Monte Sevice from Passo le Forche

Friday, 18 March 2005

Every climb brings with it an infinity of lessons. Monte Sevice had two lessons in store for me. The first is the lesson in orientation. What is there in nature is not always easy to interpret on the map. You simply cannot do without keeping a map in hand. The CAI (Italian Alpine Club) maps are certainly the clearest and the best drawn. The maps of the Istituto Geografico Militare are excellent too, but harder to interpret. The second lesson concerns the great difficulty of judging distances by eye on snow-covered mountains. What makes distances hard to judge is the snowy landscape.

I set off from Passo le Forche with my altimeter 200 m out. The error is caused by a series of stupid circumstances. I have forgotten my snow gaiters, I have no tissues and the cold is making my nose run in a disgusting way. A bit of snow is not going to stop me, the day is sunny and wonderful. From Passo le Forche I climb up the slopes of the Saravastrello to Monte Rozza; the view over Passo le Forche from the Saravastrello is spectacular.

The landscape becomes even more panoramic when you reach the summit of Monte Rozza. From there the view opens onto the Valle di Teve. Carrying on, I come down from Monte Rozza to reach the Sella dei Cavalli, from which you get onto the meadows of the plateau of Capanna di Sevice (2119 m). Ahead of me the ridge that leads to the summit of the Sevice is calling me; I am exhausted but I go anyway.

When I reach the summit I am worn out. The wind is blowing from the east and I cannot stay long. My thirst is getting fierce and I have half a litre of tea left to sip on the way back. For the return I choose the snowy valley that gently fades away into an oak wood towards Piè di Sevice.