Tetnuldi

Tetnuldi

Overall Rating

Tetnuldi

Tetnuldi2.5/52
Tetnuldi2.5 out of 5 based on 2 reviews
  • Recommend
    50%
  • Would Revisit
    50%
Backcountry Books Ski & Snowboard Guide Books & Maps

Georgia Skiing

Adjara & Bakhmaro
Bakuriani
Goderdzi
Gudauri
Hatsvali

Tetnuldi Maps & Stats

     Tetnuldi Ski Trail Map
  • Tetnuldi Ski Trail Map
  • Vertical (m)
    2,265m - 3,160m (895m)
  • Average Snow Fall
    6m
  • Lifts (5)
    4 Chairs
  • Opening Dates & Times
    January to late-April
    10:00am to 4:30pm
  • Terrain Summary
    Runs - 15km
    Longest run - 4km+
    Advanced - 15%
    Intermediate - 50%
    Beginner - 35%
  • Lift Pass Price
    Day Ticket 23/24
    Mestia - valid at Tetnuldi & Hatsvali
    Adult - 50GEL (approx. €18)
    Child (6 to 12yr) - 25GEL (approx. €9)
    Child u/6yr - Free

    Season Pass (valid in Gudauri, Goderdzi, Bakuriani & Mestia)
    Adult - 650GEL (approx. €226)
    Child - 325GEL (approx. €113)
     Hatsvali Ski Trail Map
  • Hatsvali Ski Trail Map

Tetnuldi - Reviews

Tetnuldi - Reviews

High Adventure

04/03/2024

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Powderhounds Ambassador
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POWDERHOUNDS EUROPE

Powderhounds Ambassador
Powderhounds Ambassador
  • Recommend
  • Would Revisit
  • Rider Type
    Telemarker
  • Rider Level
    Expert
  • Rider Age
    51-70
  • Month Visited:
    February
  • Admin Rating
    5

High Adventure

04/03/2024

For all its difficulties and negatives, Tetnuldi ski area delivers a unique experience that is worth travelling across the world for when the forecast says ‘SNOW’. Not at all a ski ‘resort’, the small collection of modern lifts, limited pistes and mountain restaurants are almost secondary to the road. It is the access road that truly sets Tetnuldi up as a ski destination. Everything else is a bonus.

And that road does have its moments. Generally a single lane, heavily covered in snow after a blizzard, hardpack ice a few days later, and then a mash of ice, soft snow, running water and mud in Spring, it is not a place for squeamish drivers. However the road was not nearly as bad as I had imagined. In fact there are probably way worse roads heading up to a few ski fields in New Zealand. However, there are some horror stories about this road, but perhaps they are based on the experiences of those used to driving on well graded, cleared, salted, gritted, two lane bitumen?

Maybe the Georgian drivers made it just seem not so bad (even though many of them do love to put the pedal to the metal and test the nerves of their passengers). The locals are expert drivers (mostly!), and the vehicles are all (mostly) 4WD with snow tyres. The biggest challenges on the Tetnuldi road occur when traffic is oncoming……then it gets truly interesting! It can ice up hideously too. You just gotta trust the driver and hope that a 180 spin is the worst that occurs.

The ski hill itself has one major issue (and is common to all the Georgian ski areas) – the lifts spin far too inconsistently. The first chair aside, there seems very little determination to actually prepare pistes, lift entry/exits and other skiing infrastructure so as to ensure lift operation on any given day starts in a timely fashion. Piste grooming will be happily conducted whilst skiers are already in a sector. Why the staff are not conducting preparations in the evening or early morning is beyond my understanding. With an official starting time of 10am (and usually 10.30am or later), it’s not like they are under any pressure. And it is a little disheartening to see the staff transport truck coming up the mountain at 10.30am. Anywhere else it would have been up already at 8am or earlier. But that’s ‘resort’ skiing in Georgia. It is all on GMT – Georgian Maybe Time. Relax and go with it because the alternative is …… well there is no alternative.

A great feature of the ski area is the ability to make long valley descents to villages such as Adishi & Zhabeshi (and hence avoiding getting driven down that road!). There are all sorts of routes down involving open mellow powder fields, perfect trees, tight trees, gullies, pillows & creeks. Some require a bit of skinning at the end, and even skiing through a mob or tow of cows, but all in all, they provide a wonderful adventure to the end of a Tetnuldi ski day.

