This mountain, my muse. He just keeps on calling out to me.
I take my camera and lenses every time I’m likely to see Ushba, such as on the road to Mestia, just in case. But there have also been a few times when I’ve felt “the call” to go and just see him, hopefully get some good shots, and just observe as weather changes around his magnificent double peak. These events are usually towards sunset, and usually take me all the way to the village of Becho, almost of all of which can bask in Ushba’s presence.
Almost, but not quite all of the 8 km length of the village. The whole hamlet of Chokhuldi, and the lower half of Mazeri too, are “cursed” by the intervening bulk of a low hill which nonetheless is sufficiently high to block views of The Mountain altogether. What a torture I can imagine this to be for inhabitants of these parts! Guest houses here must surely suffer from not being able to offer their tourists the luxury of simply sitting on a balcony or in a field and watching Ushba? Sure, only a couple of minutes’ drive away, there he is. But not here. Frustrating. I would never choose to live in these parts.
A few evenings ago, with no guests in our own house and some free time, I set off alone in the car with camera, lenses and tripod, towards Becho, feeling that familiar siren summons. Beforehand, though, I did sneak a peek from a few minutes’ walk away from our house to see if at least the peak was visible (which it never is from our house anyway). Yes, there it was, so away I drove.
Now, there’s a hairpin turn a little before the first hamlet of Becho, from which you get your first glimpse of Ushba (or not). Then another such turn in the opposite direction will give you the first long look, and a good stopping point for first shots. From then onwards through almost all of Becho, he’s yours, if he’s playing.
Well, there he was at that hairpin, so I stopped and got my first frame of the evening, just in case he changed his mind; there were some clouds about, and you just never know. Then I drove on, and stopped at the river just below Chokhuldi. But in those few minutes of driving, the cloud cover increased, as it often seems to do when one wishes the opposite. Gone was the peak. I waited a while and resolved to drive to the top end of Mazeri, just past the aptly named Grand Hotel Ushba.
Another thing I was trying to achieve was the positioning of the fabled two teeth of the mountain, called Babua and Bebia (Grandfather and Grandmother), relative to the looming south peak of Ushba behind them. There is a range of locations from which both their own appearance and this relative positioning are at their best. Where I stopped is about the far end of this range.
I have also been using my phone to take short videos and post them to my Facebook page as reels, so I shot a few of these as I waited for the cloud head which had settled onto both Ushba and neighboring Mt. Mazeri. Indeed, it did begin to lessen in size as the evening wore on towards sunset. Horses came and went, as did cars. The spot is a magnificent place for camping, with a river and forest nearby, a waterfall in the distance, and a whole ring of glorious mountain scenery to dazzle.
But of Ushba’s peak, only glimpse of partiality. So I decided to drive back down a bit to change the position of Babua and Bebia relative to the mountain which had captured and ossified them. There, finally, as the sun’s light was turning to orange just before it left the scene, I got about half of the peak now in sunset colors along with those two teeth. Seconds later, all was graying. I could stay another hour or two and see what stars capes would emerge; but I wasn’t dressed for the increasing chill, so decided to call it an evening and head home to my wife and supper.
Such is one of the great privileges of living in this part of Svaneti: the chance to bask in the presence of a truly great mountain so much of the time. I count it a great reward indeed.
BLOG by Tony Hanmer
Tony Hanmer has lived in Georgia since 1999, in Svaneti since 2007, and been a weekly writer and photographer for GT since early 2011. He runs the “Svaneti Renaissance” Facebook group, now with over 2000 members, at www.facebook.com/groups/SvanetiRenaissance/
He and his wife also run their own guest house in Etseri: www.facebook.com/hanmer.house.svaneti
