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.
