This remote, 244-sq-km nature reserve climbs to heights of over 3000m in the Caucasus above the small town of Lagodekhi in eastern Kakheti near the Azerbaijan border. The reserve features deep river valleys, alpine lakes and some of Georgia’s best-preserved forests, and is home to several hundred East Caucasian tur, red and roe deer and chamois and a few brown bears.
There are good half-day walks to two waterfalls, and from about late June to mid-October you can hike a very scenic 24km trail from Lagodekhi up to picturesque Shavi Kldeebis Tba (Black Rocks Lake) on the Russian border (three days there and back, with an ascent of 2200m), with nights at a mountain shelter about halfway to the lake. In 2016 a second trail between the lake and Lagodekhi is due to open, with another shelter, making the lake trip into a circular rather than there-and-back route.
