Choosing a destination and a route is one of the fundamental steps in preparing a hike or a climb.
You could say that human beings have already explored most of the planet, and in particular Italy, which is not so boundless after all. In this respect a great deal of information can be found on the routes that can be walked. The basic tools we can use to plan a route are guidebooks and maps.
As far as maps are concerned, the following publishing series are worth mentioning, where you can find numerous hiking and mountaineering routes in the mountains:
- Edizioni Il Lupo (specialising in summer/winter routes in the central Apennines);
- TCI and CAI in the Guida dei Monti d'Italia series;
- Guide Iter (Stefano Ardito's well-known series);
- The publisher Versante Sud offers a variety of routes ranging from mountaineering to rock routes and even MTB routes.
A lot of material can be found at tourist offices and pro loco offices, at park fairs and at book fairs, where you can often find minor publications of enormous editorial value but with little commercial visibility.
As for maps, most of them are drawn up on the basis of the IGM maps (Istituto Geografico Militare, the Military Geographic Institute). Each map represents a given area with proportions that are specified in a legend on the map itself.
These proportions are written as a mathematical ratio (e.g. 1:10,000), which means that for every unit on the map you have to count n units of the real physical terrain (to continue the example, 1 cm on the map represents 10,000 cm, that is 100 metres of terrain). The maps most frequently used are those with a scale of 1:25,000, which means that every centimetre of the map corresponds to 250 metres of terrain. As proof that 1:25,000 maps are the optimal maps, note that the most widespread ones in the United States are very similar, with a ratio of 1:24,000.
Starting from the map you can plan the kilometres of walking you are likely to cover. For an inexperienced hiker we advise not planning more than 7-8 kilometres on the flat, as the map never takes account of the verticality of the mountain and of the likely effort needed to climb the slopes. For experienced hikers you can also plan routes ranging from 8 to 14-18 km, bearing in mind that covering such distances in mountain terrain, climbing slopes and crossing woods, takes many hours. Sometimes the outing can take a whole day, and it's best not to find yourself in difficult terrain as night falls.
Guidebooks offer gradings that do not always give a clear idea of the difficulty of the routes. From this point of view the best way to choose a route is to get to know the mountain areas step by step, exploring ever wider areas. It takes time to understand which distances can be covered and what our technical and physical abilities are.
Finally, a brand-new tool for planning your hikes is Google's free program, Google Earth, which lets you look in great detail at satellite photographs of the mountain areas of our country.
The further advantage of using this program is being able to see the three-dimensional shape of the chosen mountain group, reproducing a fairly accurate view of the difficulties you might encounter.
Bear in mind that a satellite photograph is a view of the terrain seen from above, which does not allow the verticality of towers, overhangs and vertical walls to be observed and represented correctly.
Nevertheless, although Google's three-dimensional representation is (as you might guess) an approximate one, it makes getting to know the terrain and interpreting maps much easier.