Wet week in Ukraine

Dying Poloniny

I woke up quite late on Monday, July 8^th, as I had been on the phone with my wife late into the night. The sky was blue and I camped next to a stream, so I took the opportunity to wash my clothes and dry out my gear, which is why I didn’t start walking until about noon. There is always this trade-off on long-distance hikes: keeping clothes clean means spending sunny days doing laundry.

After crossing two small hills and valleys with typical Zakarpatie villages,I finally approached the polonynas—short-grass subalpine meadows created by sheep grazing. To my surprise, there were no shepherds or herds left, and I could clearly see the habitat slowly being reclaimed by forest, just as happened years ago in Slovakia and the Czech Republic.

A long march over the puddles

I set off at dawn on Tuesday, July 9^th, as rain was forecast for later in the day. Beyond the landmark peak of Pikuj (1,405 m), the ridge dropped steeply. Although the shepherds were gone, the polonynas were bustling with people picking blueberries.

On descent, I passed buyers who were paying the blue-berry pickers cash on the spot for their harvest (I wondered how much). It was a long march along a marked trail toward Polonyna Borzhava near Volovets.

More rain approached, and I had to walk slowly around numerous puddles, as the soil was already completely waterlogged. What really surprised me in this part of Ukraine was the giant hogweed (Heracleum mantegazzianum) taking over local ecosystems—and it doesn’t seem like the locals are doing anything to stop it.

The trail wentpast a memorial built by the Hungarian government to commemorate the invasion of the Hungarians into the Carpathian Basin. A few weeks later in Romania, I realized this was just one of many attempts by the Hungarian government to stake claims over what they view as the territory of “Greater Hungary.”

I continued through Veretsky Pass (841 m), home to a WWII memorial commemorating 600 Ukrainian Sich fighters executed here by Polish border guards after being handed over by the Hungarians. Hungarian troops invaded Zakarpattia (then Subcarpathian Ruthenia, a part of Czechoslovakia) in March 1939, turning my wife’s grandmother’s family into war refugees. The Sich fighters and the Czechoslovak army resisted for only a few days while Slovakia declared independence and Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia were occupied by the German army. The ruins of nearby hotels show that someone once saw tourist potential here many years ago.

Polonina Borzhava

I tried to pack my tarp quickly on Wednesday, July 10^th, to avoid the rain coming but it was quicker than me. It turned out I had camped right near a gas pipeline station supplying Europe with Russian gas. The descent to Volovets turned into a bit of an adventure, as I wanted to avoid the main road in the fog and drizzle, but I struggled to find the right path through private gardens.
In Ukraine, many grocery shops double as bars, which is great when you want to eat what you’ve just bought while recharging your phone. That’s exactly what I did in Volovets before ascending Polonyna Borzhava in the late afternoon. As elsewhere in Ukraine, groups of blueberry pickers were harvesting the slopes, taking the fruit and leaving behind garbage.

The good thing up in the mountains is one can see rain approaching and then it is only matter of experience to find a place with no wind and put on your raingear. In my case, that means a poncho and waterproof pants that I can pull on without taking off my boots. I walked until 9 p.m. to reach a designated campsite below Mount Kychera (1,257 m). The evening offered stunning views as the sky cleared after the rain and the sun set late.

The spot turned out to be occupied by blueberry pickers, a group of students from Prague (who stayed in their tents both that evening and the next morning when I left), and a group of students from Dnipropetrovsk with their teachers. I was lucky enough to use two of their many campfires to cook a warm meal. We talked late into the night about life in Ukraine and the Czech Republic. Apart from this camp, I had only met two other hikers near Pikuj, and that had been all the interaction with hikers I’d had in Ukraine so far.

Being first, twice

I again set off early again on Thursday, July 11^th, as more rain was forecasted. Unfortunately, I got distracted by wild strawberries along the way and got caught in a thunderstorm right before the summit of Mount Kuk (1,361 m). You might know the feeling of walking in driving rain and high winds, hearing thunder while standing on the highest peak around. I tried to get off the ridge quickly, but lost my way in the fog and started descending down the wrong side. Fortunately, I realized it fairly quickly thanks to the off-trail alarm on my smartwatch. Still, the temperature was near freezing, my fingers were numb from the cold, and my boots were completely waterlogged.

When the rain finally stopped, I was lucky to find a cluster of makeshift shelters built by blueberry pickers, where the campfire ashes were still hot. I used the warm embers to heat up some food and change into dry clothes. Just as I started walking again, I ran into a group of people.

They turned out to be Czech volunteers marking hiking trails in western Ukraine. From that point on, my route followed a freshly marked trail (blue route). During our short chat—where I was definitely more surprised to see them than they were to see me—they suggested a different route down the ridge than the one I had planned.

Following their advice, I took the newly painted green trail. As another shower started, I ran into a second group of Czech volunteers who were in the middle of painting that very line. That meant that on this historic day, I was twice the very first tourist on a newly marked trail!
With evening approaching, I gratefully accepted their invitation to stay overnight at their base camp in the village of Vuchkove. Getting there took a while as the dirt road was full of deep puddles.

There were many people we got common friends with at the Brontosaurus movement volunteer camp. I still had to pitch my tent, but I enjoyed a shower, warm water to wash my clothes, and internet access to check emails and wrap up last week’s blog post. Unsurprisingly, I went to bed very late that night.

Zakarpattia is changing slowly

Although I was the earliest riser in the camp, I didn’t set off on the hike until around noon on Friday, July 12th. It took time for my clothes to dry, to wax my boots, and to do all those other necessary chores that people on shorter hikes don’t need to worry about.

