Expedition to Marmarosh – a winter Carpathian RETREAT

Marmarosh – the name of the mountain range that runs along the border of Ukraine and Romania – comes from the abundance of marble scree in these places. The highest mountain is the shining firn-covered Pop Ivan (1937 m). Marmarosh is a protected zone of a Ukrainian nature reserve, home to the rarest animals, including bears, wolves and lynxes.

These are virgin places, far from settlements, where civilisation has not reached – the most suitable place for contact with silence, with inner and outer summits, with the borders of awareness and the boundless possibilities hidden within a person.

The journey went through the deep snows of the wild Carpathian forests, along the mountain ridge, at altitudes from 1500 to almost 2000 m.

A day before the climb we met; the guide checked our clothing and equipment, and gave the last briefing… Yet, having dared a mountain crossing at this time of year and at these heights, every participant understood that they alone were chiefly responsible for their own processes and their own safety.

Day 1.

1 February 2011, early morning, 4+1 people arrived at the station of a small settlement, fully ready for a nine-day extreme crossing and inner transformation. Having had coffee in a roadside café, and having astonished the locals with our bulky rucksacks and ice axes, the 4+1 set off, crossing streams, along a snowy serpentine road, through a sparkling forest to our first high-altitude camp. The hike lasted the whole of the daylight and, after a violet-and-orange sunset, about 4 more hours in the twilight. And when Orion shone clearly in the sky (I should say he accompanied us all along our way), the group, already ready to pitch tents in the snow, discovered a wooden house on the slope of the summit. It was the guide’s surprise! He had kept it like a trick up his sleeve, a secret from the participants. To walk about 30 km uphill with heavy rucksacks and find, at that height, in these wildest, windy and cold places, a warm house is bliss.

Day 2.

We are certainly lucky – so far. The sky is clear, dazzlingly sunny, and all around is sparkling white!

The group made a radial day trip to the two nearest summits, travelling light – with small assault rucksacks, tea and dried fruit. We returned to the camp at sunset and for a long time saw off the orange disc of the sun, which was making coloured shimmers on the blue-grey clouds.

Day 3.

All night an enthusiast from the group diligently threw logs into the stove, and the sleeping bags became irrelevant; we had to undress to survive, and not wring out wet clothes afterwards. In the morning we bathed in the snow – it made a glorious sauna…

Having fortified ourselves well, we set off for Pop Ivan. The summit glittered with firn, was steep, and some mountaineering training was needed. We climbed with a three-beat step: “crampon-crampon-ice axe”. Snowshoes have a pair of iron teeth at the toe for walking on icy slopes, but they are not crampons, and here special attention is required; the word “awareness” takes on a very tangible, non-philosophical meaning. The breathing is astonishingly full, connected and rhythmic, the state very flowing, a complete totality – a unity of action, thought and feeling, and only in this lies the guarantee of reaching the summit as a goal and protection from a fall.

On the summit the way is clearly visible – the long ridge of a great mountain country. We stand on the state border; on both sides, in the gorges, there are mists and thick clouds, and above us a bottomless dome of the bluest sky and, in a rainbow ring, the white disc of the sun.

Further on we move precisely along the ridge, having swapped ice axes for ski poles, going round snow cornices, walking step by step in each other’s tracks towards the sun: on the left – Romania, on the right – Ukraine. Having covered some eight kilometres, having taken in with our attention the breadth and depth of the summit distances, having left one more peak behind us, we make a halt in a snow bowl: tea, rusks, raisins and ghee.

The height inspires and gives strength – and there is still so much day ahead! The mountain ridge begins to descend into the coniferous forests, but we decide not to go down with it, not to wade through the deep snow between the fir trees, but to return by our summit path. The sun is now in pearly shreds of cloud, but still clear. A couple of places on the ridge, as “narrow” as a razor’s blade, which I passed hoping not to go this way again, were crossed with the help of the men. On the way back, approaching the main summit of Pop Ivan, we walked into a cloud and twilight and a blizzard overtook us. Suddenly it turned sharply colder, an icy wind, noise and visibility almost zero – 2–3 metres.

Orientation by gradient: take a step to where it is higher, and sooner or later you will come out to the summit. We came out onto the summit, and that it was the same(!) summit we had stormed in the morning we learned only from the guide’s words. We decided to take his word for it))

And what next? – A squally wind, the roar of gusts and the darkening body of a dense cloud in which the participants, white, evenly covered in rime, came out onto the last summit. We have to descend – somewhere below is a warm house, and how can one even imagine it? It is hard to believe it is reality, maybe it is a dream? – a hyperreal picture: darting snowflakes and gusts of wind that haven’t decided on a trajectory. It blows in all directions at once and upwards at the same time. The weight of the rucksack and the ice axe give a pleasant steadiness and the hope that we won’t be blown away right away. But it is impossible to descend here!

The guide said: “we’ll slide – get out your ice axes. How to dig in when you slip, we practised this morning, off we go.” And after a few steps into the grey abyss each one, in their own hour, slipped, slid, braking with the ice axe. Slid down into the fog, some hoping, others sure that somewhere there they would begin to slow down rather than pick up speed, and eventually stop and get up onto the path to the house. And someone even sang on the way down. The participants were not equally frightened. And against my own background the men looked very good.

We came down to the saddle.

The house, the hearth, warm food. The crackle of fire and hot tea – so simple… This is paradise. The faces of the participants are extraordinarily beautiful – the people have grown older by one life.

Day 4.

