Monte Viglio, a fool's failure...

Sunday 15 February 2004

Many years later I am piecing together my memories of that day. I have the feelings distinctly clear, and the photos help me even more to put together the pieces of a puzzle that hasn't been destroyed yet.
We're in the heart of winter; heavy snowfalls have covered the Monti Simbruini, and at the lower altitudes there are wide banks of cloud. The drive in leaves me with more doubts than certainties.
At the Valico di Serra S. Antonio I leave the car as always.
This is already my third approach to Monte Viglio and I have an inordinate desire to reach the summit, my first summit. The gravel road that leads to Fonte della Moscosa is completely covered in icy snow. I don't struggle much to make progress. Every now and then I sink into some big hole. And as I move on in that strange, suspended atmosphere, those brief minutes before dawn. The white of the peaks takes on shades of red and orange. I take a few photographs that will never give an idea of that morning magnificence.
My pace is steady and rhythmic; my body, helped by the constant training kept up over the last four months, doesn't feel the effort in the slightest.
When I reach the little Madonna statue that looks out over the Val Roveto I can admire the first marvellous spectacle. All around and at the lower altitudes stretches an even, spotless sea of cloud.
It's the first time I've seen a sight like that. One of those incomparable moments the mountain gives you, making you believe you're on top of the world even when you're not on top of the world. And in fact that place becomes a paradise. The sun warming your shoulders and face. The gentleness of the snow-covered slopes.
My determination to reach the summit, though, pushes me to cut the climbing time short. After a sip of tea and some dried fruit I carry on towards the slope that leads up to the Cantari.
All around there are a great many footprints, a sign that this mountain is very popular... and with good reason.
At the foot of the Cantari I can make out Pizzo Deta. The view is marvellous. Perhaps it was the imprinting of the first times, but what I had was the impression of being on one of the mountains with the most beautiful profile in the world. As they say, you never forget your first love.

I'm still an amateur and I'm wearing a pair of jeans with Salewa waterproof overtrousers on top. I feel soaking wet. With the sun beating straight down I began to feel rather hot. Slowing down was the most obvious consequence.

Slowing down was also "the way" I had imposed on myself. Going out into the mountains was the right setting to immerse myself in meditation. Hurrying to achieve a goal wasn't contemplated. What mattered was letting life flow through my body, letting thoughts flow through my mind, suspending value judgements on the things of the world and on myself. Perhaps, in a few words, simply... living.

I was broadening my horizons, physical, geographical, mental. A world bigger than the one I had built for myself in the virtual world of reading. Books are a wonderful world, a source of reflection and great suggestions but... books are still a metaphysical cage we immerse ourselves in. How hard it is to turn dreams and plans into reality, alternative lives even if only imagined. Beyond the suggestions, the ideas, the provocations, the infinite possibilities offered in books, what too often remains is only printed paper.

I cautiously follow a staggered "s" line, avoiding the crust of ice and snow on the slope. Step by step I find myself on the summit of the Cantari. The landscape is flawless. Rock, snow, blue sky. This view alone repays me for getting up in the night. Magnificent.

For the first time I'm wearing a fine pair of Camp crampons; even though there's no objective danger of falling, they give me a great sense of security gripping the slippery ice.
In the distance I see the elegant profile of the summit. From the Cantari the profile of Monte Viglio is perhaps one of the most striking of all. The mountain has a line of incomparable beauty. I'm spellbound. I take photos that will remain among the most beautiful of my life, ones I'll come back to countless times to savour again the taste of those moments.

I have with me a long wooden stick picked up on Monte Scalambra. I use it not as a support but as a point of balance. At times, though, I'm forced to plant it in the slope to widen my base of support more steadily.

In front of me, the notorious Gendarme of Monte Viglio. A tooth of rock that in winter gets covered in snow and ice. I haven't managed to find enough information to understand how to get past this tricky point on the route. Some guides speak of grade I moves. But snow, as everyone knows, changes the difficulty of a passage, and I can't fool myself about that.

The snow, moreover, at this time of year, is completely frozen and thoroughly transformed. I carry on to go and see the state of the Gendarme.

The ridge leading to the Gendarme seemed to me, back then, sharp and very steep. The feeling of falling is greatly heightened by the icy snow on which, in a fall, it would be impossible to stop. Even harder to stop, of course, with a beech stick like mine.

I reach the Gendarme and in front of me rises a vertical wall of snow and rock. Impossible to identify a way up. Certainly not a route for hikers. This is mountaineering and you couldn't improvise it at all. No! And yet I improvise.
I find myself climbing a little gully that opens out onto the absolute void of the Val Roveto. Right... I get it... time to go down.
My stick snaps and terror takes shape in my head. How will I get down from the Gendarme? A single mistake and I end up in Val Granara, smashed on the rocks below.
The only piece of stick I was holding slips away from me... now the terror has become blacker and darker than the night. I have no more support. I don't know how to create my balance.
I put my bare fingers into the holes made with the stick on the way up.

One step after another, cautiously, I get myself off the Gendarme, but the situation is still delicate.
The ridge, even if not too exposed, is as slippery as a sheet of glass, and here stopping really is impossible.

I go back to the Cantari slowly, calibrating every single step. It's on the way back that I understand I must never again move without an ice axe. I understand that I've been a fool, a simpleton, an improvised hiker, the classic Sunday mountaineer. I, who in my anarchic way never accept good advice from anyone. I, who in my aloof, reserved and shy way of being shut myself up in my world made of thoughts and few concrete deeds.

I understand that a serious mountaineering course, taken with humility, would be ideal for learning something. But that's just another story I've never managed to write.