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Okatse Canyon

Okatse Canyon

CanyonsGeorgiaImereti,Georgia

A limestone gorge in western Georgia crossed on 780 metres of steel grating bolted to the cliff, opened in 2014 and the region's busiest walk.

September·Peaking now

May–Sep

The full green season: the Okatse runs turquoise through pale limestone, the forest is deepest green, and the walkway stays open into the evening. July and August turn hot and busiest, yet the shaded gorge stays cool.



Year-round The cliff-bolted steel walkway hangs over the Okatse gorge and its turquoise pools year-round, greenest in spring and summer, gold in autumn.

Okatse Canyon is a limestone slot with a steel walkway bolted straight into its cliff, hung as much as 140 metres above the gorge floor. The path runs 780 metres along the wall, barely a metre wide, railed on both sides, with grating underfoot that shows the drop the whole way. It went in in 2014; before that the canyon was almost unreachable. The Okatse River cut the slot over millions of years in the Imereti hills of western Georgia. In places the walls close to barely three metres apart, and at a point called Boga they nearly meet overhead while the floor falls a full hundred metres below. Only about two kilometres of the canyon are open; the river runs some fourteen, and its wilder reaches stay closed. It has been protected as a natural monument since 2007 and lies about an hour from Kutaisi. The canyon shows itself slowly. From the visitor centre at Gordi a stone path winds more than two kilometres through the old Dadiani forest, once a noble family's hunting estate, before the trees drop away. Then the walkway leads out over the drop, swaying faintly in the wind, with cool birdsong-filled air rising from the river below. Where the path rounds the cliff the gorge suddenly opens, and at the far end a platform juts twenty metres into empty air. Down in the shadowed slot the Okatse polishes pale limestone into turquoise pools and low falls. Since the trail opened, the canyon has become one of the busiest sights near Kutaisi, but a few minutes along the walkway the crowds thin and the sound drops to water and wind. Nearby the taller Kinchkha waterfall drops in a long thin ribbon down a towering cliff, and most people pair the two on one trip.

Worth knowing

Good to know

  • Come early in the day — mornings are cooler and far quieter, before the Kutaisi tour vans arrive and the one-metre walkway backs up with two-way foot traffic on the cliff.
  • Expect a real hike, not a lookout — it is a six-kilometre round trip with hundreds of metal steps, and the see-through grating unsettles anyone uneasy with heights.
  • Make a full day of the valley — the same trip reaches the Kinchkha waterfalls up the road and Martvili Canyon's boat ride further west, all classic stops on the Imereti circuit.
  • Bring your own water and sturdy shoes — there is little shade on the cliff section and no kiosks past the visitor centre, and the forest path can stay muddy and slick for days after rain.

Things to do

  1. 1

    Cross the cliff-face walkway

    Cross the cliff-face walkway

    The metal path bolted into the sheer limestone wall curves 780 metres along the gorge, barely a metre wide, with grating underfoot that shows the 140-metre drop the whole way. It sways faintly in the wind. Slow down at Boga, where the walls pinch to about three metres and almost close overhead — lean to the rail there and you look straight down the slot to the river a sheer hundred metres below. At the far end a railed deck juts twenty metres into empty air, the turnaround point before the two-kilometre walk back out.

  2. 2

    Find the cascade in the boulder-ringed basin below the walkway

    Find the cascade in the boulder-ringed basin below the walkway

    The canyon hides more than the walkway: side streams spill over tiers of pale limestone into clear green pools, like the cascade that drops into a boulder-ringed basin deeper in the gorge, well below the cliff path.

  3. 3

    Cool off under the Kinchkha falls

    Cool off under the Kinchkha falls

    A short drive up the valley, the Kinchkha waterfall drops in a long thin ribbon down a towering cliff into a green pool. In summer visitors wade in at the base, and most pair it with the canyon walkway on the same trip.

Watch

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