My Carpathian Adventure

Gora Tapesh 1324m, P606m, Ukraine - photo Martin Richardson

Although this article is about bagging without borders, I will mention borders a number of times.  After all, there is a major war currently happening because the leader of one country has illegally sent warring troops across the border to one of the countries that forms part of the Carpathians.

In the summer of 2018, I set out to bag as many P600m peaks as possible in the Carpathians.  Roughly speaking, this range of mountains from west to east forms the borders between Czechia and Slovakia with Poland, and the border between Ukraine and Romania, and then turns south through Romania to merge into the Balkans.  I had previously bagged a few of the peaks, particularly in the Polish/Slovakian Tatra range and also in Romania.

I took a ferry, with my small motorhome, from Kingston upon Hull in England to Rotterdam. Crossing the Netherlands and northern Germany, I did some minor hill-bagging, and also some (wind-)mill-bagging.  My first P600m of the trip was Brocken 1141m, P856m in the Harz Mountains.  This could, arguably, count as the start of the Carpathians.  This mountain is famous for its eponymous shadow-reflecting spectre and its association with Faust’s Mephistopheles.  It is also quite near to the previous border between East and West Germany, and was used as listening-post during the Soviet era – I suspect that Vladimir Putin wishes it were still so.

After a brief visit to Prague, I headed for the Czech/Polish border.  I had previously bagged Sněžka 1603m, P1193m in 2012, so it meant I had five P600m peaks to do, including the rather easy Praděd 1491m, P981m in the Sudeten Mountains, and Lysá Hora 1328m, P778m in the Czech Carpathians.

There are rather more P600m peaks in the Slovakian/ Polish Carpathians – I had previously done nine, which meant I had eleven to do.  In addition, I made a brief foray to complete all the Hungarian ones.  While I was at it, I visited the villages of Kremnické Bane in central Slovakia and Tállya in  Hungary.  These are two, of several places, that have a marker claiming to be the geographical centre of Europe. 

My first introduction to Ukraine was Vetrová skala 1025m, P615m, right on the Slovakian border.  I left my vehicle at the start of a rough forest track that, thankfully, met the border, marked at regular intervals with Slovakian posts on one side of the track and the now-familiar Ukrainian yellow and blue ones on the other side.  At about 300 metres from the summit there were a small group of men.  It wasn’t until I got quite near that I realised they were fully armed Ukrainian soldiers.  It took some time and persuasion to get them to seek permission, by radio, from their commanding officer to carry on, as long as I did not enter Ukraine.  Luckily, I had my passport with me to show I was not a Russian agent trying to sneak in.  On the way down, I met a Slovakian border guard who was clearly furious that he had not intercepted me on the way up.

The next day, I crossed the border, by more conventional means that didn’t take as long as I expected.  I have a heart condition that is controlled by a number of prescribed medications to take daily and, because the trip was a long one, I had a three-month supply.  The border guards were clearly suspicious that I was a smuggler.  If it had meant I was refused entry, I would have been disappointed.  My main fear was that they might confiscate my medications, giving me no choice but to return to the UK.

The roads in Ukraine were the worst I have driven on in Europe, including most mountain and forest tracks.  There were short stretches of tarmac that, without warning, became seriously rutted and potholed.  The traffic weaved from side to side to avoid the worst holes, and every small village and town had, at least, one tyre-repair shop.  Most of these towns and villages also had churches with large gold-leafed onion-shaped domes.  If only they had spent the money on the roads instead!

This was 2018, after Putin’s annexation of Crimea and before Volodymyr Zelensky had played the Ukrainian president in a TV comedy and then become the real president, on an anti-corruption ticket.  My experience of the corruption was that I was stopped by the police ten times.  Every time, I was asked if I had cigarettes.  It took me a while to realise that they were not trying to combat tobacco smuggling.  They were seeking to be bribed.  I was breathalysed twice and failed the test each time, despite not having had a drink.  They backed off when I produced the breathalyser test kit required for drivers by the French authorities.  One time, they attempted to ‘fine’ me €300 for failing to come to a complete stop at an obviously unused railway crossing.  There were tall weeds growing between the rusty tracks.  I refused to pay and asked them to carry on with the threat to arrest me and take me to court.

I was nervous about ‘wild-camping’ in the motorhome and I could not find many campsites.  Therefore, for many of the nights, I found cheap accommodation.  This meant that I got to meet more of the local population than I would have done otherwise.  The people I met were a lot more generous and pleasant than the traffic police.  Two nights were spent in a re-purposed, minimally adapted and dilapidated, Soviet chemical weapons laboratory in a remote spot, close to Gora Tapesh 1324m, P606m.

