Monte Velino from Massa d'Albe: a hike with a bivouac

Saturday and Sunday, 17-18 July 2004

The climb begins at 15:00 on a sunny July afternoon, very sunny. On my back I've loaded a 70-litre rucksack packed with everything I need for a possible bivouac.
At Massa d'Albe I leave the car in the little square of the hamlet of Corona, a little square next to a small church. I carry on on foot along a vehicle track, where you're advised not to leave the car, since it's already part of the Velino and Sirente Regional Park. The torrid heat breaks my legs straight away. The path continues along the slopes of Monte Pelato and along the flats at the foot of Monte Velino and Pizzo Cafornia.
At the end of the vehicle track you continue through a small wood of pines from a recent reforestation. I take ten steps and have to stop; the weight of the rucksack makes my movements absolutely slow. Along the path marked no. 5 I meet cows, horses and endless flies, which keep me company as far as the short grade I move that, through a little gully, finally brings me onto the steep slopes of the Velino.

The path is waymarked by the CAI with the classic red-and-white waymarks. The advice is never to leave the path and to memorise well the more  uncertain points of the route. I look back and discover how different the landscape can look from two different points of view. At 18:00, exhausted, I was still at 1739 m, so I decide it's too late to turn back; I'm already very tired, and I know that evening will come all of a sudden. I decide to pitch the tent, just for safety in case I should have to bivouac during the night; it is expressly forbidden by the park's regional law 23 of 07/03/2000, of which at the time I didn't have the faintest idea. For this I beg forgiveness of the griffon vultures recently reintroduced into the park for having made my cumbersome presence felt.

At 18:30 I leave the unnecessary gear in the tent and continue the climb towards the summit. Evening advances slowly and I can enjoy a longer sunset than expected ... all of this, I realise, happens thanks to the altitude. Here it's not like in the city, where the light disappears earlier, behind the buildings. Here the sky seems bigger and the light lights up all the summits.

At 20:50, after getting past other difficult moves and slippery scree slopes, I finally reach the summit. I'm deeply moved: for the third time this year I'm on a summit over 2000 metres. During the climb I focused my thoughts on the idea of taking an adventurous choice to its extreme consequences. From a certain point of view, irresponsible behaviour. Who would have thought it …
While I'm on the summit the Sun disappears for good behind the horizon. Everything goes dark and I can't linger any longer, I have to go down.  I put the head torch on over my woolly hat, put on the rubberised gloves (decidedly over the top for that summer...) and start the descent. Two hours later I'm in the tent, soaked with sweat; I only warm up by staying inside the sleeping bag.
I brought some pineapple juice with me... only inexperience can make you make such crude mistakes. The juice doesn't quench my thirst at all. I drink and the thirst grows. The sugars in the juice call for still more liquid.
I drink the last sips of tea but not even those quench my thirst. The night passes in short sleeps interrupted by an unstoppable thirst. For a summer hike of this scale two litres of water aren't enough. But above all it's madness to set off with such a heavily loaded rucksack.

The surreal silence will accompany me in a light sleep until dawn the next day. At 5.00 I see the first light of the sun filtering through. I get up and admire the sun coming out from behind Pizzo Cafornia. It's an incomparable spectacle that amply repays me for the effort of the day before. I take down the tent and continue the descent, which ends at 8.50 at Massa d'Albe.