{"id":1261,"date":"2013-10-02T22:52:34","date_gmt":"2013-10-02T19:52:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patagonia.fi\/blog\/?p=1261"},"modified":"2013-10-02T22:52:34","modified_gmt":"2013-10-02T19:52:34","slug":"caucasus-climbing-ushba-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.patagonia.fi\/blog\/2013\/10\/caucasus-climbing-ushba-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Caucasus Climbing: Ushba part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 2011 as I got home from Patagonia I decided I’d be focusing on the regions with less travel distance from home. I was thinking the air travel took way too much time. Now after having visited Caucasus I still think the same. The travel time to Caucasus was 6 hours compared to the 48 hours of Patagonia. The granite spires may not be as vertical but there are lots of other things to do.<\/p>\n

I managed to talk Teppo in for this project quite easily. I showed him one picture of the Ushba and he was hooked instantly. After having agreed on the main objective we booked the flights.<\/p>\n

\"Ushba<\/a>

Ushba on Flickr by Mikheil Samkharadze<\/p><\/div>
\nWe arrived in Georgia on Saturday July 13th at 3AM. We found a local climber, Oto Jafaridze, through the Internet and he was waiting for us at the airport. Oto had a jeep and he drove us to Svanetia so we could sleep in his car. Oto was also kind enough to buy us Primus camping gas so we were ready for action in Becho the next morning.<\/p>\n

Ushba 1st try – July 14th to 16th, 2013<\/span><\/p>\n

Our first try on the Ushba was a learning experience. We packed food for four days and asked a border pass for five since the weather report said it would rain on the fifth day. We hoped for the best but we knew the chance of success was slim. We had browsed some Google Earth and Summitpost.com but we had no real knowledge of anything.<\/p>\n

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