Green Lake (Mtsvane Tba) in Adjara, Georgia: the complete 2026 guide

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Updated 10 October 2026·23 min read·Prices and facts checked: September 2026

Green Lake sits at 2,058 m above the Goderdzi pass in mountainous Adjara, 112 to 118 km from Batumi, and the last 6 km from the pass is now paved. Here is how to get there in 2026, what the day costs, when the pass is open, and where to stay, eat and camp around the lake.

Green Lake (Mtsvane Tba) lies at 2,058 m in Khulo municipality, on the northern slopes of the Arsiani range in mountainous Adjara, 6 km north of the Goderdzi pass and 112 to 118 km by road from Batumi. The coordinates are 41.6748, 42.4995. There is no gate, no ticket office and no closing time, and the Adjara tourism department calls it the most visited of Adjara's alpine lakes.

Two other lakes in Georgia carry the same name and neither is anywhere near this one. Abudelauri Green Lake is a glacial lake under the Chaukhi massif in Khevsureti, reached on a 7 km trail from Roshka village in the east of the country. Kulbaki Green Lake is an artificial lake stocked with trout, at 955 to 990 m beside Kulbaki village in Tsageri municipality, Lechkhumi. If your trip starts in Batumi, the lake in this guide is the one you want.

The lake reaches 19.4 m at its deepest. It is volcanic in origin, which the black stones covering the bottom show plainly: nothing grows on them and they are not slippery.

Nothing lives in the water. There are no fish and no algae, because the lake has no surface inflow and no outflow at all. It is filled by underground springs and snowmelt, and the water is clear, lightly mineralised and suitable for drinking.

It does not freeze, even under the stable snow cover that lies around it until May. The colour is a deep green through the middle of the day and shifts as the light goes.

The shape of the bottom is the one fact that matters for your safety. The water is shallow for the first few metres out from the shore and then drops away suddenly, and there are signs showing where it is safe to swim.

Drive the Batumi to Akhaltsikhe road as far as Khulo, keep climbing to the Goderdzi pass, then take the side road 6 km on to the lake. It is 112 to 118 km and three hours of driving each way, and a realistic self-drive day of 10 to 12 hours with stops. No bus goes to the lake itself.

The road is the one the official Khulo route follows. At the top of the climb, about 2.5 km past the ski resort, the Green Lake road turns north off the Akhaltsikhe road and runs on towards Bakhmaro. Six kilometres past the pass you reach a fork, where the right branch is the walking path to the lake and the main branch is the car road. The lake sits about 30 m higher than the pass, so the side road climbs gently rather than dropping. The route carries on north from the lake to Didachara and back down to Danisparauli, which also works on a mountain bike or a horse.

Leave Batumi early. Fog builds on the pass through the day and regularly cuts visibility, so the road drives best in the morning, and in fog you drive slowly and do not overtake.

From June to October a standard car normally crosses the pass and reaches the lake. Outside those months you need a high-clearance 4x4 with good tyres, and in real snow the pass is shut to everyone.

The road is in better shape than its reputation. The 6 km from the pass to the lake is paved, with a parking area at the end. Wander-Lush breaks the rest down by section: Batumi to Dioknisi is fully sealed for 100 km with a few single-lane landslide stretches, Dioknisi to Riketi is partly unsealed with the roughest part around Bodzauri for 6 to 7 km, the resort and pass area is sealed with very short gravel sections, and Zarzma to Akhaltsikhe is sealed for its last 34 km. A sedan handles the unsealed stretch in dry weather.

Work on the Khulo to Zarzma section is nearly done: 44 of the 47 km are finished, the last 3 km are planned for 2027, and one landslide section goes to a separate international tender for a study.

Rental cars are the catch. Most Georgian hire companies forbid the Goderdzi pass in their terms, and their insurance does not cover those sections. An off-road 4x4 with the pass allowed starts at about 240 GEL a day.

If your own car is not up to it, hire the last leg locally. The Adjara tourism department puts a 4x4 from Khulo to the lake at 120 to 150 GEL, 150 GEL for the whole day. A car from Khulo to Goderdzi runs 60 to 70 GEL and from Batumi to Goderdzi 250 to 300 GEL.

Not all the way, and there is no through service over the pass. The scheduled Batumi to Akhaltsikhe marshrutka takes the long way round via Khashuri, 317 km for 20 GEL. What works is a marshrutka to Khulo or, in summer, to Beshumi, then a local car or your legs for the last 6 to 7 km.