The first chairlift, a hooded six-seater usually starts running by around 10.30am. The next lift to open is a quad chair which extends down to an adjacent valley. This is where to strike your first goal for powder. Open terrain that blends into birch woodland with loads of rolls & bumps with no real chance of avalanche. There are some holes & glide crack areas that we saw literally swallow up skiers & boarders alike. One of our group went chest deep into a random hole in the main gully, so always have your wits about you.

The next chair heading further up the mountain only opens in good visibility. It is a relatively easy skin up and beyond if it doesn’t open (which it didn’t for four days in a row when I visited). Another 120m vertical above it, the peak can be reached for stellar alpine freeride powder all the way down to the base of the aforementioned quad chair (600m+ vertical). One of the best powder runs I have ever done was with a great group of locals & internationals on an untouched canvas from the peak. You could just let it absolutely rip.

Tetnuldi is also the staging point for a host of incredible ski-touring journeys to once mythical locations like Ushguli village, plus a host of nearby mountain peaks. The options are nearly endless.

The Mountain Bar, just up from the main base at the bottom of the ski lifts, is the place to eat & drink. The prices are ‘ambiguous’ and appear to vary from day to day for certain things, but the food quality is excellent, the service is fast, and the cost, in the greater scheme of things, is negligible.

The Sky Bar has a fabulous swing which overlooks the mountains & valley. Good spot for a quick drink or snack. The local dogs enjoyed a cream bun that I purchased for them! They appreciate all attention & food. Give them some of each!

Other cafes exist, but all were of lower quality, or higher prices than the Mountain Bar.

When in the region the best place to base yourself is in Mestia. A fascinating town, with awesome guesthouse accommodations (& food), incredible fortified tower houses, cafes, restaurants & bars. Add in wandering cattle, pigs & some lovely local dogs with, Mestia combines chaos, history & that awful feeling that the world is finally catching up to it.

The piste trails are worth a mention while I am about it. They are seriously limited in number and scope. The main trail is under the first chair and is a nice beginner piste. Wide, well groomed and pitched. Powder can be skied either side of it in the upper sector. The bottom half goes past all the mountain restaurants. Wrapping around a ridge is a lovely intermediate trail to the base of the quad chair. Above that, when the 'second' chair is running, it has a reasonable intermediate piste with a short advanced variant. It can be wind scoured on occasion given its position on an exposed ridge. With the surface tow and the top chair not functioning, that about sums up the pistes. Definitely not a reason to come to Tetnuldi.

Despite a few nice piste trails and newish chairlifts, this is simply not a place to bring the family for a ski holiday (unless you are bunch of go-getting hard-hitters).

Lift passes here are quite cheap, and given the way the lifts run (or don't), perhaps they need to be. if staying for more than a week, get a season pass. It will cost less than a day pass would at a host of international ski areas!

As for crowds, we found that there were quite a few freeriders (200? one day) (& ski-tourers waiting for clear weather) chasing fresh lines at Tetnuldi. However there were no lift lines, and there was enough terrain and regular snowfall to mark this place as effectively uncrowded. I skied long, fresh, unmarked lines every day I visited Tetnuldi.

If you have a spare week, and the forecast says ‘cold & snow’ for Tetnuldi, get to Kutaisi on a midweek flight (they are way cheaper than weekend flights), link up with a guide (like our fabulous local partners), and let the adventure begin.

See our Tetnuldi Overview page for detail on the pros & cons of this ski area.


