Mount Kostrycha

Kostrycha is the 1,586 m highest summit of the ridge of the same name. The Kostrycha ridge, which also includes Mount Kostrych (1,544 m) and Mount Kostrytsia (1,512 m), lies between the Chornohora range to the south-west and the Pokuttia-Bukovina Carpathians to the east. The nearest village is Kryvopillia in the Verkhovyna district of Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, followed by Staishche and Bystrets.

How to get there

The classic approach starts at the Kryvopillia Pass (1,013 m): follow the red waymarks over the Bukovien, Vesnarka and Rohalova pastures to the summit and back to the pass, or take the shorter yellow-marked variant. On our site there is a short Kostrycha traverse (2.5 km) as well as longer routes passing the summit: Krasnyk – Kostrych ridge – Mount Kukul – Voronenko (39.2 km) and Iltsi – Mount Kukul – Voronenko (45.8 km). The East Carpathian Trail also runs along the Kostrycha ridge. From here it is easy to continue to neighbouring Kukul.

Water, shelter and safety

According to our map there are two springs near the summit, about 0.8 and 1.6 km away, and a hut on the Vesnarka pasture 1.5 km away. The ridge is mostly treeless and dangerous in a thunderstorm: check the forecast and descend in good time. In fog it is easy to lose the path on the wide pastures, so stick to the waymarks and carry an offline map. In an emergency call 112 or 101; contacts of the nearest units are on our mountain rescue page.

Interesting facts

• The name is linked to the word “koster”, a stack of hay or firewood: haystacks probably stood on the ridge's wide pastures in the old days. Another version derives it from fescue grass (kostrytsia), which grows on Carpathian slopes.
• A Polish scout mountain hut shaped like a Hutsul gražda stood on Kostrycha; it opened on 15 December 1935 and was burned during the Second World War. Only ruins remain.

Photos: Nata Mostova, CC BY-SA 4.0; Oleksandr Bravo, CC BY-SA 4.0; Віталій Попков, CC BY-SA 4.0; Jan Jaroszyński, Public domain — Wikimedia Commons.