Remembering Archil Badriashvili—Piolet d’Or-Winning Georgian Alpinist
One of Georgia’s most prolific alpine climbers died in his native Caucasus on Saturday, August 10. Archil Badriashvili was descending from Shkhelda (14,396ft) with three companions—Beshken Pilpan, and the brothers Avto and Nariman Japaridze—when a storm hit the peak. It remains unclear whether he was hit by lighting or struck by rockfall, but the outcome was that Badriashvili fell from the ridge at an elevation near 12,500 feet and perished. Due to the hostile weather conditions, his three companions were also unable to descend and were later evacuated by helicopter.
The 34-year-old Badriashvili, who worked as a physician and mountain guide, was much-loved in the international alpine community. He was known for his great pride in his native Georgia and his efforts to promote Georgian mountaineering.
A keen and colorful chronicler, Badriashvili contributed 17 reports to the American Alpine Journal in the last eight years, documenting his (and other climbers’) adventures in the Caucasus. He was particularly proud of an exhaustive 2022 report on the history of Ushba (15,453ft). Last year, Badriashvili put up a new route on the south face of Tetnuldi (15,938ft) and the “Express Traverse” of Shkhara (17,070ft), the highest peak in Georgia, with close friend Temo Qurdiani. He also made the first winter ascent of the peak’s south face in 2018—a heinous, 13-day sufferfest.
While Badriashvili did most of his climbing in the Caucasus, he also put up other efforts further afield, such as a 3,000-foot new route on Kyrgyzstan’s Korona VI (15,944ft) in 2016, the first ascent of the southeast face of Nepal’s Larkya Main (21,049ft) in 2017, the first ascents of both Pangboche I (21,720ft) and II (21,338ft) in 2019, and the first Georgian ascent of Pakistan’s Nanga Parbat (26,660ft) in 2019.
Badriashvili received the Piolet d’Or in 2022 for a grueling first ascent of Pakistan’s 24,000-foot Saraghrar Northwest with Bakar Gelashvili and Giorgi Tefnadze. This marked the first time a Georgian had received the coveted award. Badriashvili gave an in-depth account of the expedition for Climbing, noting that “the whole escapade felt like a return to a romantic era of mountaineering.”
Earlier this summer, Badriashvili took part in a stout attempt on the southeast face of India’s Nanda Devi East (24,390ft), with a crack team of fellow Piolet d’Or winners Marko Prezelj and Manu Pellissier. The three were turned back by scorching temperatures that destabilized the face (with a freezing point reportedly above 21,300 feet), but they managed the first ascent of another peak, Nanda Shori (20,813ft), and a new route on Changush (20,741ft).
Pellissier and Prezelj both spoke highly of their late partner, noting that he brought a boundless positivity and fun-loving nature to the climb.
Pellissier, who met Badriashvili at the Piolet d’Or in 2018 and climbed with him several times over the years leading up to their Nanda Devi trip, recalled how the team had spent hours agonizing over their gear weight, leaving behind larger cams and other heavier gear to move as light as possible. “Marko was saying ‘Yeah we don’t need this, we don’t need that,’ we were really cutting the weight in so many ways,” he said. The trio had a long first day on the face, putting up 16 pitches of climbing in loose, warm conditions. The second day was equally rough, with the wall battered by wind and rain. Because the team left behind so much gear to cut weight, particularly blue Camalot (#3) cams, much of the climbing was quite dicey and run out.
After these two draining days, the trio arrived at their cramped bivy, only for Badriashvili to surprise his companions with a half-liter bottle of chacha, a traditional Georgian brandy. “I was like, ‘What the fuck?’” Pellissier said. “We were arguing whether or not to bring the #3 cams, and you’re hiding this bottle of liquor?” Badriashvili responded with a smile. “Yes, but this is more important!”
“We all had a sip of chacha in the bad weather, in the worst place in the world, and I did agree, it was a good decision to bring it,” Pellissier admitted, chuckling. “For Archil, what you share with the people is as important, maybe more important, than the climb itself. I told him the next day if we needed the #3, he should stick the bottle of chacha in the crack instead.”
On a technical, committing, expensive, and extended expedition like Nanda Devi, tensions run high, Pellissier said, and it’s extremely rare to find a personality that can dial in when necessary, but also keep the mood light and enjoyable. “You have to go with the right people,” he said. “Archil was one of the few people I know in the world like this. I am lucky to have known him.”
The third member of their team, Marko Prezelj, met Badriashvili in 2018, while working as a mentor for a Slovenian youth alpinist group. Prezelj and his students met Badriashvili and climbed Shkhara together. “He was really ambitious, but in a good way. He was always smiling, always happy. It was almost impossible to upset him.”
Prezelj did not climb again with Badriashvili for six years. In the lead-up to his attempt on Nanda Devi, he received a call from longtime partner Pellissier. “Manu was in Tbilisi, drinking Georgian spirits with Archil,” Prezelj recalled. “Archil said he was interested, so of course I said yes. That guy? Okay, let’s go. No discussion.”
Badriashvili was extremely close to his sister, Ruska, and father, Zurab, a prominent Georgian alpinist during the Soviet era. He often regaled his friend with tales of his father’s adventures, and it was clear both to Pellisier and Prezelj that Badriashvili’s passion for the mountains was largely due to his love for his father, and his desire to carry on his traditions. “His father was an idol for him,” Prezelj said.
The older Prezelj recalled how he and Badriashvili often butted heads, because the latter was so insistent on staying connected with his father and sister at all times during the climb, and on sharing updates of their climb with ExplorersWeb, the adventure news site to which he was a frequent resource. “He was constantly having his inReach on, sharing our activity, I have to admit it was a bit annoying to me,” Prezelj recalled. “Archil called me a dinosaur.”.
Prezelj, 58, grew increasingly somber as he spoke of his late partner, and others he’s shared a rope with who have died, including American Hayden Kennedy, who passed away in 2017. “I am old now, and they say these losses get easier, but it’s the opposite,” he said. “The older I get, the harder it is, friends passing away in the mountains. Archil will be living in my mind for some time.”
The same love of documentation that irked Prezelj on Nanda Devi was characteristic of all Badriashvili’s climbing, but it was anything but self-aggrandizing. Badriashvili saw his efforts in the mountains as strands in a rich tapestry, the lineage of his father and other Georgian mountaineers. It seems climbing was far more about carrying the flag of his country, inspiring future generations, than his own personal accomplishments. “There are lots of great climbers,” noted Dougald MacDonald, executive editor of the American Alpine Journal (and former editor-in-chief of both this publication and Rock and Ice). “But Archil stood out for deep and obvious passion for the mountains of Georgia.”
MacDonald recalled how sometimes Badriashvili’s lessons on Georgia extended beyond climbing. “I once wrote a headline for one of his articles, and when he saw it, he gently advised me to change it. It turns out the phrase I used echoed a political slogan in Georgia that would have offended some people in that small country, which has seen a tremendous amount of strife and conflict.”
“I don’t know this for certain,” MacDonald said, “but from the outpouring of feeling after his death, I sense that he had become a hero to many people in Georgia, not through his ambition but through the strength of his personality and his good humor. It seems quite possible that he might have become a national leader of one kind or another, given more time and the right circumstances. Or maybe he’d just keep doing cool climbs and telling stories about them.”
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