See our video here

Svaneti skiing

Louis
19/02/2020
  • Recommend
  • Would Revisit
  • Rider Type
    Skier
  • Rider Level
    Advanced
  • Rider Age
    51-70
  • Month Visited:
    February
  • Admin Rating
    5

Svaneti skiing

Louis
19/02/2020
I am posting reviews for 3 Georgian resorts, so please read all 3 because I am trying to provide some 2020 details that cross over between resorts that are different to every other country I have visited for skiing.
The Svaneti is in an isolated part of northwestern Georgia. It has amazing history, amazing culture and amazing scenery. Mestia is the biggest village in a place with it's own language and a turbulent past punctuated with conflict and invasion. It has retained its culture and you cannot just come here for the snow riding. In fact, riding is the last thing I'd come back for, which is a weird thing to state having spent all my life chasing snow.
There are 2 snow riding resorts in Svaneti. Tetnuldi is the larger, 15km and 40 minutes (that's right 40 minutes for 15km) up the valley from Mestia. You can't get to either on foot and there is no bus. Everyone encourages you to go to Tetnuldi. The locals are blatant. "Tetnuldi good. Hatsvali no good". Visitors fall for the hype. It's not true. Tetnuldi is over-rated, but an essential part of the local economy.
Early 2020 has been a terrible winter season in Georgia (and almost everywhere else it seems). I am not basing this review on that, because we did get good snowfall and a taste of the potential. However, it is hard to get enthusiastic about a 30cm base on rock. Luckily at least 50cm fell whike we were there and that was almost all the snow for most of February in a notorious snowy part of the Greater Caucasus.
So what's good about Tetnuldi?
-The drive is awesome, especially when your driver thinks it's a World Rally event while making and receiving phone calls and messages!
-The views.
-The food is excellent, more locally traditional and far better value than at Gudauri, the best resort in Georgia.
-The people are interesting and generally devoted to everything Svan.
-The snow quality is good even when compared to the big players like Japan.
-The backcountry is unlimited and there's quite serious side country off the top chair. There are guides available, although not all have good English. You can ski more than 1000m vertical off both sides of the resort down to small villages with open slopes or tree options. You do need someone with local knowledge and transport to get you home. You also need snow deeper than a pack of cards, so we gave it a miss.
-An adult lift pass is only 40 laris a day, or $US13 and passes work for both Tetnuldi and Hatsvali resorts. You can do Tetnuldi in the morning and Hatsvali on the way home, provided your driver agrees.
What's not good?
-First it costs 100-120 laris ($US35-40) to travel up and back each day. Yes that cost is shared for the vehicle which may carry up to 6 punters, but in our experience, unless pre-booked for a group of buddies (best done via your accommodation host), it was hard to get a shared ride and therefore averaged 35-60 laris per person per day on top of your ski pass. Thats one of the main reasons the locals push Tetnuldi. They need the money for transporting you. The drivers are nice guys and it's a good way to learn about the place, especially if you speak Georgian or Russian.
-Unless there's a good snow pack and decent conditions you are stuck with flat, boring and limited pistes, mainly along the single ridge the resort is sited on. There is good off-piste terrain inbounds, but see below...
-They didn't open all 5 lifts when we were there. The one drag lift never ran. The upper 2 chairs only opened occasionally and for short periods. Any cloud, fog, any wind, avi risk or who knows what combined with the a poor snow pack meant you were limited to one high speed chair and one slow, fixed-grip chair on the lower mountain. The advanced, inbounds terrain is almost all on one side of the ridge. It's accessed from the upper chairs or the fixed grip chair. The slow chair accesses rolling and gulley terrain (not unlike Japan) and therefore gets trashed very quickly unless the snow is falling hard. The resort has good potential, but it's not very big, so you may find there's limited action and no real way of knowing that before you leave town.
- Unless you like freezing cold toilets, (squat versions often) without toilet paper, you will be disappointed! The base lodge has one only each male and female western toilet, but they are locked before 10AM and before 4PM. You can walk 50m outside and down some slippery steps to another part of the building closed to the public, or 100m up the slope to the outside horror at the next cafe.
-Deadly slippery floors and surfaces. They love them in Georgia.
-Lift operators don't know you exist except for rare occasions. On the phone, in the hut, but that's about it generally. Police are everywhere, I guess because the resorts are run by government, but they only check for crooks and drunks. Is it reasonable to unload onto gravel all day, day after day? I don't think so.
-Warmth is something you better bring yourself. The base lodge is not actually cold, but that's as good as it gets on this mountain.
Don't take this as whining. I had some great runs and I've had a lot of fun at a lot of basic ski hills over a long time starting as a small kid. I don't crave Vail-like glitz. Tetnuldi has OK lifts and good terrain, but it's really not yet providing more than primitive adventure and it's an awful long way to go hoping for more than that.
See our video here