Winter Chornogora Crest Ridge

Meeting of the group at the railway station in Ivano-Frankivsk at 10:00. We leave extra things in the storage room, distribute food and rental equipment. We take a chartered minibus (about 70 hryvnia per person) to the village of Dzembronya. This will take from 4 hours to infinity (winter, ice, snowdrifts on the roads). We pass the village, a long climb begins to an altitude of 1200 meters. Our goal is shepherd's huts (kolyby) in the meadow under Mount Smotrich. If you're lucky, the hut will have a stove and bunks.

We continue to climb Mount Smotrich, although the option of climbing through Mount Vukhaty Kamen is also possible (depending on the weather). We finally leave the forest zone. We have a quick lunch at the crossroads between Smotrich and the Montenegrin ridge. We reach the ridge in the area of ​​border post No. 18, although most likely all the posts will be under snow and this landmark will go unnoticed. We go up to Black Mountain (aka Pop Ivan). At its top are the ruins of a Polish observatory. In winter, they become overgrown with snow and turn into the “White Elephant” - a unique and very colorful shelter for tourists and ghosts. In 2012, kind people covered the windows with bricks and made a roof - now there is much less snow and wind inside the observatory, we can spend the night comfortably :)

Today is a very important and very long day. Therefore, we get up while it’s still dark (at 5 am, or maybe earlier), begin to pack our backpacks and prepare for our spacewalk. According to the law of meanness, there will most likely be wild wind and zero visibility overboard. However, if we want to complete the program in time, then we need to gather our strength and go out on the route. We immediately prepare ski masks, windproof balaclavas and spare mittens. We fill the thermos and stuff dried fruits into our pockets. If there is a snowstorm on the ridge, then there will be almost no normal breaks, only two-minute stops for orientation. It won't be easy to get anything out of your backpack, so all the essentials should be literally at hand.

As soon as the sky begins to lighten, we set out on the route. We traverse a significant part of the Montenegrin ridge, passing through or near the following peaks: Dzembronya (1877 m), Menchul (1998 m), Brebeneskul (2035 m), Rebra (2001 m). The whole day we go on a “roller coaster” - 100 meters up, 100 meters down. And so on endlessly - be patient. If we are lucky with the weather, if the snow crust “holds”, if we have enough strength and time, then we will camp for the night in a depression near Lake Nesamovytoye. Otherwise, you will have to dig in right on the ridge, which is much less pleasant.

There is an option that, due to completely unbearable weather conditions, we will have to completely leave the ridge and begin an emergency descent towards the village of Bystrets. You must be mentally prepared to retreat and not make a universal tragedy out of this.

We return to the Montenegrin ridge and continue the “roller coaster in the fog” exercise. For the final ascent to Hoverla (the highest peak of the Ukrainian Carpathians), you will most likely need to change from snowshoes to crampons. We take pictures at the top and climb down the eastern ridge (towards Zaroslyak). It would be necessary to have time to descend into the forest zone, i.e. drop 500-600 meters of altitude. There is firewood in the forest and there is no wind - we set up a pioneer fire, dry ourselves and warm ourselves.

We go down to the Zaroslyak camp site, refuel there with hot tea and scrambled eggs (a tourist’s dream). We run five kilometers along a more or less flat road to the checkpoint. A minibus will be waiting for us there. Another 3 hours and we are in Ivano-Frankivsk. If there is no terrible force majeure, then we can easily catch the trains leaving IF around 17:00, in particular the 43rd Kiev train. He arrives in the capital at 6 am, i.e. If you really want to, you can immediately rush to work.