Mount Kazbek
Mount Kazbek, one of the chief summits of the
Caucasus, is
located in modern-day
Georgia, dominating the town of Kazbegi near
the border with
North Ossetia.
Its altitude is 16,545 feet and it rises on the range which runs north of the
main range (main water-parting), and which is pierced by the
gorges of the Ardon and the Terek. It represents an extinct
volcano, built up of
trachyte and sheathed with
lava, and
has the shape of a double cone, whose base lies at an
altitude of 5800 feet. Owing to the steepness of its slopes,
its eight glaciers cover an aggregate surface of not more
than 8 square meters, though one of them, Maliev, is 36 meters long.
The best-known glacier is the Dyevdorak, which creeps down the
north-eastern slope into a gorge of the same name, reaching a
level of 7530 feet. At its eastern foot runs the
Georgian Military Road through the pass of Darial (7805 feet). The summit was first climbed in 1868
by D. W. Freshfield, A. W. Moore, and C. Tucker, with a Swiss guide.
Reference