Mount Plai

Plai is a 1,323 m mountain in the Polonyna Borzhava massif (Polonynskyi Ridge), in the Mukachevo district of Zakarpattia Oblast. It rises south of Volovets; the nearest settlements are Volovets and Huklyvyi. The summit is treeless, the slopes are steep (especially to the east) and the foot of the mountain is forested. To the north-west lies Temnatyk, to the south-east Velykyi Verkh (1,598 m), beyond which the ridge leads to the highest summit of Borzhava, Stii (1,681 m).

How to get there

Plai is the first big summit on the way from Volovets onto the main Borzhava ridge, so most of our routes from the village cross it:

• Volovets — Mt Plai — Mt Velykyi Verkh — Mt Hemba — Shypit waterfall — Volovets, 29.3 km;
• Volovets — Mt Plai — Mt Velykyi Verkh — Mt Stii — Mt Hemba — Shypit waterfall, 25.1 km;
• Volovets — Mt Tsytska — Mt Temnatyk — Mt Plai — Mt Velykyi Verkh — Mt Stii — Vovchyi, 50.4 km, a multi-day hike.

The Transcarpathian Tourist Trail also passes close to Plai. Volovets has a railway station, so you can start walking straight from the train.

Water, shelter and safety

Our map shows the «Sviata Krynytsia» spring about 2 km from the summit and a shepherd hut (kolyba) under Velykyi Verkh about 2.4 km away. Above the tree line the ridge is fully exposed — there is no shelter from wind, rain or lightning, and in fog it is easy to lose the path, so carry an offline map, warm clothes and enough water. In winter avalanches are possible on the open slopes of Borzhava. In an emergency call 112 or 101 — the mountain rescue units of Zakarpattia work around the clock.

Interesting facts

• A weather station has been operating on Mount Plai since 1968. In 1969–1970 Viacheslav Chornovil worked here as an observer; a memorial sign was placed on the mountain on 15 September 2007.
• The summit holds permanent buildings (some of them abandoned) and a radio relay station with antennas.
• The word «plai» is common throughout the Carpathians and means a mountain path; it is of Romanian-Wallachian origin.
• Nearby stand the ruins of the so-called «Old Cheese Dairy», a milk-processing station built in Austro-Hungarian times as part of Edmund Egan's «Highland Action».

Photos: Svyatko eco, CC BY-SA 4.0; Alex Zelenko, CC BY-SA 4.0; Alex Zelenko, CC BY-SA 4.0; A1, CC0 — Wikimedia Commons.