Gorgany

Ґорґани (Ukrainian/Rusyn)   Gorgany (Polish/Czech/Slovak)   Gorgánok (Hungarian)

The Gorgany mountains are exceptional. They have as many as thirteen summits with more than 500 m of prominence, while no other range in the Carpathians have more than three! The central and northern ridges of the Gorgany, formed of hard sandstone, feature – unlike the other parts of the flysch Carpathians – vast blockfields, locally called grekhot or gorgan. Thanks to these seas of rocks most of the Gorgany has always been sparsely populated, spared from pastoralism and covered – above the vast forest zone – by blockfields or densely growing bushes of dwarf mountain pine (Pinus mugo) rather than meadows. Apart from that talus, the Gorgany is atypical of the flysch ranges for its bold relief. The slopes can be very steep, the valleys deep and many peaks resemble pyramids, or tumuli, in shape, which makes you wonder if the name of the mountains might derive from the word kurgan, Turkic and Slavic for tumulus. All this makes the Gorgany one of the wildest mountain ranges in all of the Carpathians. Hiking off the waymarked trail normally means arduous bushwhacking here.

The Gorgany with an area of about three thousand square kilometers is the largest mountain range in the Ukrainian Carpathians. In a nutshell, it is a large rectangle stretching between the Skole Beskyds in the northwest and the Prut River in the southeast. More precisely, it is part of the Wooded Carpathians (called Wooded Beskids in Poland) lying between the Skole Beskyds (Skolivs’ky Beskydy) and the Eastern Bieszczady (Vododilnyi Khrebet) to the northwest, and the upper course of the Prut River (beyond which the Pokuts’ki Karpaty extend) to the southeast. On the southwest the Gorgany is bounded by three polonyna ranges: Borzhava, Krasna and Svydovets. The rectangle of the Gorgany would be more regular if the south part of their southwest boundary had not been pushed north by the Svydovets, which has nearly cut the Gorgany off from the Chornohora.

The topography of the mountains is terribly complicated, thus difficult to describe. Due to the homogeneous geology of the mountains, the drainage pattern is rectangular – it forms a very regular grid. The main ridge, separating the drainage basins of the Dniester and the Tisza (Tisa) runs between the passes of Toruns'kyi Pereval to the northwest and Yablunitskyi Pereval to the southeast. As some of the tributaries of the Dniester, which flow north, have managed to cut across what once must have been the main ridge and move their sources further south by headward erosion, today’s main ridge winds its way taking unexpected sharp turns. Although it is 75 km as the crow flies between the opposite ends of the main ridge, its actual length is as much as 130 kilometers! It is still marked by stone posts placed after World War I on the then Poland-Czechoslovakia border (formerly the NE boundary of Hungary), thus making for a long route popular with tough trekkers.

To clarify the Gorgany’s complex topography as well as adjusting the description to the needs of the hiker and peakbagger, we are going to focus on the ridges that rise above 1600 m (and one topographically important ridge that falls just several meters short of the mark).

On a map of the Ukrainian Carpathians you will find almost all of the Gorgany between the P-21 regional road and the H-09 national road. The key bases for hikes in the most attractive parts of the mountains are the villages of Osmoloda on the Limnytsia River (NW quarter of the Gorgany) and Bystrytsia on the Bystrytsia Nadvirnianska River (in the SE quarter, before World War II known as Rafajłowa). Between these villages extend the highest ridges in the Gorgany attaining their highest elevation in Velyka (Great) Syvulia at 1836 m (about 770 m of prominence), not far from the geographic center of the mountains. (The second highest summit is Mala (Little) Syvulia at 1818 m, around a kilometer away. The third and fourth are Ihrovets at 1804 m and Vysoka at 1803 m on a nearby ridge extending a bit farther northwest.) Nearly in the same direction as the Osmoloda-Bystrytsia line, northwest from Osmoloda runs the rather monotonous ridge of Arshytsia (1587 m), while southeast from Bystrytsia stretches the beautiful, wild ridge of Dovbushanka (1754 m) and further southeast its continuation (cut off from Dovbushanka by Zubrinka Creek), the ridge of Syniak (1665 m).

Parallel to the Arshytsia Ridge, southwest of it, across Mshana creek, still a good few kilometers north of the main ridge, sits the group of Yayko Ilemske and Moloda. To the southeast of it and southwest of Osmoloda village, in the very heart of the Gorgany, is the huge Popadia-Grofa Group reaching a peak in Grofa at 1748 m, which gives breathtaking panoramic vistas. Popadia at 1740 m, the mid-point of this U-shaped mountain group, where it connects to the main ridge, commands even better views, but is harder to reach.

The ridges that lie in the northwest part of the Gorgany, branching off the main ridge to generally trend southwest, are similar in character to the neighboring polonyna ranges – their highest parts are covered by grass rather than talus. The two highest of them, namely Pishkonia and Strymba, exceed 1700 m in elevation.

East of Strymba, on a huge ‘meander’ of the main ridge, sits Bushtul at 1691m - a real challenge to the hiker, completely overgrown with dwarf mountain pine. The highest ridge in the southeast of the Gorgany is Bratkivskyi Khrebet, another stretch of the main ridge, trending southeast, which tops out at 1788 m. It is characterized by endless forests and seas of Pinus mugo. 

The table below lists the above-mentioned chunks of the Gorgany. (Polish and Slovak/Czech toponyms sound and spell almost the same as the Ukrainian/Rusyn ones. If the traditional Polish name is noticeably or entirely different, it is given in italics in brackets.)

Mountain

group/ridge

Location

within

the Gorgany

Photo

Highest summit

and its elevation

in meters

Good access

points

Syvulia

Central part,

SE of

Osmoloda,

NW of

Bystrytsia

Velyka

Syvulia

1836 

Osmoloda,

Stara Huta,

Bystrytsia

Ihrovysche

Central part,

NW of

Syvulia,

SE of

Osmoloda

Ihrovets

1804,

Vysoka

1803 

Osmoloda,

Stara Huta

Bratkivskyi

Khrebet

(Połonina

Czarna)

In the SE

Velyka

Bratkivska

1788 

Bystrytsia,

Chorna Tysa

(via source

of the river)

Dovbushanka

(Doboszanka)

and

Syniak

In the East

Dovbushanka

1754 

Syniak

1665 

Access

banned

Bukovel resort,

Tatariv

on H-09

Popadia-

Grofa

Central part,

west of

Syvulia

Grofa

1748 

Osmoloda

Moloda

and

Yayko

Ilemske

In the NW,

SW of

Arshytsia

Moloda

1724

and

Yayko

Ilemske

1680 

Myslivka

on P-21,

Osmoloda

Strymba

In the SW,

E of

Pishkonia

Strymba

1719 

Kolochava

Polonyna

Pishkonia

In the SW

Nehrovets

1709 

Kolochava,

Synevyr

Bushtul

S of Popadia,

NW of

Bratkivskyi

Khrebet

Bushtul

1691 

No marked

trail,

access via 

historic

boundary

Arshytsia

NW part,

NW of

Osmoloda

Gorgan

Ilemskyi

1587 

Osmoloda,

Myslivka

on P-21