«The Rock», «The Falcon Rocks», «The Rock of Falcon»

All three titles represent the different versions of the same place. On the soviet military maps, the place is marked a Mount Skala, while the locals tend to name it "The Rock of Falcon" and the modern tourist guides of the Perechyn region refer to the spot as "The Falcons Rocks".

To make a long story short, we decided to visit the spot named as the "Rocks close to the Novoselitsa village". I should say that after the trip, we were well prepared to present a seminar on a topic something along the lines of "The effect of the permanent ethylacetate odour on the pathology of the chronic asthmatic processes". The rocks themselves are actually a consequence of the mountain "Skala" breaking in half in some no so distant past. The local population provides a simple explanation to the origins of the rock formation – "The mountain was just sitting there looking good until all of a sudden a huge piece fell off revealing the rocks".

The shortest way of getting to the Rocks is probably by leaving your means of transportation in the village of the Novoselitsa and hiking up about another 2 kilometers to the summit going around the mountain on the right. What we decided to do though is to make our feet do all the extra work and ascended from the opposite side of the mountain (i.e. directly from Perechyn), which was about 8 kilometers both ways.

The two breast-shaped hills are found close by Perechyn. The one on the right is called the Tall Mountain (429 meters above the sea-level). I personally think this 400 m tall hill didn’t deserve this name at all.



This is the view at the back-side of the Mount Skala (you can see it on the left above the road). On the right, part of the Mount Golitsa (983 m above the sea level) can be seen. The latter actually seems to be almost located in neighboring Slovakia.



It really takes awhile before the first signs of the proximity to the rocky terrain become obvious. Eventually though, after some time you do start getting a feeling the rocks must be nearby.



Lo and behold, the first rock pops up.



Soon thereafter another one is hanging over



And then a truly phenomenal view of the Bereznyi region opens up. The strip-looking village going across a photograph in the center is actually Novotselitsa and on upper left side in between the sky and the mountains one can see the town of Velykyi Bereznyi.



A tiny lake among the rocks



An incredible view on one of the rocks of the chain



…and here’s another one…



On the way back we decided to descend down to the bottom of the rock chain. I couldn’t help the curiosity to take a look at what exactly had happened down there as the mountain was breaking in half. The view at the bottom was quite amazing with lots of mossy boulders and huge chunks of what once was a mountain covering the ground.



In summary. The route is recommended for visits by the beginners who are at least somewhat prepared for the terrain. I’d say the most difficult part is the extremely steep ascend starting right at the bottom of the hill. Just to give you an idea, the ascent to “Sokolets” is a lot less steep and is no match to this one. There’s always a feeling of the ground literally just slipping away from under your feet and at times I was really regretting not having a rope on me. The total length of the route is just under 9 kilometers. The time needed is about 5-6 hours.

18.10.2010. 08:17

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