• Batumi to Khulo: from the old bus station at 1 Mayakovsky St, every 30 minutes from 08:00 to 20:00, about 10 GEL, 2.5 hours and up to 3 when the roadworks slow it. The station answers on +995 422 27 85 47.
• Municipal bus Batumi to Khulo: since 11 July 2026 a subsidised bus runs for 6 GEL, daily except Sunday: 07:00 and 18:30 from beside the Boni culture house in Batumi, 07:30 and 18:30 back from beside the Khulo cable car station. Children under 6 and students ride free.
• Batumi to Beshumi: same station, 08:50 daily, 15 GEL, summer season only. Beshumi is 7 km from the lake. Coming back, minibuses leave Beshumi for Batumi at 09:00, 10:00, 11:00 and 12:00.
• Khulo to Beshumi: from Khulo bus station in season, 6 GEL, running between 09:00 and 16:00 and taking about 90 minutes. Departures are not fixed and the van leaves when it fills. Khulo bus station answers on +995 423 27 00 95 and +995 593 26 60 08.
• Khulo to Goderdzi: 7 GEL, and 3 GEL from Danisparauli up to the resort.
• Batumi to Shuakhevi: every hour from 07:50 to 18:50, 4 GEL, useful if you break the drive.
• Taxi: a ride-hailing car from Batumi to Khulo takes about 2 hours for up to 175 GEL; the official rate for a street taxi is 140 to 160 GEL.

From Kutaisi airport or Tbilisi, every public route runs through Batumi first. From Kutaisi airport the train to Batumi takes 2 hours for 31 GEL and the Georgian Bus 2 hours for 25 GEL, four times a day each; from Kutaisi bus station a marshrutka leaves every hour from 08:00 to 18:00, takes 3 hours for 20 GEL and stops at the Batumi bus station the Khulo vans leave from. From Tbilisi the train takes 6 hours for 35 GEL and the marshrutka from Didube 7 hours for 35 GEL. Our getting here page has every link, and our Batumi to Khulo guide covers the summer crossing over the pass from Akhaltsikhe.

The lake is free. What you pay for is getting to it, and the spread between a marshrutka trip and a private jeep is wide.

2026 prices

A self-drive day from Batumi in your own car comes to roughly 60 to 80 GEL of fuel for the 240 km round trip, plus what you eat. Two people travelling by marshrutka to Khulo and sharing a 4x4 up to the lake spend about 90 to 100 GEL each for a two-day trip with a guesthouse night.

June to mid-October is the reliable window. The road can open in late May in a light year, and snow can shut the pass from late October. Through the winter the pass carries 5 to 6 m of snow and is closed to traffic; annual snowfall averages 8 m and in exceptional years passes 12 m.

The lake sits high enough that summer temperatures at that altitude rarely go above 20 C, and the rhododendrons flower in June and July between about 1,600 and 2,000 m. Beshumi runs only from mid-June to the beginning of September. The Goderdzi Alpine Garden is at its best from 15 May to 15 October and stays open until 20:00.

You can, and people do, but the water is spring-fed and stays ice-cold all summer. Most visitors put their feet in, swim for a minute and get out.

Two things to know before you go in. The bottom near the shore is sharp rock, so water shoes are worth carrying. And the shelf ends abruptly: a few metres out the bed drops away, there is no lifeguard and no rope, and the signs at the water are the only guide to where it is safe.

Boats and water bikes are rented on the shore in summer. A ride in a four-person boat or catamaran takes about 30 minutes, and the Adjara tourism department lists the operator at Green Lake on +995 551 09 82 91. Agree the price before you push off.

Camping works at the lake, at the Goderdzi pass and at Beshumi. A footpath runs round the water with small wooden bridges on one side, and the far shore is where tents go. Wild camping is legal in Georgia outside private property, with fines for litter and damage, and inside protected areas tents are allowed only in designated camping areas.

Bring everything. There is no cafe, no shop and no toilet at the lake, and no firewood worth the name at that altitude. Nights are cold and windy and the sun is hot from the moment it clears the ridge, so pack layers you can shed by ten in the morning. Pack your rubbish out with you.

