My friends and me decided to go to the mountains in winter. We were thinking about making a week-end trip by the following route: Pravychi hole – polonyna Mshana, mountain Yaiko Ilemske –polonyna Mshana – Pravychi hole – village Myslivka. We made our trip on the 8th of January 2012. It was Sunday.
Sunday morning started cheerfully with the call of my friend Mykola at 5:30 AM. He said, “I will come in half an hour to your home”. So I had only half an hour for the preparation. I decided not to waste time and dozed for 10 minutes more. When I had woken up I realized that I was sorely lacking in time. I had only 20 minutes to organize a vacuum bottle of hot tea, make few sandwiches, find some necessary mountain clothes and shoes, look for an extra outfit and take a camera. My good physical condition helped me to make tea and sandwiches in 20 minutes. The telephone rang one more time. I answered and heard that it was Rostik, one more participant of our enterprise. He told me that they were going to be late for a few minutes, but it wouldn’t really influence on the general schedule. It took few minutes more to pack the outfit in the plastic bag. The phone rang one more time. “It’s a ‘control’ call”, I thought. And indeed Mykola already mentioned above said that the car was ready. I took my backpack and a plastic bag and began my journey. That time it was only a journey to the cars…
So I sat in the car, said “hi” to all the participants of the trip, Kolia and Rostik, about whom I have already mentioned above, and to Mykhailo Vasyliovych, Rostik’s father, who had agreed to take us to the starting point of the trip by his car. Oleh, Rostik’s brother-in-law was with us too. He was going to take us back, but as he had been in those places for the first time he wanted to find out the way.
So we arrived to the starting point, Pravychi hole, 4 km after Myslivka by tractor road. We checked one more time if nothing was forgotten. We tested the functionality of walkie-talkies and made a roll call of the trip participants.
We started our trip approximately at 5:40 AM. The temperature was near 3 degrees below zero. No precipitation. The depth of snow in the starting point was near 5 cm. No wind. We decided to follow the blue marking as far as there are no short routes from Myslivka to Mshana. We climbed slowly to polonyna Mshana. It took approximately an hour and a half to get to the place where the blue marks meet black marks. Black route goes by-turn from the mountain Horhan Ilemskyi to polonyna Mshana. A few minutes more and we were on Mshana.Our first stop to have some snacks took almost 40 minutes. At 9:15 we decided to subjugate Yaiko following the blue marks. After walking a few hundred meters from the stop place we faced the unforeseen circumstances. First there was an obstruction on the path. The depth of the snow was approximately 30 – 50 cm. The temperature decreased to 15 degrees below zero. And also wind started to blow with the speed near 5 meters per second. But the worst was that we had lost the marks. Search of the marking signs gave no result. Our uncompromising group decided to climb straight as far as we had been many times in this places. During last year every one of us was on the top of Yaiko at least three times. It was not an easy way, and it took a lot of energy and time. Approximately at 11:30 AM we went out the forest line. The snow depth here was near 1 meter. Temperature decreased to 18 degrees below zero. Wind speed was approximately 5 meters per second. In a half an hour we reached the end of polonyna Dovge Field. We hadn’t found any marks. Everything was covered with snow. We could see neither ground nor two meters high mountain pine trees that grows between Dovge Pole and the top of Yaiko. Further the depth of the snow increased to 1 meter and a half. The temperature was 23 degrees below zero. There were wind gusts up to 10 meters per second. We were moving in the direction to the top for nearly one hour. It was very cold. Reserves of tea was lessening rapidly.
It was very hard to move as far as we hadn’t expect such a big amount of snow. And we didn’t take snowshoes. It’s was also a big minus because we often fell into the snow to the waist and sometimes to the chest.
Only when we had found an approximate top, as far as the sign had been somewhere under the snow, we started to move back home slowly. The watch showed 1:20 PM. The return was easy because we could see our path very well. Also we could guess where the snow had been firm. So we fell into the snow not so many times. We slid down on our pants where it was possible. It was very fast and incredibly fun. At 2:15 PM we were back on Mshana. We called Oleh, whom I have already mentioned above, and told him to come for us. Then we drank the rest of the tea and went to Pravychi. It took us one more hour to reach Pravychi. Suddenly out walkie-talkie gave a noisy signal. It meant that car would come very soon. We made one more picture of the beautiful waterfall and started to move in the direction of Myslivka. In the middle of our way we connected with the driver. He was almost on the place.
We met our Zhihuli before the village. We changed clothes that had been prepared in advance, drank fresh tea and went home!
P.S. The height of Yaiko is 1680 m. The route is interesting. When the visibility is good then you can enjoy wonderful scenery, especially in the direction of Arshytsia. But it is rather difficult to get there using the regular transport. There are near five buses a day that go from Dolyna via Myslivka, but you can never be sure that they will come in time. So this is not an optimal variant. It will cost not cheaper than 60 UAH in a case if you want to take a taxi. In winter time you have to be informed for sure about the weather and the condition of the path. And you’d better take snowshoes with you. I advise you not to go without hot tea and chocolates, because you use tea to get warm and black chocolate to renew the lost calories.
You can also climb Yaiko Ilemske from the side of Osmoloda via Horhan Ilemskyi, Syvania range and mountain Moloda.
I want to say that I’m pleased with our trip and recommend you to try. Good luck!
