Our thanks to our trip leads at Two Blade Adventures.
Republic of Georgia 2017 Day 7 Midday:
Waking up, we had hoped to hit the road by 10 am. However, as Egor returned from morning shopping, he car would not shift gears. So, instead of us packing up to leave, he had to find a car shop to fix his shifter. This meant that we spent a mellow morning in Batumi, edited photos, and then went to a nearby museum to see a little of the history of the region. After a few hours, Egor returned and we headed to the river, first stopping in Batumi for Jo to send a postcard to his gf who was having a bday while he was away, and for Diane, Kevin and I to go to a winery in town and buy some wine.
The original plan was to do the Upper section of the run. That run requires ~1 hour to drive to the top, and requires a better van, which Egor had arranged. But, due to the late start, the plan changed for the Middle and the Lower. The run really should be combined into one, but, the Middle is going to be dewatered in the next year or two by a dam, so I broke them out per Egor's descriptions as well.
The river, Middle and Lower, were two of the easier runs we did. Which honestly was fine with us as we were all still reeling a little from the Chvanistskali a few days earlier. The run had a few nice drops on it, near the end you enter a small gorge and one in there ended in a really nice boof. That one maybe approached class III+. Then, just downstream was a bridge which marked the end of the section. I believe the gorge marks the beginning of where the water would come back, meaning that nothing of significance will be lost due to the dam.
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Next: Republic of Georgia 2017 Day 7 Afternoon - Kintrishi (Lower)
Mi 0.0:
- Boogie (II to III-). The boogie at the start is pretty mellow for sure.
- Water Pipe (III-). There was a pipe in the water that we had to avoid. I bet this section is going to change a lot while the construction continues.
- Gorge (III-). You enter the gorge and get some wonderful scenery along with some nice rapids.
- Boof (III to III+). The best rapid of the entire run, it had a long lead in that we followed the bulk of the water. It then ended in a great 4 to 5 foot boof off of the right shoulder.
Boogie (II+ to III). More fun boogie awaited downstream
Put-in / Take-out: Use the GPS coordinates in the map and a mapping program on your phone. The street names will not be legible anyways…
Put-in: Continue another 4.7 km up the river from take-out, at a fork there is a bridge to the left, put in there.
Take-out: 5.5 km above Kobuleti, the road up the river crosses the river. Take-out is here. Though we didn't use this take-out since we did the whole river so I am not sure how you get up from the water.
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