Mount Kazbek

Mount Kazbek is a dormant volcano of 5,054 metres on the main ridge of the Greater Caucasus, and its appeal is simple: it rises alone. Where most high Caucasian peaks hide behind their neighbours, Kazbek stands as a single white cone above the deep valley of the Terek, visible from the road far below. It is the second-highest volcanic summit of the Caucasus after Elbrus, and its last eruption is dated to around 750 BC. The volcano is not entirely asleep: hot springs still rise around its base.

The upper mountain is wrapped in ice. Several glaciers flow from the summit dome — the Gergeti on the south-east, the Devdoraki creeping down the north-eastern slope into a narrow gorge, and others on every side. The Devdoraki is also a reminder that the mountain is alive: a collapse of ice and rock in 2014 sent a deadly debris flow into the valley below. From the south the classic view frames Kazbek behind the small fourteenth-century Gergeti Trinity Church, which sits alone on a green shoulder at about 2,170 metres above the town of Stepantsminda — a composition of stone chapel, grass and snow that has become one of the defining images of the Caucasus.

The mountain carries old stories. Georgian tradition holds that the hero Amirani, a local counterpart of Prometheus, was chained to its rocks for bringing fire to people. High on the slope, at about 4,000 metres, is a cave hermitage known as Betlemi, which local tradition links with sacred relics once kept there. The first recorded ascent was made in 1868 by the British climbers Douglas Freshfield, A. W. Moore and C. Tucker with the Chamonix guide François Devouassoud, though a local climber, Yosif Buzurtanov, is believed to have reached the top in the late eighteenth century. The summit lies on the border between Russia and Georgia.

Getting there

On the Russian side, Vladikavkaz is about 40 km away, with Vladikavkaz Beslan International Airport (OGZ) roughly 57 km from the mountain. The usual climbing base, however, is Stepantsminda on the Georgian Military Road, the historic route between Tbilisi and Vladikavkaz. From there a trail climbs past Gergeti Trinity Church and across the Gergeti glacier to the Betlemi hut, a former Soviet weather station at about 3,660 metres. The summit climb is a glaciated mountaineering route that calls for crampons and rope; expeditions usually take four to five days including acclimatisation. The walk from Stepantsminda to Gergeti Trinity Church alone takes a little over an hour.