Morning, the sky is clear; now we leave the house for good, the next night is in a tent on the snow. The route along the ridge goes through the main summit – Pop Ivan again, but this time with fully loaded rucksacks. Climbing to the summit, each of us now chooses their own path and way of ascending, the body remembers the mountain, all that is left is to trust it. Having passed the summit, we now move left. The sun shines after us. The descents and ascents are by now familiar, there are almost no thoughts, again sliding in the snow, no longer so frightening, but more and more frighteningly interesting. Having passed the main summit, we lose a little height, and now the mountain ridge dives into the spruces and firs. We follow the tracks of an APC, along the border posts striped yellow-and-blue. We walk all day, the sun melts the snow on the coniferous boughs, forming icicles, and in the patches of shade it is very cold.

In the high mountains of the damp Carpathians winter is winter! Walking is warm!? because only this way, and only here – in winter in the mountains – can you feel and live through the fact that a human being is a star: generating heat, and drawing it out – infrared radiation from yourself. The rhythm of steps and breath creates a dynamic flow. You can dissolve in it, disappear, and, watching from above how the body moves in the flow, not disturb it… with thoughts.

We walk on after sunset. And only towards evening does the weight of the rucksack become uncomfortable. And the eye looks for a place to camp. And we have almost pitched it already… But a house again! – another surprise from the guide. There is no stove in the house, and no doors either, we pitch the tents on a wooden floor. The temperature inside is the same as outside, spilled tea freezes at once, but there is no wind and it seems much warmer here. There is a stream nearby – we won’t have to melt snow! The food will be ready faster, and we want to eat – a lot!

Day 5.

Morning. Beyond the doorway – “white milk”: these are the clouds that were visible from the summit, and now we are in them. The hike began in fog. Then wind and a blizzard rose. We were being blown off the ridge. We fall in up to the waist in snow – even in snowshoes – we walk slowly, constantly scrambling out of snowdrifts.

We go down to the lower path, there is less wind. We cut across below the summit. This place is called Mika-Mare. From there there is a view of the Rocks of Death. We go along a traverse: on the right the mountain, on the left drops into thickets, and below them clouds and fog, and it is somehow unpleasant… that you can’t see the bottom of this depth – a sloping little wall; here it is better to switch off the “inner dialogue”, forget everything you know about flying and rhythmically cut steps.

In the second half of the day (hard to tell at once – the sun isn’t visible) we came out onto a wider path and followed fresh tracks. Strange, where do lone tracks come from here? On both sides of the border for 20 km there are no settlements. And why are there yellow patches every 10 m? Aaah, these aren’t feet at all, but paws that trod here: toes splayed, and not two but all four, sometimes in big leaps. A bear, of course, had passed here. Had passed and marked its territory. That didn’t frighten us; it amused us rather, although one of the participants changed his mind about going first.

We spent the night in the snow, pitching the tent while it was still light.

Day 6.

Visibility is no better. All around is “milk”. Only the guide is sure that we are following the route exactly. At a fork, pointing into thick fog, he jokes mockingly: “Look: a stunning view opens up here of the Rocks of Death,” to the right into the fog: “there you see the Chornohora ridge and the observatory, and over there you can make out the summit of Mount Stih.” We have a snack, “admire” the views shown to us and move on into the twilight fog. And again a house. It has almost no roof, is easy to spot, there is no floor, we pitch the tents in the snow, under the windward wall. In the house we make a kitchen and a “buffet”. In the evening we drink mulled wine in the tent, philosophising, diluting with jokes the revelations found on the way… Thought balances on the edge of eroticism and spirituality; pornography and reality. But that is already a subject for a separate article:))

Day 7.

We come down from the ridge. The forest is in heavy wet snow. The snow falls in sacks from the fir boughs. The descent through the forest is like ski freeriding: we move in a traverse, in wide long strides. We glide, and not always on our feet. In the valley the picture is completely different: the temperature is about -0 degrees, it smells of spring and a little bird sings. We came out to a river and walked along the riverbed, breaking the ice, listening to the murmur of the mountain river; at the halts we wash in spring water, drink and eat and move on. The river grows wider, meets the road. We come to a fork, cross a bridge. Lots of sun, blue shadows, wet ice along the riverbed and snow bridges – we bathe, pitch the tent, cook, spend the night on the bank. Night, the sky is clear, Orion distinct, the silhouettes of the firs above along the edge of the mountains and the singing river.

Day 8.

A late morning, sun

We walk to the village. The road is straight, packed down, timber lorries drive by. Snowshoes are strapped to the rucksacks. It is easy and bright to walk. Light in the body and all around. Something warm remains inside from the summit snows. … gradually opens up the valley. A cosy silence between the participants. Spontaneous and natural: each meditates in their own way, in a pause contemplating their own “sunbeam” outside themselves or inside, whichever tastes right now. Time stood still… The light of day gathers strength.

A night on the train – we’re going to Lviv.

Day 9.

With rucksacks from the station on foot to the office in the centre, quite easy: “it’s a straight road!”. We took off the rucksacks – and simply fly. We glide into the dynamics of the city, passers-by moving in all directions. People in the city are like fir trees along the trail: different in their uniqueness and at the same time – alike in their static “dusting”. They are one with the city, like trees with the forest, dependent and stopped, stuck in their snows. It’s good that they are not us: walking, light and free. And moving among the passers-by, we do not truly cross paths – we move in different space-time tunnels. I want to hold on to the state. Attentively and carefully – towards myself and others. In the evening, a sauna.

And here is the end… or the beginning of a new path…

– Sahis

P.S. Out of respect for the inner processes of the retreat participants: the practices, private processes and personal insights are not described in the expedition report.

Photographs by and guide in the Carpathians – Sergey Kryzhanovsky more photos here