Black Rock Lake

Heaven at the Georgian Border

It was the first week of September. I was sitting at home, watching a movie. Suddenly, my friend messaged me “Hey, Sally, how are you? We are planning to go to Black Rock Lake from Friday till Sunday, wanna come??” I replied without any hesitations “yes of course”.

The previous night I prepared everything.
My friends warned me that it is cold at Black Rock Lake, so I took warm clothes and even a blanket.

On Friday, we left Tbilisi very late and arrived in Lagodekhi around 16:00.
First, we had to register at the administration. They warned us: “The road is very difficult, it will take you at least 7 hours. You will have to walk through the night. Lots of campers came back, couldn’t reach the destination.”

We decided not to give up and reach the Meteo station on Friday night, because, the next day we had to hike the longest road — to the lake and back.

Friday, 16:30

We started trekking. In the beginning, the road was flat. We covered it in 30 minutes. We were laughing — “route is quite easy, we won't need 7 hours to cover 11.5 kilometers” but as said: “Man plans, God laughs”

Soon the ascent started and it became steeper and steeper. We were running out of the water and the spring was only at the beginning of the trail. But we didn’t lose the courage and wanted to prove, that we were not afraid, and we could reach the destination, even at night and night was dreadfully dark.

The first six kilometers were behind us, Sun was already set and it was getting darker and darker. We made a big break and had some lunch to fill up our energy.

The hardest and harshest part was ahead, and we had to cover it at night. We ran out of the water, phones were dead, and only one lantern was buzzing. Heavy backpacks made the road harder. I was pleading to my friends “please eat these tomatoes and I will walk faster” but who has listened?!

This was my first attempt to hike at night. Every moment, I expected some wild animal to creep towards us, but as u see, I am alive, everything went well.

It was almost midnight, we were several meters away from Meteo station. We saw a dim light from the bonfire. We were sooo happy that, we dashed to the fire, as sailors are jumping from the ship recklessly to swim to the island after a long sailing.

There were rangers at the fire. They invited us and provided cold water.
We were exhausted. That’s why we set the tent up right after the small break and jumped into sleeping bags. After this long road, we fell asleep swiftly.

Saturday 06:30 AM

On Saturday morning, I woke up very early. When I creeped out from my tent, two Polish tourists were there, getting ready to hike up to the lake. We wished a good day to each other, and I started walking around with my camera, wanted to capture the sunrise from the Caucasus Mountains, but it was so foggy that nothing was visible. It was really cold then it started drizzling and I went back to the tent and fell asleep again.

Saturday, 9:00 AM

My friend woke us up “Get up, we have to have breakfast and start hiking, 26 kilometers is ahead of us, chop-chop guys.” Buut, you know, it is not so easy to get up from the warm comfy sleeping bag and look in the eyes of the new obstacles, when muscles are aching and it’s freezing outside, but we didn’t have a choice, my friend was clapping and yelling “chop-chop” nonstop. The boys made a bonfire and I went to bring water, others took care of breakfast. Ranger had breakfast with us, told us interesting stories, showed us the way, and then he drifted away on his horse.

Saturday, 11:00 AM

We started trekking to Black Rock Lake.

Before I tell you stories of this day, I will give you short information about this lake.

Black Rock Lake is located in Lagodekhi protected areas, at the Georiga-Dagestani border, at 2900 meters above sea level, but there is a spot at 3000 meters, along the trail. Meteo station is at 1350 meters above sea level.

Nature is diverse. There is a gradation from broadleaf forests to alpine and subalpine zone. From some spots, you can see an amazing view over Alazani valley. If you are lucky, like us, you will see a reindeer, on your way to the lake. The whole trail is 48 kilometers and the difficulty is average by the horse.

When I saw golden valleys glowing under sunlight and fog swimming in the defiles, I was frozen, it took my breath away, and at that moment I thought “I am in heaven”.

Another beauty was waiting for us

Prior to reaching the lake, you go through the checkpoint. Ranger warned us “call the guards to catch dogs or they may attack you” (Never pet Georgian shepherds, especially at the border) We started yelling, but our voices were losing in the air.
One of the guards came with us to the lake, it is not allowed to go there without them.

It is hard to explain what did we feel when we saw the lake, but I can say one thing, it worths it to go through this hurdle and see heaven on earth.

Lake was crystal clear, we could see the reflection of the sky, clouds, and mountains. I was mesmerized and I was trying to take pictures of the lake from every angle.

We could not stay at the lake too long, because we had to cover 13 kilometers on our way back. As far as there were mostly downhills, we covered it in 2 hours. during the sunset, subalpine and alpine zones were more beautiful.

Saturday evening

When we returned to the camp, it was full of tourists. We even made friends with one group. We set at the bonfire, exchanging our experiences with them. Pretty soon we went to our tents to rest well for the next day.

At night a new adventure has begun.

The rain!

The tent was full of water, everything was wet — bags, shoes, even sleeping bags. The whole night the sky was thundering and lightning and every second I was expecting that thunderstruck would have hit us, that’s why I took the iron lantern and hid under sleeping bags — thinking that thunderstruck wouldn’t have found it there.

I woke up my friends, moved our bags to a safer place, and hugged each other in the middle of the tent where water couldn’t reach us. As soon as the sun has raised, we packed our stuff and hid in the cottage on the Meteo station, made breakfast there, prepared morally to walk in the heavy rain, took a deep breath, and started the new adventure.

The water was running along the trail like a river. We literally swam down to the town, but there was another obstacle, defile, which is dry as usual, but now there was a water flow, speeding to the south. I was so afraid that crossed it with two giant steps and, of course, got wet from hair to feet.

we changed wet clothes in the room of administration and went to catch the bus to Tbilisi.
I was very tired, the only thing I wanted was a hot bath and a warm bed, but I couldn’t wait to transfer photos to my computer and show to my family that those three days I was in the real heaven.