Interestingly, whenever the conversation turned, inevitably, to Putin’s annexation of Crimea, it was condemned by both the Ukrainian and Russian speakers.  During a temporary break from bagging, I visited Lviv with its World Heritage site centre.  All the souvenir stalls sold Putin-faced toilet-paper.

Ukraine’s highest peak Gora Goverla 2061m, P721m was quite an easy bag, with busy well-worn paths.  There were a number of souvenir and food stalls at the start. One of the stall holders kindly removed a barrier that gave me access to a quiet spot at the back of the stalls.

A bit more problematic was the most prominent Ukrainian Carpathian P600m, Hora Blyznytsya 1881m, P1002m.  Despite there being a sizable ski-resort on the way up, the road is near impossible to drive, and I lost part of my exhaust within one hundred metres.  I hired a mini-bus to take me up and collect me.  From there it was more straight-forward.  This peak was the only one, other than Goverla, where I saw anyone else - a man showing-off to his female companion, by doing chin-ups on one of the ski-lift towers.  He proudly told me that he had represented Ukraine at the 2012 London Olympics.

Most of the other peaks were less memorable – my main recollections are of long kilometres of ascending through the ubiquitous beech tree forests before breaking out on to easy walking ridges.

Once again, I made the point of visiting another marker of the geographic centre of Europe near the village of Dilove, close to the Romanian border.  This one was quite popular with souvenir stalls and coach loads of people.  Despite enjoying meeting the local people and admiring the Ukrainian landscape, I was glad to leave.  After bagging all the P600m peaks (except the now inaccessible Ultra, Roman-Kosh 1545m, P1541m, in Crimea).  I had had enough of the Ukrainian roads and police.

I continued with bagging the Romanian Carpathians P600m peaks which, in the main, turned out to be more popular, with information available on viable routes up.

I interrupted the journey to meet a non-bagging friend, who had flown to Iasi.  We drove into Moldova via the country’s highest and most prominent top, Balanesti 430m, P285m which I bagged, and then to the capital, Chișinău.  Although Moldova is a relatively poor country and many of the roads were not tarmacked, they were in a much better condition than in Ukraine.  Nearly every house we passed had it’s own well at the roadside, and each was elaborately and differently decorated.  From Chișinău, we took a fascinating train journey through the Russian-backed breakaway ‘state’ of Transnistria to the Ukrainian city of Odesa, on the Black Sea.  I had seen the film ‘Battleship Potemkin’ as a teenager and never imagined I would ever get to visit the famous Potemkin Steps.

While we were there the Ukrainians celebrated, with singing, dancing and drinking in the streets, their independence from the USSR. That feels rather poignant now.

Back in Romania I continued southwards, bagging all the Carpathian P600m peaks I passed.  A day off in Brasov gave me the dubious and unavoidable experience of hearing James Blunt, playing at an open-air festival.

Having bagged (all three) Twin Pillars of Hercules in Gibraltar, Ceuta and Morocco a few years earlier, I spent an interesting day visiting the popular spa town of Băile Herculane.  Reputedly Hercules had rested there after completing his seven labours.

The next day I entered Serbia.  This was possibly the most trouble-free non-Schengen crossing I have ever experienced.  I bagged a handful of Serbian P600m peaks, and visited Belgrade.  In Belgrade I was stopped by the police and, dreading a repeat of the Ukrainian experience, was delighted when they offered to lead me to a perfect car-park next to the Danube, for an over-night stay.

From there I travelled through Hungary, Croatia, Slovenia, Austria and Germany bagging more P600m peaks, and other less prominent hills.  This meant I had bagged sixty-nine during the trip.

I believe that no-one else has bagged as many Carpathian P600m peaks as me (at least, according to peakbagger.com), and the way things are at present, I guess it may be a while before anyone else does more.

Some final thoughts: I believe that the idea of bagging without borders is important.  There are definitely people we know who will only bag the hills and peaks in their own county, state, country or continent.  I know this may sound naïve, but it is important that we challenge them as an, admittedly, minor step towards ridding the world of separatism and nationalism, and their ugly consequences.  The mountain ranges of the world may provide natural barriers to travel and communication, but we must not let them be insurmountable, literally or metaphorically.

Martin Richardson

Published: June 2022