This report is about the tour: South Demerdgi
Review of the hike “Around Demerdzhi” Crimea, July 2012.
Kyiv. Summer. Heat. Traffic jams. Tired of it. Why not spend a couple of days at sea? Moreover, the vast Motherland easily provides such an opportunity. Airplane tickets, when ordered in advance, are not much more expensive than train tickets, a little more than an hour from Vizeir from Kyiv to Simferopol and I am in the capital of Crimea.
Then travel along a beautiful mountain road on the world's longest trolleybus route or by taxi straight to the sea. To Yalta. Everyone decides for themselves whether to hurry quickly or slowly.
Holidays in Crimea mean, of course, lying on the beach, basking in the sun, visiting a couple of palaces on the mountain slopes, eating fruit for every taste and, of course, drinking a little alcohol, or a lot, depending on who you are. Hurray, the minimum program has been completed.
But thanks to OutdoorUkraine, there is a wonderful opportunity to include in this intensive program another item no less associated with Crimea - going to the mountains. It is not necessary to load yourself with a twenty-kilogram backpack and walk with it for a week, eat stew from a can and wash in the rain. Everything could be much simpler.
Kirill (the head of OutdoorUkraine) “gave” me a wonderful, talkative guide - a native Crimean with the Western Ukrainian name Taras, who accompanied me on this mini-hike (in his opinion it was a walk) and we spent a wonderful day. In the evening, by phone, we agreed to meet early in the morning at the Angarsk Pass and go to South Demerzhi, and then decide where to go next based on our mood and strength.
On the minibus next from Yalta to Simferopol, I reached the pass, or rather moved, since the minibus driver did not immediately believe me that I wanted to get out here. We had to walk back along the road, but let's call it a warm-up.
Taras and I found ourselves under a billboard and went for a walk to our first goal. On the way, Taras told a lot of interesting things, showed flowers and other vegetation unknown to a resident of the dusty capital, and time flew by unnoticed.
We stopped after the climb, at a place with an excellent view of the Alushta Valley. After eating Taras’s lunch (I have this habit of eating from someone else’s plate, it’s always tastier there), we cheerfully went to climb the boulders at the top of Demerzhi. Having thoroughly ventilated and, one might say, almost flying into the valley of ghosts, we had to decide where to go next. Taras suggested three further paths, different in length. Impressed by how much I liked everything and how much I was still very cheerful, I chose the longest one - with the final goal being the Jur-Jur waterfall. And we went “for a walk” further.
What struck me in the Crimean Mountains was that during this day, it was as if I had been on hikes that varied in geographical location. There was a section of the path both under the scorching sun and under the canopy of a shady forest, across an open plateau and across lawns, along overgrown paths and along rocks. As well as constantly changing mountain landscapes, pleasing to the eye. And most importantly, not a soul, no one makes you nervous. Beauty.
Having found ourselves in an unexpected tropical downpour, getting wet to the very last thread, since there was no longer any possibility of hiding or shortening the route, we moved on, or rather, we simply floated along the murmuring waterfalls under our feet. We finally came to Jur-Jur. Taras remained at the entrance, and I, of course, wanted to see this famous Crimean landmark. This was the goal of today's tour. I quickly ran to the waterfall, past slowly but confidently walking in heels, also wanting to see it, tourists, and took a couple of obligatory photos. To be honest, Jur-Jur didn’t even impress me at all, but this is most likely due to the fact that there was plenty of water in my life that day.
Our wet “walk” ended in the village of Generalskoye. Having barely found a taxi willing to take us to Solnechnogorsk (apparently no one was counting on tourists this late), we began to make our way out into civilization. We drove together to Alushta and said goodbye. Taras went home to Simferopol.
I’m standing at the bus stop, waiting for a minibus towards Yalta, dirty, wet in a windbreaker, although the temperature is over 30 degrees, as I’m a little cool. But I’m very pleased with everything. One man, about 50 years old, comes up to me. Girl, where have you been? I point in the direction of Demerzhi and say that I came down from the mountains. Answer: Lucky you, tourists, but I’ve lived here all my life and have never been to the mountains on a hike. Well, I hope he will also be lucky in the very near future.