(text translated with google translate)
This time I start from the end and I assure you that no friends have been mistreated in order to write this post. Because if the result is “then tell me when we leave again”, it means that either your friends love you endlessly or that, despite the difficulties, the mountain they have lived on has definitely conquered them too.
In the end, over a beer, sitting on the steps of the only bar open in the whole tourist area of the southern area of Etna, we retraced all the colors of the day.
Like the times you improvise and things get better, the group formed absolutely by chance the day before.
It had to be a review (mine) of a newly discovered path, and a good opportunity (for Ludovico and all the others) to get to know new faces and new features of this splendid volcano.
Instead it turned into an adventure in the company of friends who wanted to share this beautiful experience with us. And all in all, on balance and in a totally unexpected way, the objectives were nevertheless achieved unanimously. I understood on the skin how much to open the way of a path that you do not know well, especially if you are on an active volcano – aka the paths appear and disappear according to the moods of his majesty Etna, is really a grind as well as a responsibility.
Maybe that’s why I was exhausted in the end.
Where the cloud played hiding the reference points from me the other time, in fact, I did not find the path.
Later I would have learned that uphill sandstones should always be avoided, that to get to know a path in Etna, of Etna you must first know each stone and, perhaps, give it a name. That the high mood and positivity of the group is essential to manage the panic of those who did not know they were suffering from vertigo but now they do. That taking the wrong path, finding another one and deciding to follow it to the end teaches you much more than following (even several times) in the footsteps of those who already know that path. That experiments and advances are done only with a select group of people and that, those who were with me, were exactly all I needed.
But above all, I would have had the confirmation that my mountain is a continuous lesson in self-esteem (I have never lost faith in myself), and is capable of exhilarating encouragement: like when the south-east has gleefully snorted right in a stretch in which it was impossible not to notice, about halfway through a path that turned out to be much more difficult than expected.
And for me, that signal was the most powerful pat on the back I could wish for.
When I realized that I could not find the exact point where the path cut to reach the sand that would have led us, sliding, into the heart of the Bove valley, I admit that I felt very disappointed in myself. Sadly I indulged (their) lunch break and decided to fall back on the safe side: a simple return, which I know by heart.
We would have skirted the ridge for a few hundred meters and then returned through the woods, almost coming to close the ring, and abandoning the initial idea of reaching the Piano del Vescovo, where we had left a car, a few kilometers below.
Instead Ludovico suggests that I continue: “and if instead of making the road from below we take the path from above?”
The path seemed well signposted and for us it represented an excellent opportunity to also test the path we had been told so much about.
In short, despite the promise was to bring them down, it happened instead that we saw and experienced all the faces of the Valle del Bove climbing on the edge of the rocks that surround it (south side) as tightrope walkers, astride the dikes overhanging the void , trampling a path at times erased by the sand poured out during the latest eruptions.
The red and white CAI flags drawn on the rocks have guided us meter after meter even when my granite securities have wavered.
A ten-year-old curly-haired girl nicknamed me “leg up” and she tackled her first trek without ever stopping smiling, with her eyes first and then with her mouth. And according to his father this is the best gift he will carry inside.
Someone’s panic has been masterfully pampered and played down, allowing them to tackle even the most exposed stretches of the path that, in a moment of fatigue, have also tried me.
But the views that unfolded relentlessly before our eyes (and even under our feet) swept away fatigue and discouragement. The pauses seasoned with jokes and laughter that underline the trust and camaraderie dating back to years of friendship, have erased the initial disappointment of wounded pride for not being able to find the way. I forgave myself and focused on the new one. And above all, I learned the lesson of humility and determination that my mother Etna gave me this time.
The sudden rain that luckily spared us in critical moments, watered the undergrowth, awakening colors and smells, blessed the hugs between the mystical and the goliardic to the centuries-old beech, and refreshed our heads.
But the highlight, the one we will always recall when telling this story, is the pure joy expressed by voice and gestures when, after hours of walking, we finally reached the point where the low path rejoined with the high one and then descended again through the known road. That is, when I realized that I could relax my concentration and leave room for lightness because now the unknown gave way to the known and the car was not that far away.
At the end of it all I feel I have learned a lot from a day like this. Technical and emotional lessons that have greatly enriched me.
And paraphrasing a well-known song, I choose the words that seem most suitable to me to thank this generous, tough and incredible living mountain:
“My pockets are full of stones, my shoes are full of steps, my heart is full of beats and my eyes are full of you”
