The group gathers in Tbilisi, in a pre-booked hostel. Participants travel from the airport to the hostel on their own by taxi or bus. Once you check into the hostel, you can walk around the city for a couple of hours. The instructor, meanwhile, is purchasing food and fuel for the ascent. In the evening, the group gets together, the instructor distributes food, checks equipment, and answers questions. By the way, during the trip you can leave extra things (clean clothes, for example) in the hostel for storage.

Early breakfast at the hostel. At 8 am a minibus arrives to pick us up. We leave Tbilisi and drive about 3 hours to the village of Kazbegi (Stepantsminda). Along the way we make several stops for sightseeing: Ananuri fortress, observation deck on Military Georgian road, mineral waterfalls. In Stepantsminda (height 1750m) we transfer from the minibus to jeeps, which will take us to the picturesque Gergetis Tsminda Sameba temple (height 2170m). There we get some spring water, have a snack and get ready to go.

The relatively gentle climb to the Sobierc Pass (2700 m) will help you get in shape and warm up after a long ride. Kazbek itself was visible to us from the very beginning, but only after the pass will we be “showed” the magnificent glacier and moraine. Then we smoothly traverse to an altitude of 2800, cross a small mountain stream (usually you can jump over it) and find yourself in "Green Hotel" This is a comfortable, flat place for camp, with a source of clean water (in the river we jumped through, it is muddy, almost black). To get to them you need to cross a seething black stream - just step from bank to bank, from stone to stone. But something tells me that many of you will remember this step for a long time.

  After an hour of walking along a deep canyon, we will finally step onto the Ortsveri glacier. If the instructor allows it, then in good weather you can go without crampons. We cross the glacier diagonally for an hour and a half, then desperately look for a way to crawl from it to the ground. The last push (upwards, of course) and we are at the Meteorological Station (3660 m). Under the guidance of an instructor, we set up camp and strengthen the tents in case of strong winds. Then we register with the rescuers and pay them 10 GEL per tent. Let's have lunch.

After a short rest, we go to the radial to the rock (3915 m) overhanging the camp. Legends say that on its top there was once a Bethlehem monastery (Bethlemi), but it is difficult to believe in this - it is a painfully harsh place. Now on the rock there is a chapel of an original design (something from a ship). We go down, have dinner, and are freezing - there may already be night frosts here.

We have breakfast, fill up thermoses, take warm clothes and a lunch snack - we go on a large acclimatization trip for 6-8 hours. We do not close the camp; the tents remain in place. We wind our way through moraine labyrinths for a couple of hours (keep up!), then quickly run through a flat area, but dangerous with rockfalls, under the wall of Khmaur. As a result, we reach flat firn fields - the Kazbek plateau (4300 m). Tomorrow we have to set up an assault camp here for climbing Kazbek. In the meantime, we are getting used to the lack of oxygen, cold wind and fierce ultraviolet radiation. We have a leisurely lunch, take photos and begin our descent back to the weather station.

Today we move our tents to the plateau. Therefore, we pack up the camp and leave unnecessary things at the weather station, including provisions for the return journey. We make our way to the plateau along already familiar paths. There, under the supervision of instructors, we begin the construction of an assault camp. We carefully bury the tents in the snow and stretch them out, building windproof walls. In order to sleep more or less normally this night, after lunch we need to have time to do one more acclimatization trip. To do this, we will walk forward along the path to the summit at least to an altitude of 4500m. At night we carefully monitor how we feel, and if altitude sickness worsens, we immediately wake up the instructor!

In order for the body to successfully prepare for tomorrow’s climb to Kazbek, it needs active rest. To do this, we will organize snow and ice classes. We will practice walking in a bundle and moving with crampons on a steep slope, and we will practice self-restraint with an ice ax. And then we’ll pack our backpacks for tomorrow’s assault and go to bed early.

Rise at 3 am. A light breakfast, careful “dressing” and at about 4 am we move forward to meet the dawn! It takes about 5 hours to get to the top. We walk together until the very end, as there are cracks and dangerous steep slopes along the way. But during this period there is usually enough snow, most of the cracks are filled in, and it is easier to make steps on the slopes. Having climbed the Kazbek saddle, we only have to climb a little more along the steep firn slope, next to the rocky outcroppings. Follow all instructions from the instructors, be patient and fight for your victory. After descending from the top (this will be around noon), we collect the tents and move the camp back to the weather station.

These are spare days in case additional acclimatization is needed or the weather is bad. We want to get to the top, and not just waste time or play roulette with a shorter deadline. If these days are not spent, then we can make an additional ascent to neighboring peaks, or go on an excursion to Tbilisi.

We skip and run down to the village of Stepantsminda. There is an unusually high amount of oxygen and unbearable heat. It looks like we also need to get used to this - we urgently acclimatize in a cafe with khachapuri :) Then another 3-4 hours and the minibus will drop us off in very hot Tbilisi. We check into a hostel, shower, clean clothes, and now we are on our way to a restaurant with national cuisine - we need to properly celebrate the completion of the expedition.

If you don’t want to walk around Tbilisi yet, you can fly home. At least in the morning.