Splitboard Trips > Asia > Splitboard Georgia

Georgia Basecamp Experience

Splitboard Georgia is one of our most unique and enjoyable trips, offering a remote basecamp experience deep in the Georgian backcountry. This adventure blends incredible powder snowboarding with warm hospitality, authentic food and long days exploring untouched terrain with our UIAGM splitboard guide.

You will stay in a winterised basecamp set in the heart of the Racha region, a lesser explored corner of western Asia. The camp has heated sleeping modules, hot showers, a sauna, Wi Fi and skidoos to support the group. It is completely remote, which means the surrounding mountains become your personal playground for the week.

After landing at Tbilisi International Airport, we travel to the highlands of the Racha region and stay in a two hundred year old guesthouse owned by Nika and his family. They make their own wine and traditional Georgian chacha and they serve food that is unforgettable. This first night gives you a taste of the region before we travel to the basecamp the next morning.

Once we reach the trail head, the camp team transports your main bags by skidoo while you climb to the camp on your splitboard. At camp you will practise transceiver drills, settle in and prepare for the week ahead.

The terrain around camp is incredible. You can expect steep alpine pitches on clear days and some of the best open tree riding we have ever found for low visibility days. Long powder fields lead all the way back to camp and no line is repeated because the zone is so vast. It is not a technical trip. You do not need boot crampons, axes or harnesses. Instead, you can focus on deep snow, simple transitions and pure fun.

If you love the idea of splitboarding from the door of a remote basecamp, feasting on homemade dishes, drinking Georgian wine and riding cold powder with a small group, then a Splitboard Georgia trip is for you.

When’s the best time to come?

We have one trip this year running in January, we have dates available below so get in touch if you want a truly great experience.

24th – 31st January 2026, €3695
31st – 7th February 2026, €3695

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Programme
Fitness & Ability
What's Included
What's Not Included
Terms & Conditions

The Programme

Friday 23rd: Fly to Tbilisi airport.

Saturday 24th: An early transfer to the guesthouse. A private car transfer takes us from the airport in Tbilisi (5 hour journey) to a very special, family owned guesthouse in Oni, here we’ll eat some delicious Georgian food and sleep in this fabulous building for the night.

Sunday 25th: A morning transfer from the guesthouse to the camp trail head. From there, snowmobiles will transport our gear to the camp whilst we skin up to it – a short 530 m vertical gain, 3.8 km distance. We’ll settle in, have lunch and then make a short tour on the afternoon. An avalanche training session will also take place.

Monday 26th – Thursday 29th: Small group, UIAGM led splitboard adventures.

Friday 30th – We will split and ride until 3-4pm before returning to the camp for a late lunch. Afterwards we make the descent from the camp to the jeeps which then take us back to the guesthouse in Oni for an epic end of trip après-ski dinner.

Saturday 31st: Private car transfers back to Tbilisi in time for our flights home.

Fitness & Ability

We will look to make a vertical ascents of around 1200m per day so your fitness level will allow you to do this over consecutive days. You will most likely also have been on a Rider Social trip before, if you haven’t we will need to talk with you to assess the general group fit and ability level.

What’s Included

6 days of UIAGM splitboard only guiding with Paul Verdier
7 nights’ accommodation (camp and guesthouse)
Ground support vehicles – jeeps and snowmobiles
Private return transfers from Tbilisi
Breakfast, lunch, dinner (with wine etc) on 7 nights

What’s Not Included

Flights to Tbilisi
Personal Insurance
Splitboard equipment
Backcountry safety equipment
Helicopter insurance. The nearest large hospital is in the town of Ambrolauri in 54 km or 1.5-hour drive from the camp. A heli-rescue costs 2,500€ per hour and their policy requires
payment on site either by bank transfer or in cash as they are not willing to work with insurance
companies. We strongly recommend your insurance covers helicopter emergency evacuation.

