Остання мандрівка Україною - частина 3: Яремче | A final wander around Ukraine - part 3: Yaremche

There's something particularly romantic about the way the train winds through Yaremche: a certain grandeur as the train approaches the platform, heralded by that classic whistle sounding of industry and faraway places; a quiet grace in the way the tracks curve on the way out of town and disappear into mountains dusted with fresh snow even in May. The tracks are a reminder that Yaremche is a gateway; a place from which one is constantly beckoned to go onward, in search of adventure or quiet or authenticity or whatever it is that one seeks in mountain meadows and pine forests.

I'm glad I made it here before the end of my service. Yaremche is well known among Ukrainians and foreign visitors alike as a destination for outdoor recreation. It is home base for numerous youth summer camps and a starting point for day hikes and backpacking trips. Perhaps most importantly, from Yaremche you can enter the Carpathian National Nature Park, where if the capricious mountain weather is in your favor you can hike Ukraine's tallest peak, Mount Hoverla.

I was fortunate enough to summit Hoverla in 2018

I've been to the Carpathian Mountains three times since coming to Ukraine, and each time it has been a journey of discovery. Yaremche elevates that feeling further with its constant beckoning: the train tracks heading onward to mountain towns like Vorokhta and Rakhiv; the many cottages with their vacancy signs hung outside, inviting tired travelers in for the night; the ubiquitous advertisements for bus tours and guided treks and cozy mountain evenings in hot tubs.

Є вільні місця - "There are free spaces". These signs, in various shapes and sizes and styles, are all over Yaremche. 

It can almost be a bit too much. When I was walking around Yaremche hauling my suitcase, it was like I had a target on my back. Did I need a taxi? A room for the night? Did I want to go four-wheeling for 1500 hryvnia? How about some traditional Hutsul cuisine? Local souvenirs? But while the tourist-targeted advertising can be heavy-handed, the feeling in Yaremche of being on the way to something, of being in motion, is deep and unshakable. It was there long before the advertisements.

Shot from an overnight horseback trek in 2017.

An unshakable sense of motion perhaps sounds like a contradiction, but I think anyone who has gotten to know a mountain or two will understand what I mean. All around Yaremche the Carpathians stand, ancient, silently beckoning, and then they catch you off guard with unanticipated fields of newly bloomed wildflowers or sudden spring snowstorms.

These two photos are from the same hike. 

I cannot say much else except, "Come to Yaremche." In doing so I join the chorus of advertisements and vacationing locals and rushing rivers and creaky old bridges and mountain breezes and train whistles. They have different voices. Depending on where you are, you will hear some louder than others. But they all, in their own way, are saying, "Come to Yaremche."