Simply being there...

For months I've been listening to a Marillion album, its title is really evocative for me... “Happiness is the road” and yet something escapes me. I travel a lot of road, every single day of my life. It's real road, the kind you travel by bike for a bit of sun and fresh air, on foot on mountain paths. It's kilometres driven by car for everyday errands  or  to reach some faraway destination. It's metaphorical road, the kind you travel in your mind with your thoughts, in dreams, in endless fantasies. And yet I see so little happiness. How come... ???

Suddenly, one day, I meet a bearded tramp, he speaks to me from the mirror, he tells me about longing for a life I can't have.
“You're a fool!” – he says, you can't see what you've got. He says it over and over so many times that in the end everything becomes clearer... simpler.
All that's left is a smile, exchanged with the tramp, then … the beard disappears to make way for the next outing.

I make a provocative proposal. Who's willing to take a day's leave to make the most of a sunny day, perhaps the last one before a new spell of bad weather? Who? Nobody, my head tells me... trying costs nothing.

But the surprise is a big one, there are four of us: Ulisse, whom I'd been chasing for ages and will finally get to know, Maurizio, who had needed to let himself go for a long time, Massimo, who always manages to cheer the company up, and me, determined to get my body back, lose six surplus kilos and refine my knowledge of the area.

My objective is to climb Cimata Fossa dei Cavalli. Given my poor fitness and   the soft snow, we aren't even sure we can make it. We're short of time and .. in the end the only real objective wins: to go to the mountains and feel good... to walk and get to know new slopes.

We arrive early at Forme, we leave the car on the road, the air is fresh but not freezing. There's little snow... even here at 1150 m. OK, we'll make up for it on the way up the slope.
When we set foot on the first traces of snow, the impression is that it's fairly … how shall I put it, “crunchy”.

We slip into a gorge on the left of the Valle Majelama, Massimo leading the way. Past some bare shrubs I see him stop dead. Then he takes a step back and says: “bloody...” I hear him say “it's charging down” and he keeps backing off... then I hear “boar, a wild boar”... we all take refuge on a high spot … Massimo rushes headlong down and takes shelter on a little rock ledge. As soon as we're all safe the boar shoots past like a missile.

We carry on but the ravine is blocked by tall boulders. Impossible to go on. We go back  to climb up to the right of the ravine.

From here the route goes straight up a slope that isn't even very steep. There are signs of livestock passing. These slopes are certainly grazing land. We also seem to make out a more or less obvious path. The patches of frozen snow turn into larger and larger fields.

We climb at quite an intense pace, I'm already out of breath and my lack of training (what can I say? As usual!) breaks my legs. To move up the slope with less effort and strain I decide to put on my crampons. I know the effect: the slope is safe, but wearing crampons spares me the muscular effort of keeping myself from slipping on the icy snow.

We move along the southern edge of the massif (Cafornia – Cimata Fossa dei Cavalli) so as to look at the sheer drop overlooking the Valle Majelama and the rock faces of the Sentinella and the Magnola.

The higher we climb, the more snow there is. The wind turns icy and we can see plumes of snow lifted by the wind beyond the summits.

On this side the slope is rather monotonous to climb, but it's still interesting to look at the south-east ridge of Monte Cafornia. For a few moments I dream of being in dazzling shape, so that I could climb that side without suffering too much.

I fall behind while Massimo, Ulisse and Maurizio are a hundred metres or so ahead of me. If I'm in this physical state it's my own fault... I struggle on and have to stop every five steps.
Laziness and work commitments have wrecked my body.

As often happens in this kind of situation I ask myself what on earth I'm doing here... but … happiness is the road, say Marillion. Fair enough. Yes, I think I see... that was why I decided to go to the mountains, to enjoy another day of well-being.
I sink into my thoughts, put one foot in front of the other and focus on the simple thought of being there... there... I think I've understood... that's it, the awareness of being there is exactly the “happiness” I was looking for. I'm here for the sensations the mountains give me. The icy wind on my cheeks, the clean air almost scented with the smells of winter..., the healthy feeling of tiredness, my heart pounding in my chest... yes, that's why I'm here. I relax and keep walking. I reach the ridge fifteen minutes after my companions. A cutting wind is blowing, laden with microscopic grains of ice.

The summit of the Fossa dei Cavalli is no more than a kilometre away and just over two hundred metres higher. Covering that distance would take about another hour and a half, plus the time to come down. We have to be in Rome by four, and for today this is good enough.

Ulisse has christened his first crampons, Maurizio and I have got back into training, Massimo has discovered a face of interesting little gullies, and the training certainly doesn't do him any harm either.

On the way down we joke and laugh, it's an endless stream of wisecracks and mutual teasing, the company is really pleasant. Within a couple of hours we're back at the car.

Interesting to repeat, only a few days later, the exploration of this side of the Velino mountain group. Useful to discover that there are a great many different ways of repeating climbs to summits already visited. The Velino, the Cafornia, the Magnola are mountains close to Rome, easy to reach, and with the price of petrol sky-high … it's handy, too, not to have to spend too much money on a short day's hiking.