I followed the trail Veronika and I had taken back in 1993, crossing the Rika River using the very same suspension bridge. I could have crossed the river further upstream in Mizhhiria, but that would have meant either hiking up to Mount Nehrovets (1,709 m) or walking along the gravel road in the valley. So I preferred to stay on Polonyna Borzhava as long as possible and not descend before Mount Kuk. On the way to Nehrovets, I lost the marked trail, but I didn’t regret it for a moment—it led me to the abandoned village of Kosiv Verkh (750 m), which was truly magical.

In the village of Nehrovets, I was surprised by how little had changed since 1993. The churches and crosses had been restored, but the roads looked exactly the same. What immediately strikes you upon coming to Ukraine is that life happens outdoors, on the street. People gather and talk, and children play outside. That is a stark contrast to my home country and Western countries in general (incidentally, the word for “outdoors” in both Russian and Ukrainian literally translates to “on the street”).

I stopped for dinner at “Četnická stanice” (Gendarme Station), a restaurant in Kolochava aimed mainly at Czech tourists. The village is famous because the Czech author Ivan Olbracht set his novel here during the era when this corner of Ukraine was part of Czechoslovakia. I then hiked into the night, hoping to reach an old kolyba (shepherd’s hut) where we had stayed overnight in 1993 and survived a terrifying thunderstorm, but I didn’t make it that far.

Loss

In the morning, I realized that both of the shepherd’s huts I remembered from 1993—the ones that had sheltered us during and after that awful thunderstorm—were completely gone.

When I wanted to cook breakfast on Saturday, July 13^th, I discovered I was missing my spoon. I must have left it at the Czech volunteers’ camp. I carved a pair of wooden chopsticks and started calling friends back in the Czech Republic to get contact details for the camp organizers. I tried calling, texting, and reaching out on Facebook, but with no luck. A spoon might not seem like much in everyday life, but when all your possessions fit in a backpack, losing one is a major blow—especially when it’s a titanium spoon designed to double as a pot handle.

Polonyna Krasna is slowly healing from the gas pipeline construction we witnessed back in 1993. A muddy road runs right along the ridge, and at one point, I even saw leftover pipes abandoned in the mountains.
In some spots, the ground disturbance actually created new habitats for rare species, such as the short-spurred fragrant orchid (Gymnadenia odoratissima).

I met only one other hiker on Polonina Krasna: Tomasz Wilkonski, a retired Polish IT specialist who has been systematically visiting every mountain range and hill in Ukraine’s Zakarpattia region. We immediately clicked, so we both regretted that we were traveling in opposite directions.

We met just as a group of tourists drove past in 4×4 vehicles.

Unfortunately, this is how many Ukrainians like to enjoy the mountains—and not just them. The Carpathians in Romania and Ukraine are infamous among foreign off-road enthusiasts who come here to indulge in a hobby that is illegal in their home countries. It is illegal here as well, but law enforcement is lax. Just the night before, a group of off-road motorcyclists had roared past my tarp around midnight, barely twelve meters away.

The descent from Polonina Krasna toward Ust–Chorna was steep and treacherous because the soil was completely waterlogged from the rain (naturally, I got caught in several rain showers that day too). The road near the village — a former German settlement— hadn’t changed at all in 25 years.

Right next to the trail, there was a new restaurant. As the only guest, I ordered a pizza, and the young owner, who had just opened the place alongside a small grocery store, was thrilled to serve me. She even gave me a stainless steel spoon! It was already dark when I set off again, but knowing the weather forecast, I wanted to cross Polonyna Svydovets before more rain arrived on Sunday. Shortly before midnight, I reached a shelter. Two tents were pitched nearby, but the simple hut itself was empty. I went to sleep knowing I would only get a few hours of rest.

2025 Update: The shelter has completely deteriorated over the last six years. This serves as a reminder to readers that shelter locations on my map should be taken with a grain of salt, as a lack of maintenance can quickly take its toll. In this particular case, the deterioration was tied to the abandonment of sheep grazing further up the ridge, as the shelter was likely maintained by shepherds.

Illness

I set off around 5 a.m. on Sunday, July 14^th, so I didn’t get to meet the hikers sleeping in the nearby tents. However, I left one of Jan Skácel’s poems—which Pája had given me for the trip—in the shelter for them to read (their gear suggested they were Czechs or Slovaks).).

When I reached Mount Tempa (1634 m), I realized it was the highest point of my journey in Ukraine. The clouds were still far off, but after a few kilometers, the storm caught up with me.

I found the site of a former loggers’ camp and braced for the thunderstorm. I even managed to finish cooking lunch just as the first drops started drumming on my tarp. The plan was to eat and get a little sleep, but things quickly went downhill. I couldn’t finish my meal and started feeling dizzy. A few minutes later, I was inside my sleeping bag, unable to move, with my stomach churning violently.
I soon realized this was eerily similar to an illness that had cut short a hiking trip with our Eco-club Kvíčala 20 years ago. Back then, it was a Campylobacter infection from a cream sauce we’d ordered at a restaurant. Wait—they had offered me a cream sauce with my pizza yesterday! And they gave me a huge portion, even though I had asked for a small one.
I spent the rest of the day sweating with a fever, vomiting, and suffering from diarrhea. Every tiny movement took an immense amount of energy. Fortunately, there was cell coverage, and my wife Veronika acted as my GP over the phone, advising me on medication. I had no idea how I would be able to continue the hike, as I could barely even turn around in my sleeping bag.