If you want a pitch with a bit of infrastructure, the Goderdzi Alpine Garden, 2.5 km past the pass on the Beshumi road, has an equipped camping area, picnic gazebos, and permission for barbecues and open fires. Entry and parking are free. It has no toilet and no internet either.

• Water shoes and something warm for the evening
• A rain layer: the cloud builds on the western side of the pass in the afternoon
• All your food and water, plus a bag for your rubbish
• A cooker, because there is nothing to burn
• Cash: the village guesthouses and the stalls at the top of the pass do not take cards
• A downloaded offline map: there is no reliable signal at the lake or along long stretches of the pass roads, whichever Georgian network you use

Nobody lives at the lake. The beds are at Beshumi 7 km away, at the Goderdzi resort 8 km away, in the villages along the pass road, and down in the Khulo valley. Book ahead in July and August: the whole area has a few hundred beds.

Glamping Tago

Where: the hill above Village Tago in Khulo municipality at about 1,200 m. Drive time from Batumi: 2.5 to 3 hours. Prices: they change with the date, so check today's prices. Capacity: 12 tents for two plus a nine-bed dorm, 33 beds. Season: 1 April to the end of October. Good for: doing the lake as a half-day jeep trip rather than a 12-hour day out of Batumi. Watch out for: the last stretch of road up to us needs a 4x4, and we close for the winter.

Beshumi

Where: summer cottage resort at 1,850 to 1,900 m, 6.5 km by road from the Goderdzi pass and 7 km from the lake. Drive time from Batumi: 3 to 4 hours for 120 to 135 km. Price from: 15 GEL a bed, 25 GEL per person with full board, booked through Temur Kedelidze on +995 577 35 50 94. Season: mid-June to the beginning of September. Good for: the cheapest night near the lake, and the Shuamtoba festival on the first Saturday and Sunday of August with its handicrafts, horse racing and wrestling. Watch out for: cottages are simple, the season is short, and the resort empties in September.

Hotel Ambassadori Goderdzi

Where: at the Goderdzi ski resort at 2,027 m, 50 m from the cable car and 8 km by road from the lake. Drive time from Batumi: 2.5 to 3 hours. Price: the summer 2026 package was 870 GEL for three nights for two with breakfast, or 1,230 GEL with full board. Through 31 October 2026 the autumn family offer puts children aged 17 and under in their parents' room for free, with breakfast, the pools and the saunas included; rates on WhatsApp +995 595 014 866. Capacity: 211 rooms and suites. Season: all year. Good for: a comfortable base with two indoor pools, hot tubs and saunas included. Watch out for: it is a big five-star hotel at a small ski resort, and recent guests describe the children's playground as broken and dirty.

Hotel Ire Palace Goderdzi

Where: 100 m from the ski lift at the Goderdzi resort. Drive time from Batumi: 2.5 to 3 hours. Price from: 300 GEL a night for a double with breakfast; breakfast runs 09:00 to 11:00 and the restaurant from 12:00 to 23:00. Capacity: more than 100 rooms over seven floors, 30 to 55 m2, for 1 to 5 guests. Season: all year. Good for: families who want breakfast in the rate, 24-hour reception and a pet-friendly room; there are no shops around the hotel, so bring what you need. Watch out for: a minority of guests report broken fittings and rooms that do not match the price.

Goderdzi Twins Hotel

Where: at the Goderdzi resort, on the pass road towards Beshumi. Drive time from Batumi: 2.5 to 3 hours. Capacity: deluxe studios, one-bedroom apartments and a 6-bed mixed dormitory. Season: all year. Good for: the cheapest proper bed at the pass, with an indoor pool, sauna, steam rooms, a shared kitchen, a restaurant open 10:00 to 23:00 and a 24-hour reception. Watch out for: rates come from the hotel's own booking page or its reception on +995 514 00 00 66, so ask before you arrive.

Guest House Luka, Danisparauli

Where: Danisparauli village on the pass road, 2.5 km below the Goderdzi resort and about 14 km from the lake. Capacity: 4 rooms, 16 beds. Price from: 40 GEL a night, cash. Season: summer. Good for: dinner and breakfast cooked in the house, hot water, wood heating and wifi; the hosts drive guests up to the ski lift about 15 minutes away, and cycle tourists use it as the last stop before the pass. Watch out for: it is a family house with four rooms, so ring ahead.

