Chornohora Traverse: Hoverla → Pip Ivan

The Chornohora traverse follows the main ridge from Hoverla (2061 m), Ukraine's highest summit, to Pip Ivan Chornohirskyi (2028 m). It runs one way: the start is at the Zaroslyak base, the finish in Upper Dzembronya, 31.5 km along the OpenStreetMap track.

From Zaroslyak the blue trail climbs Hoverla. There is a green one too, longer and gentler; it only skirts the shoulder of Mala Hoverla from the border-zone list, so it needs no separate permit. From Hoverla the red trail, the Transcarpathian Tourist Trail, runs south-east along the ridge, 18 km to Pip Ivan. It crosses the tops of Breskul, Pozhyzhevska, Dantsyzh, Turkul and Mount Dzembronya, and skirts Rebra, Brebeneskul and Menchul on their slopes, 140–⁠270 m off the summits. The lowest point of the ridge is the saddle between Pozhyzhevska and Dantsyzh, about 1725 m. Old border posts stand along the crest.

From Pip Ivan the red turns back 1.2 km to the «Sidlovyna» post, where the yellow trail leaves the ridge, and the blue leads past Vukhatyi Kamin and the Dzembronya waterfalls to Upper Dzembronya. The other branch of the blue goes over the top of Smotrych, 1.3 km shorter. Between the Vukhatyi Kamin rock and the pass there are no waymarks (Marian Slabinoha, 2023).

Wikipedia gives times along the ridge: mostly about an hour between neighbouring summits, about 10 hours in all from Hoverla to Pip Ivan. With the climb up Hoverla and the way down to Dzembronya that makes about 18 hours of walking. Most people split it into two days (gorskaprzygoda.pl, 2018). Some sections of the ridge are easy, as Slabinoha describes them — gentle slopes and little climbing. What makes the traverse hard is its length and a pack with a tent. Polish hikers who walked the ridge from Hoverla to Pip Ivan in a single day called it exhausting.

There are no permanent shelters on the ridge. State Emergency Service rescuers have been on duty on Pip Ivan round the clock since 2017, but the observatory does not take hikers for the night: in 2018 and in 2026 alike, the rescuers suggested pitching a tent. The Carpathian National Nature Park asks for tents only in approved recreation zones, the Carpathian Biosphere Reserve only along approved routes. Neither publishes a list of such places on the ridge between Hoverla and Pip Ivan. Hikers camp by Lake Nesamovyte, about a third of the way along the ridge, below Turkul: there is a spring that never dries but no firewood, so cooking is on a gas stove (Slabinoha). The other popular camp is Lake Brebeneskul, in a cirque below the ridge.

Water on the ridge is by Nesamovyte and at a spring on the south-west slope of Brebeneskul. In July hikers write that there are plenty of springs; at the end of September, that there is water but not everywhere.

Between the «Below Rebra» signpost and Sidlovyna below Pip Ivan, 9.5 km, there is no quick way off the ridge: the yellow trail across the Brebeneska meadow has gaps, and hikers describe the path down the Brebeneskul stream to Luhy as washed out.

The weather on the ridge turns fast: a thunderstorm with hail and squalls can blow in within 20–⁠30 minutes even on a clear day, and fog sets in suddenly. In bad weather the reserve advises getting off the ridge into the forest — by a waymarked trail to the nearest descent, never straight down the slope: in fog that is how people get lost in the valleys. In June snow still lies on the slopes and by the lakes.

In autumn daylight shrinks from 13.4 hours in early September to 8.7 by late November. From late October it is shorter than the 10 hours along the ridge from Hoverla to Pip Ivan, and by late November shorter than half of the whole way, about 9 hours. So late in autumn part of the way will most likely be walked in the dark: carry a headlamp.

Breskul, Pozhyzhevska, Turkul, Brebeneskul, Menchul, Pip Ivan and Vukhatyi Kamin lie in the border zone, where you are not let in without a permit from the border guards.