Getting There
Treks to Mount Kazbek start and finish in Stepantsminda, close to the Gergeti Trinity Church. By bus or car, it takes just under three hours to get here from Tbilisi, and much of the drive is along the Georgian Military Highway, which was described by Baedecker’s as “one of the most beautiful mountain roads in the world.”
What to Expect
Mount Kazbek is probably the only mountain in Europe where you can climb to 5,000m without having technical climbing skills. This makes it very popular amongst amateur mountaineers. You do need to allow time to acclimatise to the altitude, though, and in total the trek takes five days to reach the summit and then return to Stepantsminda.
History
Mount Kazbek (5,054m) lies on the border between Georgia and Russia in the Caucasus Mountains. It overlooks the Darial Gorge, historically one of only two available routes for invading armies to cross the mountain range. Each generation of rulers added their own layer of fortifications to defend this strategic location, and some historians believe this was the place described by the Roman historian Flavius Josephus as the Gates of Alexander, though the fortifications are of a later date.
