How long this night is, it never seems to end... and heavy, so very heavy. Why is that...
They are fragments of thoughts, splinters of lucidity in this sleep seasoned with anxieties, dreams or perhaps nightmares. I toss and turn between the sheets, waiting for the alarm clock to bring me back to reality.
This night is so long that even the ghosts, bored by now, have gone off to sleep. Then, half asleep, I hear the first little birds chirping. Strange... I tell myself... the little birds usually start singing an hour or so before dawn. I look at the alarm clock and jump... it's four o'clock. I was supposed to leave an hour ago... there you go... the alarm didn't go off... or else, in some unconscious gesture, I must have switched it off.
I have absolutely no desire to go out alone. I feel so drained and listless. In a few days I'll have to have a little operation on my gum. So the awareness that I won't be able to go out for quite a while throws me out of bed in an instant. I don't want to waste a precious opportunity.
The weather forecast has given fine weather across the whole of Central Italy. Going out into the mountains alone is the hardest and most demanding experience. Everything that happens... well, it happens by your own will. No responsibility to share, no joy to share. So the insecurity of a solo hike becomes huge, out of all proportion, like a boulder. This boulder has settled on my stomach like the darkness of this heavy night.
The uncertainty has made me come up with vague plans, in some ways unworkable: climbing Monte Torrone in the Monte Vettore group, or climbing Pescofalcone from San Nicolao on the Majella. The season is ideal for an ascent of Monte Corvo, but I want to save this summit for a friend. Monte Corvo has been obsessing me for some time, especially in its winter guise. It is my bugbear, a sort of Apennine scarecrow, a question mark constantly hanging over my head.
On the motorway the choice is easy: I am already very late, so I rule out the more distant destinations. The Sibillini and the Majella will be goals for the next hikes. That leaves the Gran Sasso, which I haven't been to for a few months. I have no wish at all to go up by cable car, to go where, then... I've seen the side above the Campo Imperatore hotel many times, in winter too.
I leave the motorway at L'Aquila Est with the idea of driving up to Castel del Monte. Passing through L'Aquila is heart-rending. The city, wrapped in fog, seems suspended in a timeless void. The buildings damaged by last year's earthquake... are all still there... frozen as in an endless freeze-frame. The fog at the start of this grey morning, the dead city, tear at my soul. This certainly doesn't help me find the right spirit.
I realise that everything they say on television, the houses, the reconstruction, is true. We are forgetting the tragedy of an entire region. Not the dead, they are gone... but the living, we are forgetting them. The people of this place have even run out of voice to shout their plea for help.
I carry on, with pain in my chest, towards Barisciano ; from here I vaguely remember the road. I climb in wide bends into the Gran Sasso massif; near Santo Stefano di Sessanio I turn at a junction without paying much attention to the road signs. I think I saw the signs for Calascio, but I ignored them and I don't even feel like standing there consulting road maps. This is partly in keeping with my new attitude of not always planning everything. Whatever comes will be a grain of adventure.
The surprise isn't long in coming. I arrive in the heart of the Campo Imperatore plain. The road that climbs from Santo Stefano di Sessanio joins the SS 17 at the Rifugio del Lago Racollo. Finding myself suddenly in the heart of the massif is a sudden surprise. Despite the clouds I recognise the peaks all around.
The hut is hidden behind a grassy hill and is practically invisible to people visiting Campo Imperatore. But the hut is brand new, recently renovated. Outside there's even a flag flying, as if to show that the hut is open.
At the junction with the SS 17 a barrier closes the road to vehicles. Campo Imperatore is still closed to traffic, so much the better. In front of me the outline of Monte Prena plays hide-and-seek with heavy black clouds piling up on its southern side.
I am chilled to the bone. The atmosphere is gloomy and doesn't promise fine weather at all. It's the season, I should have expected it. Down on the plains, sun and warmth are bringing spring early, but up here in the mountains the clouds and the cold still hold the snow on the slopes, in the gullies and on the hidden sides.
The Campo Imperatore plain is clear of snow. The idea of climbing Monte Siella has vanished: I made a mistake coming up from Santo Stefano di Sessanio instead of from Calascio and Castel del Monte. The weather won't let me play with these peaks. Now I just have to think about making the most of the time I have.
Exploring the area is the best of the possible options, and wherever I manage to get to, it will still have been an excellent day.