Payment Policy: A deposit of €695 is required immediately upon booking your session with The Rider Social. The balance of your trip costs are due 8 weeks before the course start date. Failure to meet the payment deadline 8 weeks before the start date will forfeit your place on that session without refund.

Cancellation policy: For cancellations made up to 8 weeks before the course start date, 10% of the ‘deposit’ amount paid will be refunded. For cancellations occurring within 6 weeks of the course start date no refund payments will be made. If cancelling a course within 6 weeks of the course start date, payments made cannot be refunded, carried forward or moved to another course.

Refund policy: The Rider Social is not liable for refunds or compensation due to late arrival, failure to attend or complete a course due to injury or illness, travel restrictions, resort closure, adverse weather conditions, force majeure or any other causes or conditions outside the control of The Rider Social

Covid-19: In the event that you can’t attend your session due to Covid-19 associated travel and holiday disruptions including (but not exclusive to) resort closure, FCO imposed travel restrictions, airline train or ferry travel bans imposed by International or local governments, a total refund of the balance paid, minus the non refundable deposit amount, will be refunded to you (the client).

In the event that you can’t attend your course due to you, (the client) being personally affected by illness, inability to travel due to illness or any other personal restrictions affecting your travel The Rider Social will not be liable to refund any monies (as stated in the refund policy above). It is strongly recommended that you have adequate personal insurance for illness, personal cancellation and personal travel disruption.

Upon booking any advertised session of any duration with The Rider Social you are in agreement of the Payment & Cancellations policies listed above.

Getting there

After having arrived at Tbilisi International airport, we’ll transfer you in a private mini-coach to a small village situated in the highlands of the Racha region of Georgia.

In the village is an amazing 200 year old guesthouse surrounded by grapevines from which Nika and his family make their own wine (a lot of it) and a local brandy known as ‘ChaCha’.

Nika and his family will outdo themselves in welcoming you to their family home. Here we’ll also have lunch and dinner – brace yourselves, this is Georgia, and the food and hospitality are next level.

Having experienced a hit of Georgian culture, we’ll spend the night there before making the onward journey to camp. Early on the Sunday morning, we’ll jump into their old 4×4 decommissioned military jeeps and head off.

Head off to where?

We’ll be situated in the Racha region, our basecamp accommodation is situated at 1850m, surrounded by the stunning Caucasus mountains, and we splitboard from the camp door to access the varied freeride terrain that this zone boasts.

The camp is only accessible on foot or by skidoo. There is no road up there, so on arrival at the camp trailhead, we’ll use skidoos to transport our main bags up there and make the 600m ascent ourselves on splits.

When we get there, we’ll unpack, have lunch, fire up the fuel-powered heaters in the tents and go for a short tour, practice with transceivers and refresh on search & rescue techniques.

Sleeping in tents?!

Yup, Russian-made, surprisingly spacious winterised sleeping modules that have been designed for extreme weather conditions.

Each tent sleeps two people on surprisingly comfortable single beds (thanks to memory foam toppers) with lots of space for bags and for drying clothes and kit. LED lights provide nighttime visibility, and there are drawers for your ‘stuff’.

For warmth, each tent is fitted with a custom-made fuel-powered heater that keeps things toasty at night. It really is a serene way to spend time in the mountains – nighttime times are very special there, with zero light pollution, you’ll never have seen the moon and stars shine so brightly.

What’s the food like?

The dining tent is where you’ll spend most of your time whilst in the camp. It’s large, warm and serves the most delicious homemade Georgian food. Breakfast is a feast: pancakes, omelettes, fresh bread from the stove and other delights await.

There is an apres ride soup served at 4 pm, before dinner at 7 pm, which is again a huge array of traditional cuisine.

It really is some of the best food we’ve ever had on a trip away. The fact that they knock it out in a tent at altitude is nothing short of incredible. Oh, Georgian wine and beer are on tap throughout the trip.

