first day. Don’t know if this is still allowed now with fire safety regulations, but back then it was fine, you just needed to know how to make a fire pit out of stones.
This is in summer of course. Winter hiking is very different and i would not be hiking those kinds of trails in winter. I would keep them much shorter and much easier.