Tetnuldi Ski Resort

Tetnuldi is a peak of the main watershed ridge of the Greater Caucasus in Mestia Municipality, at the head of the Adishchala, a right tributary of the Enguri, 4,858 metres high and the tenth highest summit of the Caucasus. It is built mainly of Palaeozoic crystalline schists and granitoids, lies under permanent snow above 3,000 metres and is a great centre of glaciation, the Tsaneri and Adishi glaciers descending its slopes. The summit was first climbed in 1887 by the Englishman Douglas Freshfield and Moritz von Déchy with two guides, in 1891 by Gottfried Merzbacher and Ludwig Purtscheller, and in 1930 by the Georgian mountaineers Alexander and Alexandra Japaridze, Iagor Kazalikashvili and A. Avaliani; in 1929 Simon Japaridze and Pimen Dvali died on Tetnuldi, and a memorial plaque to them was fixed to the rock of the south-western slope, the "Japaridze Witnesses".

Below the peak, 19 kilometres from Mestia, operates the Tetnuldi mountain ski resort, from 2,265 to 3,160 metres with a vertical difference of 895 metres. Five lifts serve the resort, and the total length of the pistes is 13.7 kilometres; the longest run is the longest in the South Caucasus (9.5 kilometres) and has its greatest vertical drop (1.7 kilometres).

Tetnuldi was first climbed in 1887, by Douglas Freshfield and Moritz von Déchy. The tragedy of 1929, in which Simon Japaridze and Pimen Dvali died, left a deep mark on Georgian mountaineering: in 1954 the Georgian climbers Maksime Gvarliani, Grisha Gulbani and Givi Kalabegashvili named an unnamed peak of the south-eastern Pamir "Peak in Memory of Those Who Died on Tetnuldi".

Construction of the ski resort began in May 2014; the first phase was completed in January 2016, and the resort opened on 21 February 2016. It is the largest ski resort in Svaneti.

The resort is 19 kilometres from Mestia; Mestia is served by Queen Tamar Airport. The season runs from late December to mid-April, with the lifts working from 10:00 to 16:30; check road conditions and lift prices locally.