Ukraine 2010 trip report - Hiking in the Carpathians

Searching for the path

On the following day we wanted to make a day trip to the closest mountains and get back before nightfall. We had checked the start of the trail and things went smooth until that. Right after getting off the main road things started to get difficult. The path which was supposed to be there according to our map was nowhere to be found. We walked back and forth, up and down for about two hours without really finding anything. Finally Inna wanted to give up and we walked back to our cottage. Sometimes (maybe 50% of the time :) the Ukrainian maps drive you close to insanity.

Inna crossing the river

One more day passed and we decided to try hiking once more. This time we wanted to try the only path we saw in the woods, although it seemed to go nowhere close to the path we had in our map. The weather was a bit better than on the day before, meaning that it didn't feel like in a shower all the time. The new path was a bit muddy but still easy to follow. Of course everything good ends sooner or later and after about twenty minutes the path seemed to disappear and we only faced a strong river. For a while we tried to follow what was left of the path but soon we had to give up and admit that the only choice was to cross the river.

I tried maybe two or three different routes for crossing the river but every time I ran into a dead end. Finally we had to use a big tree which had fell across the river to cross the river. Of course the log had hardly any bark left and was slippery like...well a wet god damn log without any bark on it. At least there were some brances left but still it was exciting to cross it. We both got to the other side without getting wet and kept on hiking along the path which seemed to continue on this side.

A fallen tree

Checking something next to a rockfall

On the way up we became confident that we had indeed taken the right route because the path slithered like a snake up the hill. On the way we met a group of hikers from Odessa but we didn't talk with them too much. The forest around looked surreal with all the fog around. Sometimes we had to cross or go under fallen trees and sometimes we saw big rock falls on the side of the hill. Water was easy to find because rivers run all over Carpathian mountains, especially when it rains. After the "snake path" we saw the funniest group of hikers / climbers ever. It seemed like the group was on a tour of some kind and the people were dressed up like for a party, not for a hike. One of the men was wearing a dress suit and unbelievably the suit seemed to be completely clean! Some of the women were walking on the muddy path with only flip-flops! That group really had guts because they were already on their way down and told they had been all the way up. Respect.

About two hours after crossing the big river we felt a bit tired and decided to stop in a clearing we found along the path. We took some snacks from my backpack and were just about to start eating when we heard some loud noise from the forest nearby. It didn't sound like any small animal nor did we hear any talking so we decided to keep on walking in case it was a bear. We didn't hear or see anything special after that so we don't know what was hiding in the bushes.

Inna on the final climb

A while after hearing the sound we ran into another big clearing in the forest. We weren't quite sure where we were so we decided to ask direction from some group that was making food in the clearing. Our (or at least my) original plan was to climb the highest peak nearby, but at this point we had wasted too much time to do that so we decided to climb the second highest peak instead. The peak was really close to this second clearing we found and it took only about an hour to climb to the top. The only problem was the thick mist all around. Sometimes visibility was no more than thirty meters. We didn't have any spectacular views from the top but at least we were finally able to climb to some summit! The name of the mountain is Homyak, the Hamster Mountain, and its height is 1544 m. We found a small, heavy and green umbrella from the top and of course Inna wanted to have it (I don't use umbrellas). And of course I was the one carrying it all the way down :).

Visibility was kind of poor.

Going down proved to be a lot more difficult because there was no real path to follow, only rocks all around. The way back was nothing interesting but we were able to take some shortcuts along the "snake route". And when I say nothing interesting I mean the part before the big river. We figured that the route we took earlier couldn't have been the easiest one and decided to try another path we found on this side of the river. It seemed like a good plan at first but didn't end up so well. Before long we found ourselves maybe 100m lower but in the middle of a thick bush. Walking was so slow that it felt like crawling on a gravel road would be faster. And yes, you guessed it. In the end crossing the river wasn't any easier but probably even more difficult. And we had to cross three rivers instead of one. After getting back to the road we were completely soaked and really, really dirty (we had to hug logs etc. to cross the rivers). Innas hiking boots were full of water too. I gave up with mine and crossed one of the rivers without wearing my shoes because I knew it would take forever for them to dry up.

The walk back along the asphalt road took about 40 minutes and we were rather cold when we finally got back to our room, about nine hours after starting the hike. It felt really great to take a warm shower and eat some tasty food before falling asleep in our huge bed :).