Follow the Mountains : Day 74: Another beautiful ridge walk

Tuesday, July 6, 2021

Day 74: Another beautiful ridge walk

I started without breakfast, cause it was again already 5:30 until I woke up and the sun was shining. I walked along open meadows, had sheep dogs bark at me (luckily they were to far away to come really close!), passed some car-campers and a gas pipeline unril I dropped down into Wolowez, where I bought lots of food. Did I mention, that nobody is wearing a face mask here?

Them it was up onto the Polonina. This is how the open grassy ridges, originally used for grazing, are called. I had a dog accompanying me for a while and it was a lovely hike over meadows and then through the forest. Of course it git really steep at some point, but not too bad and I found strawberries and blueberries, so there were good reasons to stop a lot :)

Up on the grassy ridge, I walked up to Mt Plai and had a lunch break before facing the steep uphill to Velykyi Verkh. Only a few quad bikes and motorbikes were cruising around. After a long break in the sun, I checked my powerbank of the solar module and discovered that my cable doesn't work properly. I have to bend it, so it charges. Guess I need a new cable!

Up on the ridge I was surprised to see loads of people. mostly young ones somewhere from town. I would have expected blueberry pickers, but not that. There were also some paragliding and I managed to escape some people by skipping one Peak. But there were less people later on and in the late afternoon I was alone on the ridge, which was descending by then. How wonderful: nice qeather, a long ridgewalk, cold water from a spring and enough food - what else do you need?!

I wanted to keep hiking and use the nice weather to continue on the ridge. But I came across a patch with barely ripe blueberries (apart from the walk up, there weren't any ripe ones) and got into a lovely beech forest, so I set up my tent earlier than expected.