Trekking in Bieszczady

The Bieszczady have no peaks worth the name and it does not matter. What they have is połoniny — open grass ridges where the forest stops for no reason anyone has fully explained — and a landscape emptied of its villages after 1947, so you walk past orchards and church foundations with no houses around them.

Go in February instead and the same ridge becomes a wind-scoured white plateau with no tree cover for hours, crossed on snowshoes with nine hours of daylight. This is one of Europe's densest wolf populations. You will read their story in the snow constantly and never see one.

No shelter on the ridge for hours at a time, frequent whiteouts in winter, and the lowest population density in the country if something goes wrong.

Park entry ticket required and wild camping is prohibited. Chatka Puchatka sits on the ridge and is unheated — that is the point of it.