How to get there:
From Tbilisi, first drive to the small town named Poka at the south end of
the good sized lake Paravani. From here, several dirt roads will get you to the trailhead,
these roads require a car with good gound clearance. We drove 2 different roads
and the best one (when we were there) has its beginning in Poka at location N41.39280, E43.78647.
Drive towards the broad col between Patara Abuli and Didi Abuli. At this col, take a smaller,
but quite good road/track that forks right and goes uphill directly towards the mountain.
Park at or near location N41.40972, E43.66093,
a short distance before a local farm served by this track.
Note that the main dirt road connects across to the small village of Abuli. This section
of the road is however rougher (with more rocks), it may still be driven with a high
clearance vehicle.
Route description:
Head across the flat, then uphill staying left. After the first hill, continue in the
general direction towards the base of the skyline ridge coming down from Didi Abuli.
A trail used by cattle is convenient to follow. From the base of the (broad) ridge, ascend
directly. There is a pretty good trail that zig-zags uphill making this ascent much easier
than without. The trail will reach the beginning of the summit ridge with several local
(smaller) summits. There is a flag
when you reach the beginning of this ridge as well as a few
religious symbols. Traverse across one pretty distinct top, then descend slightly before a final,
very gentle ascent to the summit of Didi Abuli.
A track detailing my route is posted on Peakbagger.
Comments:
I did this climb with my friend David Hart. We had climbed the quite high mountain
Gora Kazbek 3 days earlier. We had reserved up to 2 extra days in case of bad weather
for that climb. Since we succeeded at the first possible summit day, we had 2 extra days
before our flight to Baku in Azerbaijan. We asked Tina with Climbing Georgia to
organize transport, which she did very efficiently. Thus, we drove from Tbilisi the day
before, on Friday in order to investigate the trailhead and assess the quality of the
possible access roads. This went according to plan and we booked the next night at a hotel
on the west side in the town of Akhalkalaki.
We left after breakfast and were ready to walk around
0930. A nice walk brought us to the summit shortly before 1130. Nice views.
We descended back to the car, arriving a few minutes after 1300. The drive
back to Tbilisi went smoothly. I completed this nice day with fried trout for dinner
and a carafe of local red wine.
