Tetnuldi west face in Georgia skied by Elisa Bessega, Enrico Mosetti

Last June, Italian alpinists Elisa Bessega and Enrico Mosetti completed the first repeat of a line on the west face of Mount Tetnuldi, a 4858-meter mountain located in the Greater Caucasus mountain range in the Upper Svaneti region of Georgia.

First identified by Mosetti in 2018, the line was the subject of an initial attempt by Bessega and Mosetti at the end of May last year. Starting from the last small village of Adishi at about 2000 meters, the two ascended to 2800m where they set up a first camp and spent the night. The following day they climbed another 1000 meters and then spent a second night at altitude. On the third day, ascending via the normal route, they were forced to abort the attempt due to terrible conditions and descend in the fog. During that climb, they realised the snow would never soften up: "It was like skiing on glass," the mountain guide from Gorizia told planetmountain.

The pair rested for a few days down in the village, then set off again early on the 8th of June for a fast & light style attempt, with the goal of completing the ascent and descent quickly. After a first night at 3700 meters, once again the wall "seemed like reinforced concrete." On reaching the ridge, they had to wait two hours for the snow to soften a bit. They decided not to climb to the main summit – the final section exposed to the east was too soft and dangerous – and at around 2 PM they began the descent, alongside the rock bands overcome by Temur Kurdiani in 2020.

Below them lay beautiful firn, on a slope about 500 meters long: the first 100-150 meters at 55°, the rest at 50°. The suggested difficulty is 5.3/E3, where 5.3 is a grade that is "real, not like some descents that are fashionable in the Alps lately..."

Having passed the Bergschrund, due to the high avalanche risk they spent one last night in the tent at 3700 meters, then early the next morning they descended to the village.

The high technical difficulties, added to the almost 3000 meters of vertical drop in a rather remote area of the Georgian Caucasus, make this a decidedly out-of-the-ordinary undertaking. Moreover, during the first day the two discovered bear tracks less than 100 meters from their tent!

The first descent of this line was carried out, in all probability, on 15 June 2021, by Bekar Phajishvili and Buta Eloshvili, while two days later the strong local climbers opened a direct route to the left of the rock band. The first descent of the mountain was made by a Slovak team in 2018 via the west ridge.

Mosetti thanks: Black Crows, Tecnica, Ski Trab, Ferrino, Rudy Project