The Caucasus in winter: where to ski, where to bathe in hot water and what happens to the roads

The Caucasus in the photos is the summer one, with green meadows and towers; the winter one is less known, and has three things going for it: real snow from December, prices half those of the Alps, and the chance to ski in the morning and sink in the afternoon into a pool of sulphur water at 40 degrees while it snows outside. It has its drawbacks too, which are the mountain roads, which close, and the short days. This is what there is, resort by resort, and what you should know before going.

The cold, by altitude

In the capitals winter is bearable: Tbilisi between 0 and 8 degrees, with the odd snowfall that lasts a day; Yerevan, at 1,000 metres, colder, with lows of minus 10 and snow that stays; Baku, almost never with snow, but with a north wind that cuts. Between 1,500 and 2,500 metres, where the resorts are, minus 5 to minus 15 and snow from December to April. Above that, winter mountaineering for those who know how. The pass roads, the Military Highway to Kazbegi, the Svaneti road, the Goderdzi, close for snow or avalanches several times each winter, for one day or three; best not to have your flight home the day after coming down from the mountains.

Where to ski

Gudauri

Georgia's big resort, at 2,200 metres on the Military Highway, two or two and a half hours from Tbilisi: 75 km of piste between 1,990 and 3,279 metres, modern lifts, a treeless hillside where you go off-piste wherever you like, expensive heli-skiing, schools with English-speaking instructors and timber-and-glass hotels facing south. January and February for dry snow, March for sun. You get there by marshrutka from Didube, on hotel transfers or by taxi.

Bakuriani, Svaneti and the others

Bakuriani, 30 km from Borjomi, is the resort of Georgians with children, gentle, wooded, reached since 1902 by a narrow-gauge train; Svaneti has two, Hatsvali, small and facing Ushba, and Tetnuldi, opened in 2016, with runs up to 3,000 metres, both half an hour from Mestia and its towers. In Azerbaijan, Shahdag, in the Gusar district, opened in 2013, is the one with five-star hotels, spas and wide, well-groomed pistes, three hours from Baku; Tufandag, by Gabala, is the second. In Armenia, Tsaghkadzor, 50 km from Yerevan, is the old Soviet resort, with a long chairlift, quiet runs, low prices and the 11th to 13th-century Kecharis monastery at its foot.

What is not skiing

The sulphur baths of Abanotubani in Tbilisi are better in winter than at any other time: a private room, water at 40 degrees, the mitt scrub and a snowy street on the way out. Borjomi has its open-air sulphur pools at the end of the park, steaming among the snow, and the national park closed but the town open and empty; in Nakhchivan, the Azerbaijani exclave, the Duzdag salt-cave sanatorium is the region's thermal oddity. There is snowshoeing and ski touring in Gudauri, Kazbegi and Svaneti, with local guides; and the cities, Tbilisi, Yerevan, Baku, are queue-free, with empty museums and hotels at half price. In Georgia Orthodox Christmas is on 7 January, with the Alilo procession along Rustaveli, and in Armenia on the 6th; New Year, in all three countries, is the big feast, with tables laid for a week.

What to bring and how to get about

Your own ski clothing, because rental clothing is what works worst; shoes with a sole for the cities, where pavements ice over; and chains if you hire a car, compulsory on the Military Highway in snow. Ski equipment is hired at every resort for little. Between cities, in winter, the train beats the marshrutka. And a day's margin at the end, in case the mountain closes.

Frequently asked questions