It doesn't matter where...

What matters is not where you get to but how much ground you cover to get there. I've maintained it for a long time in various forms, thinking, for example, that it would be intellectually dishonest to go up  certain summits by cable car.

Monte Gennaro is not a very high summit, just 1271 metres, in the Monti Lucretili group. As well as lying on the edge of the Monti Lucretili Regional Park, this summit looks out over the great Roman plain and on the clearest days it can be seen from all over Rome.
In winter, with its white cover, its presence hints at the presence of the even higher mountains of the central Apennines.
A mountain that for many years fired the imagination of a child who, travelling along Via Cristoforo Colombo, saw it turn white with every winter cycle.

Monte Gennaro must be climbed from the bottom, any compromise is pointless, pointless going up from Prato Favale to make things less difficult. Climbing from the bottom means understanding its true dimension.

This time I won't reach 2000 metres, no indeed, I'll make do with a summit of scant height.

With Massimo and Fabio we decide that the sunny Sunday will be an excellent moment to build up a bit of wind and harden our legs. I take care of the route, as usual I study the satellite photos on Google Earth and plan an ascent from Stazzano. I print a few sheets and throw a rucksack together.

But it's 7 months since I've been out and ghosts and spectres start to take shape in my mind again. Will I make it? Will I be a nuisance to my hiking companions? Will my ankle swell up again... and...
This time though I'm determined, I really need to let off a bit of tension and I try not to let negative thoughts get the better of me.

At night, as always happens before a climb, I have trouble sleeping. I wake up again and again, three maybe four times. It's tedious and I don't know what time it is... I lie there waiting, the alarm clock has a slower tick than usual...

At six at last the three of us are ready to leave, the sun is already high, as it is in summer. Luckily the destination is “not very far”.

From Stazzano we go up a road, first tarmacked and narrow and then unsurfaced and confusing. We were certainly supposed to turn right onto a dirt track, but here there are dirt tracks galore and all the ones turning right are closed off by fences.

Without meaning to we stray onto private property; there's a farmer tending his olive trees. We apologise for intruding on his property but we also take the chance to ask how to find the way to the Gennaro again.

After getting lost among brambles and nettles we finally manage to pick out a ditch, which we follow up to height. How, we don't know, but twice we come across the dirt track that cuts across the wood on the north side of the Gennaro in a big zed. But paradoxically we always end up doing our own thing. We carry on straight up the ditch.

Massimo and Fabio are jovial, jokey company and despite the brambles they always manage to find something to laugh about. In the end, one detour after another, one uncertainty after another, we manage to define a line of ascent, it's our line... a bit haphazard perhaps but original.

Up high we finally find the path that leads to the antennas and the big old building of the disused cable car.
Physically I'm in pieces, after more than a thousand metres of height gain I feel completely wrecked.
I've stopped little, drunk even less... and my muscles are starting to seize up with cramp. I cover the last metres panting and stopping every 3 steps. I'm exhausted.

Yes, it's true, I'm exhausted, 7 months away from the mountains have completely changed my body. Even so I'm happy now, happy to be here and above all to have managed to climb it against all my expectations.

My ankle hasn't swollen, my courage hasn't failed me, nor has my will. Everything went as it should and in the end the summit is also very interesting and panoramic.

Conquering it from the bottom has an even greater value, I feel this conquest is worth more because I reached it without compromises with myself. Without half measures, going beyond a limit that only my mind had set in these months.

It doesn't matter how high the summit is, what matters is whether or not you toil to earn it... I can say I'm pleased with myself. And I have no regrets... not like all those times I stayed in bed out of laziness.

The summit quickly fills up with hikers coming from Prato Favale, there are men, women, children and I think I can also make out the Four Seasons group, I know them well, they come from Rome too, not far from where I live...

We decide to go down towards Palombara Sabina and walk the tarmac road back to Stazzano. The descent is quick, the path is comfortable and without a single stone, in just an hour and a quarter we're in Palombara Sabina. From here the last four kilometres on tarmac will feel to my feet like gratuitous cruelty...

The whole loop takes us 19 kilometres in all and about 1200 metres of height gain. We're as limp as boiled courgettes but very satisfied. It's a great day, this, once again I recover my enthusiasm and the joy of walking.

For this time I go home with the peace of mind that this time too I gave the best of myself. It doesn't matter where you get to! What matters is where you started from and how much effort you put in!