Guest House Nukri, Danisparauli

Where: Danisparauli, next door to Luka. Capacity: 4 rooms, 14 beds. Price from: 40 GEL a night, cash. Season: summer. Good for: clean rooms, a fireplace, free wifi, pets allowed, and a discount for taking a whole floor. Watch out for: four rooms in a working family house, and the house number below is the one to call.

Guesthouse Oasis, Ghurta

Where: Ghurta in Khulo municipality, down in the valley on the Batumi side of Khulo. Capacity: rooms plus garden space. Season: all year. Good for: campers, because the family lets you park a van or pitch a tent in the garden; breakfast and dinner are cooked to order and the bathroom is clean with hot water. Watch out for: it is in the valley, not at the pass, so the lake is still a long climb away in the morning.

There is nothing to eat at the lake, so either carry a picnic or eat on the way. Khulo is the last town with a supermarket and a petrol station before the pass, and the resort and Beshumi are the only places up top with cafes and toilets.

Fill the tank at the Wissol station just outside Khulo: there is nothing on the pass, and the next stations are down the far side towards Adigeni.

Khinklis Sakhli, Shuakhevi

The khinkali house halfway up, and the stop we put first. Portions are large, the prices are low and cyclists and drivers fill the tables from 10:30. The room is very plain and the food is not adapted for tourists, which is the point.

Yurtalicious, the restaurant at Glamping Tago

Our own yurt restaurant above Khulo, fully vegetarian, 24 at the long table and up to 32 with extra tables, open 09:00 to 22:00. Day visitors can book a table or a packed picnic for the lake; it is a 40-minute drive off the pass road.

Adjara Inn, Shuakhevi

The biggest riverside restaurant on the road, open 10:00 to midnight, with a terrace over the water and service people like. The food is the weak point: several recent diners call it ordinary. Named here because you will pass it and because it seats a group, not because it is the best meal on the route.

The drive is most of the day, so build the stops in rather than racing past them. Only one of them is right on the road: Makhuntseti. The Alpine Garden is a short side trip from the top of the pass, and the Petrified Forest belongs to a separate day on the Akhaltsikhe side.

Makhuntseti waterfall, 50 m high in Keda municipality, is a five-minute walk from the main road, open all year with no entry fee, and the 9th to 10th century arched bridge stands beside it. It is the busiest stop on the road, parking is tight and the stalls expect you to bargain.

The Goderdzi Alpine Garden, 2.5 km past the pass on the Beshumi road at 1,960 m, is part of the Batumi Botanical Garden and holds about 10 hectares with 161 species of wild alpine flora, a 4,000 m2 rock garden laid out with the Munich Botanical Garden's gardener, a spring-fed lake and a Jara beekeeping area. Free to enter and free to park. It is not on the Green Lake road: from the top of the pass it is a side trip of about 11 km and 20 minutes there and back.

The Goderdzi Petrified Forest, a natural monument managed by the Agency of Protected Areas, covers 365 hectares over three sites at 1,600 to 2,100 m, where palm, magnolia, laurel, birch, hornbeam and beech are preserved as prints in grey volcanic tuff. It is on the Akhaltsikhe side: 18 km of gravel from Zarzma, half an hour by car, or 120 km and 2.5 hours from Batumi over the pass. Its ranger number is +995 599 747 919.

The Khulo to Tago cableway is the one attraction to cross off. Built in 1985, it spans 1,919 m with no intermediate pylon, up to 350 m above the Adjaristskali gorge, and it is closed for repair with no reopening date. Older guides still send people up to it.

Two days turns a long drive into a good one, and the walking options start at the pass.

Khikhani Fortress at 2,236 m is not on the Green Lake road: it stands in a separate side valley, reached from Khulo through Khikhadziri, so give it a day of its own. It sits above Tkhilvani, was built between the 11th and 13th centuries on about a hectare, and has four towers, a church, a well and a 43-jar wine cellar. From the picnic area at the end of the road it is a climb of about 1 km on a stony path with 254 steps and fourteen ladders: 70 to 80 minutes up for a fit walker, three hours for a slower group. The bus from Batumi to Khikhadziri leaves at 10:00 for 8 GEL, a jeep from the village to the foot of the climb is 50 to 60 GEL, and from Beshumi it is 13 km on a jeep trail.

The walk from the pass. It is 6.2 km on foot from the Goderdzi pass to the lake, through the summer pastures the herders here call iailebi. Families move their cattle up for about three months a year, and their stoves are where you get coffee and fresh dairy on the way. Allow an hour and a half each way with the altitude.

