The features of a winter hike. An ascent of a snow-covered terrikon

Few people go on winter hikes or walks along snow-covered roads. The short daylight hours and the whims of the weather make their own corrections to travellers' routes. But for those who have resolved on a brief bit of exercise and set off to stretch their bones on the city outskirts, nature will grant fantastic vistas, and a charge of vigour that will last through the whole of the coming working week. The fairy-tale white scenes and the winter freshness enchant and foster a good mood, and the second wind that opens up during the journey urges one to conquer white summits. If there are no mountain ranges nearby, hills and rocks will do. To climb a spoil heap, not sparing one's belly, is an ordinary matter for those who love to storm the cloud-high heights in the coal regions.

 

In the winter period, an ascent of the extinguished peak looks even more attractive and thrilling than a summer forced march to a volcano that no longer breathes.

The trees and other wild plantings have shed their leaves, opening up a view of the terrikon's slopes from every side. Maples, acacias, poplars - the typical ravine vegetation has taken root on the terrikon, lessening the harmful influence of the industrial giants.

 

Some have the Carpathians and relict forests, and we - artificial mountains and man-made forest belts.

Some 60 or 70 years ago, in the period of the post-war restoration of the coal industry, new mine shafts were opened, and the waste rock was hauled off into picturesque gullies. The ravines very quickly filled up with heaps of spent coal seams, turning into peak-like accumulations of underground mass.

The industrial waste of the mining enterprises is sometimes used in road construction. The excavations of the rock mass at the foot of the terrikon show that the resources were in demand by someone.

 

The hollow that has formed makes it possible to look at the contents of the artificial mountain in cross-section. On the upper layer of the terrikon, nature has covered the wounds with self-sown acacias and maples, forming a humus shell of interwoven rhizomes and grassy cover.

The layer of snow has masked the accessible passages to the top, but the tracks of a beast dwelling on the man-made mountain pointed out the optimal path to the desired goal. A hare or a fox will not run along a precipice, but will choose a gentler slope.

Winter has laid bare the dwellings of the feathered inhabitants of the industrial summit, who have settled far from the noisy motorways; but even here the birds are not deprived of the attention of the red-furred trickster.

 

The ascent is complicated by scattered windfall and prickly saplings, and the sandstone monoliths jutting out from under the snowy canopy hinder movement in a straight line.

This whole mountain mass has been extracted from the underground horizons. It is impossible to imagine how many coal seams have been worked out, what volume of driven workings there is, what labyrinths have been created at a depth of more than 600 metres.

On the mountain plateau the height of the snow cover is uneven; the washouts and ditches are filled with sparkling drifts up to half a metre deep, while on the clearings, where the soil was warmed by the gases evaporating from the mass of stone fragments, a green oasis has formed.

 

The range of delighted impressions is completed by the bird's-eye view of the surrounding villages, the picturesque gullies, the mirrors of the frozen ponds. The panorama of the landscape flooded with whiteness will leave no one indifferent. In clear weather the visibility reaches up to 10 kilometres.

 

The way back will not run along a narrow ledge with drawn-out leaps and a high-speed descent; the direction along the uncomplicated route will again be prompted by the traces of a hare's dash.

When setting out on a winter promenade, one must take into account the low air temperature and the unevenness of the snow cover, which can intensively change its structure and density over the course of a few hours.