The camp also has a good Wi-Fi – satellite connection and a 220v generator for charging your phones and other devices. It also has a super hot sauna and a shower too, a delight after a day of riding powder.

What’s the riding like?

It really does have it all, steep alpine pitches and insane views await on the sunny days, and some of the best and most open forest tree runs we’ve ever ridden that are on hand for poor visibility days. The East forest features large, open glades, and the West has fluffy pillow lines for the more adventurous rider.

Long, fun, undulating powder fields serve as the home run back to camp. We can guarantee you’ll not ride the same line twice, even in the trees.

The other cool thing is that none of the terrain is difficult to access in split mode. You’ll not need any boot crampons, harness or axe on this trip – in fact, you’ll be hard pressed to make a kickturn or use splitboard crampons. It’s the perfect week for folks wanting easy access to powder – this isn’t a technical splitting trip ( if technical alpinist splitboarding is your jam, then you should be looking at our 5-day Trip and Split sessions that run in the Alps).

That said, you should be physically prepared to make ascents of approx 1200m + vertical per day. This could be one single 1200m walk up into the alpine, where we’d make one transition at the top before riding down. In the forest zones, it could be that we make 3 or 4 ascents of 350m each time that require multiple split transitions.

Who else is going?

The Rider Social books the whole camp out for its private use.

The camp has room for 10 clients, but we will only take 5 on this trip.

We also start the group chat/comms early so you can get to know one another before we get there, and after living together in close proximity for a week, you’ll make new lifelong mountain friends.

How good do I need to be to join?

You’ll all have the ability to float linked turns in deep snow and have the confidence to navigate and tack your way down through the (very well spaced) trees. We don’t race up on the ascents, and we’ll also ensure the descents are suitable for your individual level.

Racha is a special place, and while there are bigger mountains in the Upper Svaneti rang,e you’ll be hard pressed to find a better playground than this.

Explore splitboarding in Asia with UIAGM-certified guides

Splitboarding in Racha, Georgia

Who are the guides?

Lead Guide: UIAGM Paul ‘Polo’ Verdier
Polo is a French born UIAGM (IMFGA) splitboard guide from Evian Les Bains. He is supported by Jones Snowboards and Spark R&D, and has helped with the safety day training courses for the Jones European Pro Team athletes on their early season safety shred days, here in the Alps.

Tour Manager & Guide Assist: Paul Shirley
Paul is there to ensure smooth running of the trip, from arrival to departure. He’ll also be the group’s back-marker when on the mountain.

How do we get home?

After five and a half days of splitboarding, we’ll make the descent back down from camp (by snowboard) on Friday afternoon. At the bottom, we’ll be picked up in the jeeps and taken back to Oni and the guesthouse for a farewell lunch and dinner.

Expect the food, wine and chacha (Georgian brandy) to flow while the entertainment is provided by a very talented group of local girls who’ll sing and dance. Expect to join in the dancing and throw it down, Georgian style.

Another comfy night in the guesthouse follows, and we’ll be picked up by the mini-coach on Saturday morning for the trip back to Tbilisi, where the trip ends. Polo and I tend to stay in the city for Saturday night, travelling home on Sunday. It is worth considering doing the same to check out this quite incredible city, a beautiful, cultural melting pot of East meeting West, boasting architecture that will inspire and amaze. It really is worth exploring while you’re there.

Split Georgia FAQs

Will I need a guide for Splitboard Georgia?

Yes. We run this trip with a UIAGM splitboard guide and a tail guide who is on hand to assist the lead guide, if necessary. The terrain in Georgia can be complex, and the camp is remote so having a trained, professional guide with you is essential for safety.
What is the accommodation like on a Splitboard Georgia trip?

We have two types of accommodation that we use. The guesthouse in Oni is 200 years old, it’s very homely and offers a truly authentic Georgian experience. At the basecamp we use winterised, heated sleeping modules that sleep 2 people per module in comfort.

Read all the FAQs