Monte San Nicola - The strength of children...

Thursday 1 July 2010

Summer is in full swing, the first heat is arriving, the long days, the bright sky and the sun are the prelude to many beautiful hikes. In recent weeks we have had typical summer weather. Strong sun, humidity in the air and afternoon downpours.
The urge to go off alone into the mountains is strong, but I still have a few open chapters with my daughter Elisa. After all, a promise, when it is a real one, has to be kept. My word to my daughter is not just a matter of principle; my word can be a concrete support for her in life, a “model”, an example she can refer to in difficult moments. It is from that reference point that she will set out to build a life all her own. If on the one hand I try to be a model to follow (a model of consistency in keeping the promises I make), on the other I would like my children to develop their own critical sense. Yes, because I don't expect them to become like their father or like their mother. I would simply like them to develop a way of seeing life and living it that is entirely their own... So I always tell my children: watch what I do, work it through, question it if necessary and create your own way of thinking and living. Do it starting from your own way of “perceiving” the world, of “feeling”, of experiencing “emotions”. But it is a long road.

The promise was to take Elisa into the mountains on one of those hikes I often talk about at home. I can only offer her some small summit that is easy to reach. The summit of Monte San Nicola on the Sirente is fairly easy to reach from the village of Gagliano Aterno. I decide to bring her along on this outing, thinking she can get to the top easily.

Someone would tell me that a four in the morning start is a sadomasochistic start. I accept the criticism, I understand the reasons for it; after all, when you have worked a whole week, the idea of getting up at 3.30 to leave the house at 4.00 can feel like excessive and pointless suffering.
But the mountains ask this of you too. The colours of dawn are something marvellous and it is worth being able to see them. We arrive on the spot at 6.30, and Elisa immediately notices the beauty of the colours, the warm tones of dawn, the long shadows on the surrounding hills, the grazing rays of the sun.
Straight away she says to me: - Daddy, how big the mountain is, and these flowers... what magnificent colours.
Hearing her talk moves me; I feel great satisfaction knowing that she manages to notice these things. After all, her 11/10 eyes don't let her down. She sees far and she sees clearly. And then her sensitivity lets her understand, without any explanation, that being there at that hour is a priceless moment.

The dirt road that leads from Gagliano Aterno to the foot of Monte San Nicola is known on maps as the Strada Comunale Collarmete detta di Baulle. Tarmac at first and then unsurfaced, the road leads into the Velino e Sirente Regional Nature Park. At the sign marking the start of the Park we leave the car and walk the last bends up to the San Nicola.
Within sight of Monte San Nicola the slopes become soft and regular. We climb straight towards the summit. The grass is tall and I am afraid there may be snakes. I decide to proceed slowly and methodically. With my trekking poles I beat the ground before walking on it. I tell Elisa to stay behind me and to repeat my every single step. It is barely 7 in the morning and the sun is already beating down hard. There isn't even a breath of wind, so we stop in the shade of a few scattered trees to find a bit of coolness.
The steeper the slope gets, the more we slow our pace. The dirt road is already a long way off and Elisa doesn't seem too tired. At times I take her on my shoulders to get her quickly past some very grassy stretches.
We carry on, aiming for a big promontory marked on maps as Monte Briccialone (altitude 1706 m). Reaching the Briccialone is fairly easy for Elisa. She is working flat out but doesn't seem to be suffering too much. Every now and then she complains, but only about the humid heat, and I can understand her, because it bothers me a lot too. These are days of strong sun and really very high relative humidity. The weather forecast gives certain downpours in the early afternoon. Elisa doesn't know that Monte Briccialone isn't our final destination, and when we reach the top I have to tell her there are still 300 metres of ascent to go. From the car to Monte Briccialone there are roughly 700-750 metres of height gain, and we cover them in almost three hours. Something to be proud of. I know these last 300 metres of ascent will be the hardest part of the climb. I get myself mentally ready to give moral support to Elisa, who now seems a bit tired. But the surprise is that Elisa becomes more and more euphoric. She talks non-stop, teases me with funny little songs and tries in a thousand ways to wind me up and make fun of me.
From Monte Briccialone you easily pick up the steep slope that leads to the summit of the San Nicola. We tackle it head-on, without going round the houses. Every so often I hoist Elisa onto my shoulders to let her rest a little.
Along the slope, fairly grassy here too, we find a myriad of pink, purple and yellow flowers. It is a riot of colour. Elisa had never seen anything like it. She is constantly amazed at how many different kinds of flowers there are. I have taught her to look and to see the differences.
At last, as we gain height, a light, cool wind begins to blow from the south, giving us a bit of breathing space and lowering the air temperature. It's a pleasure to feel this wind. We don't even mind putting on our windproof jackets and, above all, the walking is going well.

In the last fifty metres of ascent Elisa gets distracted and starts stopping every two minutes. She looks around, stops to catch her breath, then sets off walking again. There are no objective dangers: Monte San Nicola is a fairly regular grassy hump. I decide to get to the summit quickly and give her the incentive to catch me up. She is proud and keeps up the pace. I see her carrying on without complaining too much. The strength of children is, in proportion, far more iron-willed than an adult's. From a distance she asks me if there is a summit cross. I tell her to hurry up, because from here there is a marvellous view. Without stopping again she covers the last twenty metres of ascent in one go. When she sees the cross her face changes. She is so moved that she almost seems to be crying. I am bowled over by her expression. I had underestimated the impact the “summit” might have on her; instead I see again in her eyes my own happiness when I reached my first summits. My heart skips a beat, I feel happy and proud to have brought her all the way up here.

Through some stupid miscalculation, I don't know which, I believed the climb to Monte San Nicola would be a mere 500 metres of ascent. A mistake due to my carelessness, to distraction. But the real height gain is in truth exactly double. As we climbed I was gradually realising the mistake. After all, if Gagliano Aterno itself is at about 850 metres... how could it have been otherwise? As we climbed I was silently asking my daughter's forgiveness for having put her through a climb of about a thousand metres of ascent, which she was nonetheless managing with extraordinary ease. No complaints, no reproach for having led her up a mountain that was too big, no recriminations, no regret at having come to the mountains with her dad. This is the strength of children.