Skiing Above the Tree Line in Gudauri, Republic of Georgia

“Follow me!” Phillip said as he headed over the hill from the lift toward an area where I didn’t see any other skiers.

“Is there a trail here?” I asked as we avoided a boulder sticking out of the snow and made fresh tracks on a steep slope.

“We’re making one!” he replied with glee.

There was no turning back at that point, so I made quick survival turns down the face of the mountain, watching for hazards. Ten minutes later, we ended up on a flatter, groomed run.

When you go skiing or snowboarding in the Republic of Georgia, you’re completely above the tree line, with trail markers more of a loose suggestion than a required path. With lift tickets priced at less than $30 a day, there are few rules on the mountain and even fewer workers to enforce them. Sure, ski patrol will show up eventually if you do something stupid and get injured, but it’s nobody’s job to police where you’re headed when you make your way down from one of the four gondolas and 10 chairlifts.

Officially, there are 75 kilometers of trails (47 miles) at Gudauri Ski Resort, but that only measures what’s named and maintained. When you count the off-piste areas, this winter wonderland rivals the terrain you’d experience in the Rocky Mountains at resorts costing 10 times as much. This might be the best ski or snowboard bang for your buck in the world. You can spend days here without getting bored, with fun cruising trails that go on for miles, double black diamond equivalents that host giant slalom races, and hidden chutes that challenge anyone looking for adventure.

I saw that the season officially runs until mid-April, so I got a group together to head there in early March, figuring we’d get some nice spring skiing rather than blizzard conditions requiring a dozen layers of clothing. We ended up getting more sunshine than we wanted at the end — layers down to one or two on the last day as the snow started turning to slush. Even the locals who didn’t know much English knew the phrase for this.

“Global warming,” they would say with a sigh.

This was usually followed by a more encouraging phrase: “Snowstorm coming next week.” We’d be gone by then, but the local business owners had their fingers crossed.

At the prices we were experiencing — including $2.50 slopeside beers or glasses of Georgian wine — it was hard to complain about the weather getting too warm. We would hit the far side of the resort in the morning and ski the longest, steepest slope until the line for the gondola started turning into a free-for-all. Then we’d explore the other mountains and lifts, taking a break somewhere for a bite or a drink, and doing it all again until the snow got too soft. That was our sign to meet up at our favored après-ski bar. One benefit of the weather: the bar was outdoors, and we could keep soaking up the mountain atmosphere without ever getting cold.

In a country like Georgia, a foreign visitor earning dollars or euros can order nearly anything on offer without worrying about the price. Since I will never know that feeling in Park City, Aspen or Whistler, I savored it at Gudauri. We could act like we were loaded as we debated which restaurant in the ski village was worth trying that night, then ordered a feast once we sat down.

The dining selection was better than expected in this purpose-built collection of condos, hotels and places to feed skiers. We had some passable Italian, some quite good Indian and loads of hearty Georgian food. If you’re gluten-free and avoiding dairy, it’s trouble, but if you like comfort food after a day of hard skiing, it’s hard to beat Georgian khinkali(dumplings filled with meat or mushrooms), Adjarian khachapuri (baked bread with egg, butter and aged cheese) or nigvziani nadrijani (rolled eggplant stuffed with walnut spread).

Thankfully, there were English versions of the menus since the beautiful Georgian script looks like something a fantasy author invented — all swirls and circles that must give schoolchildren penmanship nightmares. The biggest bar in the ski village, Drunk Cherry, had its large sign in Georgian letters, one character resembling the number 3 in English and another looking like a three-fingered hand with a curved thumb pointing down.

I’ve been skiing since high school but never encountered a place so easy on the wallet, even though this is the biggest ski resort in the country. I’ve also never been to one this large where there wasn’t a single tree to avoid. The trails are groomed and well maintained, but with the snow as soft as it was during our spring visit, we could veer off almost anywhere without worrying about hitting an ice patch.

After three days of exploring the mountain — and with a few people in my group even going up for a paragliding experience — we spent the last day away from the ski village to see more of Georgia. We set out for the town of Stepantsminda, renamed Kazbegi by the Russians a century ago and still better known by that name in excursion descriptions. This scenic area attracts plenty of Georgians and curious Russians, too: the border is only seven miles away.

The main attraction is a monastery at the top of a mountain, the centerpiece being Gergeti Trinity Church, built in the 14th century. The dramatic views of it from a distance are almost matched by the Mount Kazbek close-ups from the monastery itself. It’s easy to imagine monks feeling the power of a higher being when looking out at nature’s geological drama from up here.

We also visited sculptor Merab Piranishvili’s head statues in Sno Village, the artist himself sitting nearby and taking donations. We had one of the best meals of the trip at Rooms Hotel, where the food and cocktails lived up to the mountain panorama visible through the glass wall and from the terrace.

After we left, the temperatures heated up even more in the capital city of Tbilisi, where we finished our trip. I was walking around without a jacket in the afternoon. A few days later, though, word came that a huge snowstorm had hit Gudauri and the mountains got a fresh dumping of powder. Maybe the season kept going into April after all, but we already had our great memories of swooshing down the slopes and exploring the nearby mountain towns of Georgia.

Tim Leffel is the author of several books, including The World’s Cheapest Destinations, and is the editor of the online magazine Perceptive Travel, founded in 2006. He also runs the Substack newsletter Nomadico. See more at TimLeffel.com.