The circuit with Sabanela. The best walking day in the area links Green Lake with Sabanela Lake near Riketi village: a 9 km circuit with about 600 m of ascent, and Sabanela is small, clear and swimmable. Take and Hike runs it as a scheduled group day from Batumi for 160 GEL per person including transfer, guide, food and shared equipment, leaving at 07:00 to 08:00 and back by 21:00 to 22:00.

The harder lakes. The rest of the region rewards a second day too, and our guide to mountainous Adjara lays out the villages and the passes. The Shuamta lakes, five of them an hour's walk or a half-hour drive above Beshumi, and Karagoli on the high plateau, are both worth seeing and neither is a self-drive add-on: the roads are in poor condition, unlike the road to Green Lake. Go with a local driver or on the marked Chirukhi to Goderdzi alpine route, 70 km over three days, which strings Green Lake, the Alpine Garden, Karagoli, the Shuamta lakes and Khikhani Fortress together with nights in shepherds' huts and village guesthouses.

What to book, in what order.

1. Pick your window first: June to mid-October, and September if you want clear air and empty roads.
2. Book the bed before the transport. Beshumi, the pass hotels and the Danisparauli guesthouses are a few hundred beds between them, and July and August fill.
3. Sort the last leg. If your car is a city car or a rental with the pass excluded, book a local 4x4 from Khulo, or a jeep tour from wherever you are staying.
4. Call the road the day before: the road department on +995 32 2 31 30 76, or the Khulo tourist information centre on +995 577 90 90 15 for the local view.
5. Buy your food in Khulo and fill the tank there. The Spar Partner outside town is open 24 hours.
6. Leave early, and plan to be off the pass before the afternoon cloud.

• The altitude and the depth. The lake is at 2,058 m and 19.4 m deep. Older pages give 2,133 m or 2,035 m, and depths of 16 to 18 m. The numbers above come from Visit Batumi and the national tourism administration.
• That it freezes over. It does not, at any point in the winter.
• That you need an off-road vehicle for the last 6 km. That was true once. The road from the pass to the lake is paved and ends in a car park, and the rough part of the day is the highway below it, not this.
• That it is a Tbilisi day trip. It is a Batumi trip: 112 to 118 km from the coast, over a mountain pass, and 10 to 12 hours there and back in one day.
• That there will be a cafe. There is no cafe, no shop, no toilet and no reliable phone signal at the lake.
• Swimming without looking. Shallow shelf, then deep water. Stay inside the signs.
• Doing it in an afternoon. In a normal car from Batumi, the drive alone is six hours of the day.

Glamping Tago for this

Glamping Tago as your base for Green Lake

We are on the hill above Village Tago in Khulo municipality at about 1,200 m, on the Batumi side of the Goderdzi pass. From here Green Lake is a half-day jeep trip with our own drivers instead of a 12-hour day out of Batumi, which is the single biggest reason to sleep in the mountains rather than on the coast.

The jeep tour to Green Lake and Beshumi takes 1 to 14 people per car, and a longer day adds Goderdzi; today's price is on the tours page. We book it the evening before once we know the weather, and we arrange the transfer up from Batumi or Khulo if you arrive without a car.

You sleep in a Lotus Belle tent or the nine-bed dorm dome, eat at Yurtalicious, our vegetarian yurt restaurant, and fill your bottles from a mountain tap before you leave for the lake. The sauna is free for staying guests, and the evening campfire and tea are included in every stay. Nights are cold here even in August, so bring layers and a rain shell.

Beds on site

12 tents for two plus a nine-bed dorm, 33 beds

Prices

They change with the date: see today's prices on glampingtago.ge/glamping

Season

1 April to the end of October

Green Lake jeep tour

1 to 14 people per car, or a longer day with Goderdzi; today's price on the tours page

Drive time from Batumi

2.5 to 3 hours: 85 km of asphalt to Khulo, then 30 to 35 minutes up

Transfer

Private 4x4 for up to 4 people, one way: 75 GEL from Khulo, 265 GEL from Batumi

Altitude

About 1,200 m, above Village Tago in Khulo municipality

Food and wifi

Yurtalicious, fully vegetarian, seats 24; Starlink wifi at about 300 Mbps

Check dates and ratesContact us