Hoverla

I had the best birthday celebration ever! My actual birthday was back on August 18, but on August 27, we climbed Hoverla, Ukraine's highest mountain, to celebrate. The climb was hard, but so worth it. And our little blind dog heroically kept up with us. Bogdan only carried him for a few minutes, when it was absolutely impossible for Leo to get through the boulders he couldn't see, and Leo cried that whole time, because he wanted to be walking by himself.

This is something I've wanted to do for a while. At first I had thought that I would have to hire a guide and just go by myself, or with Bogdan. But then we found out that our Ivano-Frankivsk friends have done this before (of course!), I asked them to show us the way. That made it all so much more fun. We started out early on a bus to the town closest to Hoverla. There we hired a transfer car, went to the base, and ate our breakfast. Will and Asya stayed there. The rest of us went up, and yes, it seemed like straight up. Tanya planned for us to take the shorter, steeper way up, then the longer, "gentler" way down. That worked well. 

Leo and I were the last of our little group to make it all the way to the summit, and our friends greeted me with a Hoverla medal, a cupcake, and a birthday candle. Then we took tons of photos and started back down.

My view for most of the day

Coming out of the tree line

Berries!

Lunch break, almost at the top

We made it!

Bogdan's friend slept like this most of the way back.

I should get more of Asya's photos. She and Will had a great time in the beautiful forest around the base.

Many thanks to my parents! This trip was their birthday gift to me.