Horseback riding to Shkhara glacier

We decided that since we have been doing mostly hiking this trip that we would change it up a bit. Our guest house rents horses, but it was much more expensive to have a guide so we convinced our guest house that we were experienced so they let us ride without a guide. This made for an extra exciting adventure.

The morning started off well for me with a solo walk up the valley for sunrise. Frequently, when you hike in the villages in Georgia, you will acquire one or more "trail dogs" who will hike with you for part or all of your hike. For this walk, 4 trail dogs joined me. So in addition to enjoying the kick butt views, I also had the entertainment of the dogs. 

Observing the village wake up was interesting. It is quite quiet except for animals and some of the farmers who move the herds out to the valley for grazing (men) and some of the cows get milked (women). The town also has a small rope tow for skiing.

After breakfast, we lounged around for a while (not a strength of mine).  Power went out in the village the night before and was still out, but no one seemed to mind. So we read and journaled until it was time to ride. 

I have minimal riding experience and Fallon has more. In deciding to not hire a guide, we said "what could go wrong?" I did my best to look like I knew what I was doing. The only real instructions that were given was how to tie up the horses when we got to the section where we needed to walk to the glacier. And we were off (kind of). The horses were not too keen on walking to the glacier. This resulted in getting on and off the horses to redirect them and sometimes pull them along. Most riders around here have switches (we figured out why). Also, the equipment was just so-so. Fallon's horse's bit kept falling out (and eventually the whole bridle came off), the stirrups were not the right length, and some things seemed at weird angles that dug into you in uncomfortable ways. Luckily, we had the family dog with us who was really good with the horses and seemed to be able to get the moving when they just wanted to graze (so it was kind of like having a guide 😉).

After lots of work of riding and coaxing the horses in the hot sun with biting flies, we made it to the place where we had to walk the final 2 km to the glacier. We were kind of cooked, but tied up the horses and walked on. We acquired a trail dog and actually enjoyed the walk up. The tongue of the glacier was really cool. It was a massive wall of ice with a rushing river coming out of it and rocks regularly falling down. We took some pictures and chatted about what we might expect on our ride back to the village. As we thought, it was an expedited ride back to Ushguli. So, we just held on tight as the horses trotted, cantered, and galloped back. That was so awesome!

After our ride, we once again had a yummy meal with an awesome view. And were thankful to be going to bed. Parts of us were sore and would be more sore in the days to come. When we went to sleep we knew that bruises to remind us of our adventure on horseback were sure to come.