'It all started with a toilet': Hikers' hut cleans Georgia's Mount Kazbek

Dawn arrives a little after 7:00 a.m., when the early September sun pokes its head above the ridges east of the town of Stepantsminda in northern Georgia, and paints the glaciers and sharp edges of Mount Kazbek with tints. peach and magenta.

On the wooden terrace where I stand, shivering, I alternate blowing the steam from a cup of coffee and struggling to capture the light glory on my phone or scribbled in a notebook.

Like thousands of mountaineers and hikers before me, I could have pitched a tent, complete with food and a stove, to plant on the treeless alpine meadow in the shadow of Kazbek, a dormant stratovolcano that straddles the border between Georgia and Russia. Rising to 5,050 meters, it is the third highest mountain in Georgia. But I came to visit something new for Georgia, an alpine country not necessarily known for its alpine culture. A hut.

AltiHut is a 45-bed hostel at 3,014 meters above sea level that aims to provide hikers with room and board while striving to be a model of sustainable tourism - as it is a place where litter and human waste have long been an embarrassment. Its owners may be visionaries of Georgia's potential as a hiking mecca. Or foolish entrepreneurs.

AltiHut is cozy and comfortable. There are several bunk rooms, with modern, well-insulated windows. Electricity comes from solar panels and heat from a wood-burning stove in the dining room, where giant windows offer breathtaking views of Kasbek and its surroundings, including the Gergeti Glacier, a heavy geological wonder that for eons has...