Traverse of the Porrara from Palena to Guado di Coccia

We are opaque, not transparent like glass or clear like the water in a glass... we are opaque, like frosted glass with multicoloured facets.

Men and women carry these cathedrals of coloured glass about along the real and metaphorical roads of this world, on the great motorways of time, along the roads paved with good intentions. They move with their heavy burden, swaying at times, bumping into one another and making their many inner trinkets jingle. If you stop to listen, you can hear a few voices: a preacher perhaps, or the faceless spokesman of a dark confessional; there is someone whispering, or praying perhaps...

You can hear strange noises coming from these places of worship; they are the houses of our souls, teeming with confused mice. Some wall crumbles, every now and then the fall of some baroque icon echoes. These wonderful cathedrals are opaque even to our own eyes. The sword cannot wound itself, let alone the cathedral know its own appearance. It is between one shove and the next, between a collision and an encounter, that we discover the limits of what we do. The cathedrals cannot do everything. Some have equipped themselves with a heavy, moralising Bishop, others with a meek consul, a few with a lazy, white-haired hermit.

This week's story, as the TV barker would say, is about comical, turbulent cathedrals where daredevil trapeze artists, tightrope walkers and famous acrobats let themselves down from the coffered ceilings, suspended. Walls of damp, tough moss, old stories hanging on the walls. All this is the tale of how, by walking, old beliefs are renewed, not to say “faiths”... Because it is a matter of faith, perhaps, nothing rational and nothing easily explained: this is what the passion for the mountains holds...

Among the pages of some electronic writing my friendship with Anna began, in the most virtual way possible... yes... almost more than three or four years ago...
When you see Anna write you are immediately immersed in a world full of images where thought,  imagination and memory rule the roost. But not distant, not far from carnal, physical humanity. It is a projection that you feel you could touch. And even if her writing is often a narrative emptied of its context, we manage to make it our own. I would say, in fact... it is precisely because Anna has developed such a penetrating gaze on the things of the world that she can talk about them calmly, with fair objectivity.

We chase each other for months, as can happen with people you feel curiously akin to, until we decide to organise the long-promised outing in the mountains. Anna is of Molise origin, she spent her childhood in Rivisondoli; that isn't just her land, it is her soul... Climbing the Porrara would be ideal. She turns down my proposal to climb Cima Lepri, but why not... one summit is as good as another... but this one is worth more. Anna, who on these mountains learnt to fresco her Cathedral, wants to give me a piece of her land.

I only understand it on the way back, when we pass below Rivisondoli and, as she speaks, her voice breaks in her throat. OK... I can live up to this prize. I hope I'll manage to be grateful to her for it in the future too.

We reach the Stazione di Palena at 8.30 in the morning. The plan takes shape as the day goes on. We decide to go up from the Stazione di Palena along the ridge of the Porrara and come down from Guado di Coccia. I am completely along for the ride; it is wonderful, for once at least, to let myself be taken. - We'll take the littorina railcar from Campo di Giove and be back at Palena in a few minutes. The whole thing is catching the train on time.
We look at the timetable and set off. We have 7 and a half hours to cover the whole long ridge of the Porrara from Palena to Guado di Coccia. And if we miss the train... we'll hitchhike.

I rejoice at the idea of this new lightness with which the hike can be tackled.
After the first 100 metres of height gain the problem immediately arises of finding the path that climbs along the ridge. Anna pulls out her map... open it this way, open it that way, mind the wind … and when I see the map open in front of my eyes I am completely flabbergasted. The map is marked all over... She has highlighted in fluorescent colours all the routes she has done on these mountains.
Then I look at the map more closely and discover that it is an old CAI (Italian Alpine Club) edition, but kept in perfect condition.
I realise I have as my guide a true lover of the mountains, someone would say “a sacred monster”, but she doesn't like to boast about all this experience... and why should she? Everything is fully accomplished in the quick game of acrobatics of the mountains... it doesn't matter which, it doesn't matter where, what matters is how! How many like her have seen so much mountain, and how many still manage to love it the way she still does??? When she looks at a view, a tree, the colours of autumn, or when she looks for a path, you see a light come on in her face, her eyes sparkle as if it were the first time she had seen those places. Anna is a traveller, the mountains are her element, and when she says she isn't afraid, and never has been, you feel it is true: people like her don't hesitate when they move among the mountains.

For a peak of the Majella, Monte Porrara isn't a very high summit. Just 2137 metres for the highest summit, the Porrara is made up of a very long, quite sharp ridge, perfectly walkable along its whole length. The traces of path are clear and even in the clouds it is impossible to get lost.

Anna tells you that in winter the ridge, already very airy in summer, looks razor-sharp when it is covered in snow. The feeling of the drop is enormously heightened. She fishes in her memory and recalls the long ski-mountaineering slogs with friends. When she remembers those moments she laughs, with the intimate pleasure of having given her all, of having made the most of every chance and of never having spared her strength and courage for incredible adventures.

The climb up the Porrara from the Stazione di Palena is gentle and gradual. You can't see the summit until you are practically on top of it. The clouds cover the view, the icy wind freezes our ears and we have to put our hoods up. Now and then the clouds open, letting us glimpse a vast panorama: to the east the mountain looks out over the countryside around Pescara; to the west the view stops at the Pizzalto and the summits of the Rotella and the Toppe del Tesoro.

On the way down we meet a few slippery passages; it is nice to put hands and feet on the little rocks, and here too Anna seems at ease. Her mountain CV is complete. From rock to ski mountaineering, she hasn't spared herself anything.

Her pace is quick and sure. She doesn't hesitate even on the most slippery little slabs. I feel ridiculous telling her “careful, it's slippery here”, but I am an anxious type and some things I just can't help.
And yet this day had a whole mix of opportunities for developing anxieties of every kind, and in the end it was an absolutely light day, of a unique serenity such as I hadn't felt in years.

We come down from Guado di Coccia at a brisk pace, chasing the clock as it races towards the departure time of the littorina. From Guado di Coccia we take the main road to Campo di Giove. At a military pace we cover, in just 45 minutes, the stretch of road that separates the residential area of the Campo di Giove ski lifts from the village proper.

We stop at a bar in the main square and gulp down one of those beers that only someone who is thirsty knows how good it can be. But it is the thirst for new friendships that is quenched first... Anna's company gave me that magnifying glass to see the beautiful mountains of the Apennines even bigger. Thank you, Anna!

The littorina arrives on time and takes us back to the Stazione di Palena.