From Suatisi to Mna gorge

Day 1: Arrival to Kobi village. We took "marshrutka" bus from Tbilisi bus station direction Kazbegi (Stepanzminda) and asked our driver to get us off in Kobi. Then we started trekking into the Ketrisi valley along the Terek river.

At the entrance of the Suatisi valley there are ruins of an old Zakagori fortress, which we climbed to explore. After hiking back down we met a border soldier who asked for the permit papers. After entering the valley we setup our tent for overnight.

Day 2: Trekking in the Suaitisi valley to the glacier. The trek was pretty flat and not difficult until the point where we needed to cross the streaming river coming from the glacier (there was no real possibility to continue the trek on the right side because the river bends to the mountain slope, so we needed to cross the river to the left then, following some hundreds of meters, crossing back to the right ). In early summer the water level can be high and the river can be intense, so crossing can be challanging, which was in our case. Luckily there is a shepherds village on the left side. Some horsemen offered us to forder the river on the horses first to the left side then back to the right. Hiking up, we setup our tent close to the glacier at the end of the valley.

Day 3: Hiking up to the east, first following some obvious route. The hike then turns quite steep, the grass gradually disappears and the route goes though shales and rocks. After reaching the highest elevation (around 3385m) the descending route goes down without obvious marks to the Mna valley. We setup our tent close to the river.

Day 4: Hiking back to the starting point. We hiked the Mna valley till the intersection with the Terek river and walked back the same path we were going from Kobi.

How to return to Tbilisi: we called a taxi to Kazbegi from a road cafe in Kobi, then from Kazbegi (Stepanzminda) we took again the regular bus to Tbilisi.