The usual, and the best mode of travel in the mountains is on foot. All the railhead towns mentioned are more than a day’s march distant from the hills. Kasbek alone is closely approached by a motorable road.
At the towns elected for approach—Tiflis, Kutais, Vladikavkaz, Piatigorsk or Naltshik—it is necessary to engage vehicles or horses, and a cook-interpreter. Whether it is advisable to buy horses for the whole journey depends upon whether much travelling, and in consequence little climbing, is to be done. The purchase of horses sets the party free from the endless haggling, delay and annoyance which seem inseparable from hiring. On the other hand, the purchase necessitates engaging at least one man for every two horses, and this adds greatly to the expense and to the commissariat difficulties.
Though considerably improved of late years, the various roads up Caucasian valleys, where they exist at all, are not of the best. A Russian road on the steppe is not a road in the usual sense of the word; it is merely a part of the ground over which one drives, and is not made in any way except by the wheels of passing traffic. The road of the Mamison Pass is a built road; but it is exceedingly rough in places, and is frequently interrupted by landslides, tree-falls and avalanches.
The most comfortable vehicle to obtain is the troika or phaeton, a light, low carriage something like the alpine char. A rougher and more usual carriage is the lineika, seated like a low-set Irish jaunting-car on four wheels. It is wonderfully elastic, its light, loose method of construction allowing it to adapt itself to the potholes, boulders and tree-trunks of the rougher parts of the road. Most of these vehicles will be found to suffer from the general debility consequent upon extreme old age. It is advisable to have each one carefully inspected before the start.
In the more out-of-the-way parts, where such luxurious modes of travel cannot be indulged in, an arba can often be obtained. This is a light, springless two-wheeled cart. It is often drawn by a pair of small but strong oxen, and though the pace is very slow, a large quantity of baggage can be conveyed in one.
The horses—almost invariably mares—are small, light animals showing evident trace of Arab blood. They are docile, free from vice, and marvellously sure-footed. Indeed, in this last respect they far surpass an average mule. Some of the ‘horse passes’ on the south side of the range would be considered by most people impossible for horses and more fitted for goats.
The saddles are Turkish, i.e. with a high pommel in front and behind. Some travellers have recommended taking out an English saddle. Few riders, however, would be able to retain their seat on an English saddle while their mounts were scrambling down or up the precipitous broken bank of some ravine or bed of a glacier stream.
Centres.
As in the Alps, so in the Caucasus, more climbing will be got by settling at a centre than by travelling about from one place to another. On this method the necessity of carrying heavy tents, large supplies of stores, etc., is avoided. A couple of light tents, to accommodate two or three men each, are all that is necessary.
Good centres for the various districts are, on the north side, Urusbieh, Chegem, Balkar, Bezingi, Stirdigor and Dsinago; in the Tsaya valley, the sanatorium kept by M. Sanghiev in the pine forest near Rekom; the inn at Saramag on the Upper Ardon; the Russian road-houses of Kalaki on the north and Tshantshakhi on the south side of the Mamison Pass; Gebi on the West Rion River; Ushkul on the headwaters of the Ingur; Mestia or Mulakh on the Mulkhora; and Betsho just below the giant precipices of Ushba. To Gebi and Tshantshakhi Kasarma on the south, and to most places on the European side of the range, driving should be possible nowadays.