We are at about 850m. The peak is at 2061m. The car park at Zaroslyak is at about 1250m.

Using our enormous mathematical ability that means we had about 800m to walk up (and about 3.5km along).

We would have liked to have seen the Caucasian Mountains like this but alas, the political situation in Georgia and surrounds put a real block on that thought.

A hand written book with lots of columns needing vehicle registration and passport and a few of the other useless bits of info beloved of bureaucrats..

All very friendly and helpful. Including an A4 sized copy of a cm to the km topographic (contour) map with routes marked.

Along with some very definite instructions about "go this way, don't go that way".

We are well used to walking with large scale contour maps and a compass so this was very welcome after 6 months without.

On the way into the park we saw evidence of plantations and logging

The origin of the Carpathians is in the same orogeny as the Alps. Just not as high or as steep. Mostly in Ukraine they extend into Moldava and Rumania.

The trees are mainly spruce, fir and, a bit of a surprise for us, beech. Mostly evergreen, and quite different to the deciduous trees we've been seeing for the last couple of months.

The park has areas of strict protection, regulated recreation, stationary recreation and economic.

Some sort of winter sports training centre and reputedly a hotel.

These buildings at the car park were fairly low key souvenir stalls.

Clear blue skies (really, not a cloud in sight) and cold (the snow was dry rather than slushy and icy).

As we climbed above the tree line we could see further and further.

The bit up the ridge is quite steep.

Doing our best imitation of mountain goats it took us a bit more than the couple of hours the park people reckon it takes to the top.

We are beginning to feel our age. 

There were some other walkers on our track, including a 10 year old girl celebrating her birthday with lots of encouragement from mum and dad (reminiscent of some of the things we dragged our kids through!).

Perhaps the packaging industry has the only real consumer use of prime numbers, 

Not enough biscuits of course as they were all eaten. And we'd bought an odd number!

Easier going now though.

Having said that, it was a bit slippier than it looked and part way up we had doubts about whether to proceed.

As always though we were pleased we did.

There were other people around. They seemed to have been more adventurous than us and walked along a south-north ridge for several km.

Also a guided tour that seemed to have come along the ridge and descended where we had ascended.

We saw a friendlier side of Ukrainians than we've met so far. A drink of something warm from the father of our 10 year old birthday girl. Advice on the tracks. Pleasant surprise at us having come from Australia.

Perhaps just the normal effect of people who have walked up a hill anywhere in the world - the higher we are the more willing people are to talk. It certainly helped make a good day better.

Probably because of a total lack of wind of any description.

To help the memory cells, though they hardly need any assistance in this case, this picture is now the desktop background on the netbook.

There are numerous "no fires" notices throughout Ukraine which seem to be cheerfully ignored.

Ali stayed inside with the heater on and made a late lunch while I bravely sacrificed myself to the elements and filled the tanks.

It wasn't too bad once I'd learned not to get my hands wet and cold.

Well worth it for some clear mountain stream water.

We were both tired and aching after only 5 hours of walking. Back to our campsite of the previous night to nurse our aches and pains.

Then a rest day in the same campsite.

Next stop is Hungary. Now that we have a sense of what the weather may have done to the mountain passes we can decide whether to cross the Carpathians and follow the River Tisa, which marks the border, or drive round the north of the mountains.

Methinks we'll try the mountain passes (a bit less than 1000m). We'll take a couple of days to drive to the border.