In front of me the Torri del Casanova, Monte Infornace and the Prena; to the right and almost behind me Monte Bolza, which has always roused my curiosity with its very steep shape and its long ridge. In front, the mangy hump of Monte Paradiso (1822 m) and further on, right below the imposing bulk of Monte Prena, a grassy dome partly covered in icy sleet: it is Monte Veticoso, marked on some maps as Le Veticole. A summit 2044 metres high; from the junction where I left the car it will be roughly four kilometres.
I dither for ten minutes or so, wandering about the meadows around Lago Racollo. I take photographs, I watch the clouds hoping to work out which way they are moving, but the cloud cover seems stable. At times it starts snowing, small hard flakes of ice that are almost like hail.
Then, so as not to lose any more time, but above all so as not to stay stuck in uncertainty, I drop the idea of climbing Monte Bolza, certainly easy from here... I prefer to head towards Monte Veticoso in the hope that, as I walk these four and a half kilometres, the sky will clear and give me the chance to climb who knows where and who knows how...
I pass close to the two stazzi (shepherds' stone enclosures) that are much used during the summer transhumance. A few shepherds still, and courageously, bring their cows here to spend the summer. I carry on in a straight line across the Campo Imperatore plain to the foot of Monte Paradiso, where the ancient Fonte di San Lorenzo is completely dry. I carry on, taking the time to savour the air, which is still rather cool. The closer I get to Monte Veticoso, the heavier the fall of snow mixed with ice and water. My jacket is holding up well against the damp, so I choose to carry on. The height gain isn't much: barely 500 metres to the summit, and the climb goes slowly and gradually.
At the foot of Monte Veticoso it stops snow-raining. This puts a spring in my step: in just an hour I'm on the summit of the Veticoso. The clouds are still very low and grey, the light is poor, but at least it has stopped raining. After a few minutes the weather seems to change, the clouds begin to open, slowly, very slowly. The Prena too seems to want to break free, but still very, too slowly. I come down from the Veticoso towards the saddle that joins it to the southern side of the Prena. The saddle is covered in snow and it's a pleasure to be able to descend at a brisk pace without worrying too much about stones and gravel.
The view of Monte Veticoso from the saddle is interesting; the clouds give the landscape a touch of deep drama. I stop to eat a sandwich, the usual salami sandwich. I don't drink much either; come to think of it, I haven't sweated much to earn this little summit. The clouds are still reluctant to go away and inside me the awareness grows clear that today I won't make it to the top of the Prena. As usual I choose caution, even though right in front of me is the start of the Via Brancadoro, calling me like a little funfair. Damn, the call is strong and I can barely resist. The sharp spires, the little towers and the narrow gullies still packed with snow make me imagine a mixed climb of crampons, ice axe, easy rocks, climbing on little grade I and II moves. I have an immoderate desire to make my own a way of going to the mountains that is no longer just hiking but more markedly mountaineering.
I start playing on the easy rocks. I experiment, testing the grip of my winter boots on the rock. I climb up and down the boulders at the start of the Via Brancadoro again and again. I squeeze between the rocks, under the boulders, on top of them, I walk along the small safe ledges partly covered in snow. It's a real funfair, but alone like this it would be better not to overdo it: if something were to happen to me, who would come and rescue me? All the more so since this time I have even chosen to go up in pure deprivation of means: the phone has stayed locked in the car, with no credit and no charge in the battery.
I stay another hour at the start of the Via Brancadoro, take a few photos, shoot a few videos, and for the first time in many months I find a little serenity again, letting time expand, letting the mountain work in my soul, flowing under my boots right under my skin and inside, deeply, to the most hidden recesses of my feelings.
I don't know how long I stayed there; it was enough to bring my smile back. Heading back towards the car, the return home, was the most natural, most obvious thing.
Crossing the Campo Imperatore plain brought my thoughts back to the people of L'Aquila, these tough people, hardened by the mountains and now by the earthquake too. I see them fighting against the cold... they are like the crocuses I found scattered over all the meadows. Fooled by a fake spring, they let themselves go into premature flowering. The cold caught them one night, froze them, and now there they are, terrified; many didn't make it, their petals irreparably damaged, many are suffering, lots are still closed and lying sick in bed on the meadow. The fertility of these marvellous crocuses is, for this year, seriously compromised. Who knows, next year perhaps...
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