CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
195 km from Bystrytsya to Bystrytsya, about 5 h 41 of riding. The stops in between: Yasynia-Tserkva of Our Lord’s Ascension, Svydovets, Chornohora and Maramarosh. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,150 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available.
The Gorgany are the wildest part of the Ukrainian Carpathians, a range of sandstone peaks rising above dense forests in the Ivano-Frankivsk region. What makes them unusual are the gorgany themselves, the fields of loose stone blocks that cover the upper slopes and summits, formed by frost shattering the rock. Walking across them is slow and tiring, and the forests below, of spruce, beech and Swiss stone pine, are among the most pristine in Ukraine, with brown bears, wolves, lynx and red deer. The Gorgany nature reserve protects a part of this landscape.
Read the complete Gorgany write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Gorgany is where the day begins. Next is Yasynia-Tserkva of Our Lord’s Ascension.
High in the Ukrainian Carpathians, in the valley of the Black Tisa, the village of Yasinia stretches along the river beneath steep spruce-clad slopes. On a rise near its centre stands a small wooden church, the Church of the Ascension, sometimes called the Strukivska church, built in the early nineteenth century by Hutsul craftsmen without nails. Its stepped roofs, covered in wooden shingles, and its small domes give it a cosy, fairytale shape, and it is part of the UNESCO listing of wooden tserkvas of the Carpathian region in Poland and Ukraine.
Read the complete Yasynia-Tserkva of Our Lord’s Ascension write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Yasynia-Tserkva of Our Lord’s Ascension comes up 26 km in. Next is Svydovets.
The Svydovets is a long, high ridge in the Ukrainian Carpathians, rising above the upper Tisza valley near the town of Rakhiv in Zakarpattia. Its southern and northern slopes hold some of the wildest primeval beech forest left in Europe, protected as part of the Carpathian Biosphere Reserve and included in the UNESCO site of Ancient and Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians and Other Regions of Europe. Above the trees lie broad alpine meadows, the polonyna, where Hutsul shepherds traditionally drove their flocks each summer, with glacial lakes tucked below the ridge.
Read the complete Svydovets write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
52 km in you reach Svydovets. Next is Chornohora.
Chornohora, the Black Mountain, is the highest range of the Ukrainian Carpathians, a long ridge of rounded summits above the forests on the border between the Zakarpattia and Ivano-Frankivsk regions. Its highest peak, Hoverla, rises to 2,061 metres, the highest point in Ukraine, and on summer weekends it can be busy with hikers. Along the ridge to the southeast stands Pip Ivan, crowned by the ruins of an astronomical and meteorological observatory built by Poland in the 1930s, when this was the border with Czechoslovakia. Locals call it the White Elephant, and seeing it loom out of the mist is unforgettable.
Read the complete Chornohora write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Chornohora, about halfway. Next is Maramarosh.
On the map, the line between Romania and Ukraine runs along the Tisza river here, and on either side of it the Carpathians rise in forested ridges. Maramarosh is the old name for the whole region, Maramureș to Romanians, and it is also the name of a protected forest within the Carpathian Biosphere Reserve on the Ukrainian side, one component of the World Heritage inscription for ancient and primeval beech forests of the Carpathians and other regions of Europe. These are forests where beech trees have grown undisturbed since the last ice age, with giants several hundred years old and a richness of life that has vanished from most of Europe.
Read the complete Maramarosh write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Maramarosh sits at 103 km, about halfway. Next is back through Chornohora.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Chornohora write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Chornohora comes up 129 km in. Next is back through Svydovets.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Svydovets write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
155 km in you reach back through Svydovets. Next is back through Yasynia-Tserkva of Our Lord’s Ascension.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Yasynia-Tserkva of Our Lord’s Ascension write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Yasynia-Tserkva of Our Lord’s Ascension, late in the day. Next is Gorgany.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Gorgany write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 195 km.
Gorgany → Yasynia-Tserkva of Our Lord’s Ascension is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Yasynia-Tserkva of Our Lord’s Ascension → Svydovets is 18 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Svydovets → Chornohora is 21 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Chornohora → Maramarosh is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Maramarosh → back through Chornohora is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Chornohora → back through Svydovets is 22 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Svydovets → back through Yasynia-Tserkva of Our Lord’s Ascension is 18 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Yasynia-Tserkva of Our Lord’s Ascension → Gorgany is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.