March 8 on Black Mountain

Shortly before March 8, a group of tourists from the Kyiv section “Vertical” approached me. This coming weekend they were going to “walk” through the Gorgans and asked to share the GPS track of our last year’s winter hike in the Carpathians. In return, the guys promised to write about their adventures. And today I am publishing their mini-report.

Unfortunately, we didn’t make it to Gorgany - we decided that it would be scary there for the two of us. Instead, we went to the Montenegrin ridge - climbed Pop Ivan from Dzembronya, then went to Menchul, but did not reach Hoverla. Almost all the time there was such a fog that nothing was visible at 5 meters. Even the jeepies didn’t always help - for half a day they couldn’t find the jumper from Smotrich to Pop Ivan (Black Mountain), but everything was great. We met a lot of groups - about 40 people spent the night at the observatory!

There is no snow at all below, I can’t even believe that it was once here. About halfway up Smotrich it starts snowing, and it’s absolute winter at the top. There are snow puffs and canopies everywhere, you can see avalanches rolling out, everything is covered in ice, the snow depth is from half a meter to one and a half meters. I will send you the points and track.

We got to Dzembronya like this: from I-Frankivsk by minibus to Verkhovyna (25 UAH/3 hours), it goes every hour, and from Verkhovyna you have to take a taxi to Dzembronya. There are 25 km along a terrible road - taxi drivers ask from 75 UAH per car - Bobik. This seems to be the best option for recruitment. This is not the first time we have gone to Dzembronya and so far we have not come up with anything better. This time we went back down along the ascent route, but you can walk the entire Montenegrin ridge (it takes 3-4 days in good weather), go to Hoverla and from there go down or to the Kazmenchik shelter, and from there 9 km to Lazeshchyna (from there there is a diesel service to I-Fr), or to the Zaroslyak ski base, and from there by car to Vorokhta. If you don’t go to Montenegro, but only to Pop Ivan, then from there you can go down to the village of Shibene - the walk is the same as to Dzembronya (1 walking day), but it’s more interesting than returning along the same path.

In time it turns out like this: Yves-Fr. – Dzembronya village – by lunchtime at best. Village - Mount Smotrich - really, if you don't rush - 1 day. Steep climb up the mountain. You can spend the night on the bridge between Smotrich and Pop Ivan. To Pop Ivan – 1 hour in good weather. Theoretically, you can come here on the first day and spend the night at the observatory.

Well, something like this :)