An exploratory hike on the Monti della Laga

The goal was to climb Cima Lepri from Voceto. This enigmatic winter is giving us one day of fine weather after another. For Sunday brilliant sunshine is forecast, I contact a few friends and Maurizio answers the call. He's just back from a wedding but despite the lunch he's ready and raring to go for a day of great hiking.

I met Maurizio at the CAI (Italian Alpine Club), Frascati section, I heard him saying that he had no one to go out with, and few friends to share the odd pre-dawn outing with... The question comes up
of brushing up on abseiling... I go up to him and we immediately agree to swap e-mail addresses.

Once in Amatrice we take the right road, turning right before entering the town and following the signs for Sommati. One way or another... I end up on the wrong road and we arrive at the locality of San Martino, near a delightful little church.
Here we leave the car and, after changing into our boots, we set off in search of the route.
I look at the map but what I see is illusory. By a second unlucky circumstance, instead of following the signs (which I blithely ignore) I take a little lane that points straight at the obvious Cima Lepri. Going wrong in these new places is certainly nothing new … the country lanes all look alike and you need to pay attention.

The road climbs gradually towards the imposing massif of Cima Lepri.  In wide bends the gravel road continues up to the Monticello at about 1522 m. Below us we hear the meltwater from the snow trickling down into the Fosso San Martino.

The view in this place is incredible, never seen anything like it, stunning, wonderful, I'm enraptured by the towers and the erosion shapes of the mountain. It would be worth coming here just for this view. The snow makes it all even more interesting. We are below the rocky mass of the Peschio Palombo. Its ridge (Piè di Lepre) runs on as far as Cima Lepri. It's beautiful.

I take photo after photo and almost regret not having brought the SLR camera. Maurizio seems to appreciate the landscape too. He has had the bad luck of bringing his camera with flat batteries. I take a few extra photos for all the ones he couldn't take himself.

Below the Peschio Palombo I realise I've taken the wrong path, having in fact followed the variant that from San Martino follows the Sentiero Italia along path no. 300.

We decide to try to get back onto the planned route by staying below the Peschio Palombo, trying to cross over the Colle di San Giovanni and pick up path 367. The snow gets deeper and more treacherous; as I had predicted in the previous days, the snowpack is insidious and covers a layer of icy verglas. After a few exposed traverses below the Peschio Palombo we finally find ourselves on the Colle San Giovanni; from here the view opens onto the stream valley of Iaccio Porcelli and towards the long ridge of the Cavallo di Voceto. The view isn't as extraordinary as the one we enjoyed on the Peschio Palombo, but just as interesting. We carry on undaunted along our somewhat tortuous route and finally pick up path 367, finding the CAI waymarks again on the trees and the surrounding rocks. No doubt about it, this is the right route.

The problem is that in the meantime it's got late... it's almost a quarter to twelve. Going at this speed, with the continual changes of route and floundering about in the powder snow, we're taking twice as long.
We reach the stream bed and hear the water running under the snow, we cross quickly, playing with the snow for a few moments, then set off again climbing towards the Cresta del Cavallo di Voceto. At 1622 m, tired and by now behind schedule, we realise that the hike is over. No point carrying on. A quick estimate tells us we're too late and that if we continue at this pace we risk reaching the summit after four in the afternoon.
We stop, eat a bite and chat cheerfully about this and that. One subject that binds us is family. Maurizio too has a little girl and a baby boy on the way. We talk about mountains, family, work, all with a lightness I hadn't felt for a long time.

A few thoughts on the winter mountains and on the technique of moving on snow and ice.

It had been years since I'd gone the wrong way... I think about it straight away and feel a strange joy, because I sense that at last the adventurous pioneering of the early days is back, of those times when I went out without really knowing the terrain. These areas, these mountains, the Monti della Laga still hold many unexplored corners (new to me). This mistake is a source of fresh enthusiasm. I know I'll be back soon in these rocky valleys, on these snowy ridges.

I'm here to train my legs and that aim has already been achieved; the landscape makes it all decidedly pleasant. The Laga can offer the occasional walker and the more seasoned trekker alike an infinity of possibilities.

With Maurizio I feel I'm at the same level of technical preparation. To some extent I have the same fears, the same respect for the mountains. We share the thought of our families and the fact that we're both IT people. We both have the obtuseness typical of IT people. We'd like a reality of blacks and whites, of true or false answers. And yet we're both here to discover the shades of grey of reality and of our complex personalities.

The return is by the right path (path no. 367), along a very wide and easy gravel road. Had we come up this way it would have taken us 1/3 of the time. Instead, between awkward ups and downs and traverses on the snow, we were slow. It must be said, though, that if we hadn't gone up by the Sentiero Italia we would never have discovered the imposing, wonderful rocky flanks of the Peschio Palombo. Which goes to show that even a mistake can bring something positive.

I used to say that “if everything goes like clockwork you learn nothing”... on this occasion too I find how important it is to make small mistakes. You move along a razor's edge... all your life; the important thing is to make sure that circumstances, mistakes and the whole set of unlucky coincidences never turn into tragic eventualities with no way back. You must always have the foresight to understand when to stop, the humility to admit that you're wrong, the ability to put it right and to know how to wait for the next chance. Because Cima Lepri is always there... and it isn't going anywhere...