What You Need To Look For In A Mole

... For five minutes

Finally!

As I was not so long!

A reunion with friends who do not attend for years, a hike of more than a day in one of the most beautiful and isolated natural areas of Italy, and all that row (almost) smooth!

not ever hide my preference for the trek, but like many lovers of this activity, or the outdoors in general, the daily grind only minimally, the outputs of several days.

In this case, the "mists of time," a dear friend, called for respect for privacy "Philip" ;-) I contact to make this idea:

"Hey, why not We do a nice backpack from point X to point Y? Three days ago, and everything. "

point X and point Y is connected to the road for a short path of CAI called 00: that is, a path that winds along the crest of the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines. You can admire this majestic mountain group, from the A12 when you are on the line between Massa and Viareggio.

hiking in the summer, with temperatures that are now bundling with backpack for the night, standing on a ridge just means, as they say in the "lick the sun." On the ridges there are no gray areas. It is high water consumption by force of circumstances. The first objection that I raised was, "how much stuff we can is inside the backpack, over the water?".

But Philip is not a person to lose heart. I've always admired people optimistic: they often take that place, but always with a smile, or playing down ... how I envy them!

"Frank, do not worry, 5 liters of water and we manage." I already see strabuzzanti eyes of those who have already done some things to read these lines. ;-)

Unfortunately (or fortunately) for employment purposes can be the group for three days (Friday, Saturday and Sunday), so I agreed to put a rendez -vous.

The group, I almost forgot ... In addition to the Phil, we have his other two friends: The Coconut and Peo. For friends who read this blog and who live below Bologna and beyond: some nicknames are very common in Emilia, and their etymology is intricate to explain to people not of the place. Basically this is the last name storpiazioni with particular phonetic rules.

The Coconut is a 29 year-old Norwegian from somatic to doc, while the Peo is a 23 year old on his first "serious". Philip and I'd be the "older" group, as we age.

There are places where agreed by telephone the morning of the second day of travel I meet them: a little 'less than half way. GSM coverage area is not guaranteed, then failing to call security to be able to make you agree that first come to expect more. E 'on Wednesday.

On Friday, after a busy day at work, my phone rings at 18:30. E 'Philip has found an area covered by the signal.

"Frank ... hello. Here is beautiful. Wonderful day, a magnificent sun, good visibility. We are all well and ... we finished the water. " Five liters a day in those conditions, are more plausible than five liters for three days ... So the rendez-vous change the next morning, and they go down to the water in a shelter equipped. Better for me, shortens the walk to reach them.

The backpack had already prepared and weighed by two days (which may include delusions only those who make a certain type of trekking). The weight that I reached destroys the golden rule "of the third." In general it is said that a person who has an active sporting life, but without special training for the mountains (which is a science in itself), should not carry a backpack that exceeds by 1 / 3 his body weight. The risk of a fatigue.

"But what do you want to be in practice less than two days ..." A phrase that I paid dearly ...

arrived Saturday morning, and beautiful load (in all senses) delivery to reach the group. Figures to avoid the cabbage with water ballast me with eight liters of water. Forty-five minutes waiting for me with a path difference of even two hundred meters to go. After the first twenty minutes of running the rule of 1 / 3 materializes and drums on my shoulder and watch a chronometer is just waiting to explode. Arrive at the meeting place and meeting the guys, the fact that you have just eaten and drunk, or to pure male pride, are as fresh as roses. Go! He starts to reach the ridge. Once at altitude, fairly well, the geometric structure of my backpack when an idiot makes me understand is who designed it and I choose it to this specific activity.

my backpack, a note of well known by American Special Forces operators to Western, is a jewelry designer. Three compartments that open inside compartments offering sub-pre-shaped to radio, tactical flashlights, pens, nets internal zippered door for small objects, internal straps to compress any clothing, and missed three-liter bladder with hose mouth on the shoulder, which is the trademark of this backpack. Basically there is inside a ca $ $ 0. The internal dividers are a burden to place in objects that do not have a standard and morphologies military. In addition, a great defect, backpack expands in depth, and not vertically, away from the center of gravity of the backpack of the person wearing it. If we add the fact that I applied externally to the pack of water bottles for water, as in the rooms there were, I had created an efficient technology and expensive hair-shirt for my back during the walk. up to the previous output had been using a green backpack with satisfaction ALICE American Vietnam era, which is essentially a big bag, with lots of bags and sewn over an aluminum frame external drive. € 90.00 and take you behind the house, like you want, and without menate compartments. No! I wanted to be cool. I wanted to test this zainone black (bleaahhh olive green ...) I had come from America almost a year before, and had never seen more than four hours of walking ... Philip and Alice had the Peo ...

Needless to tell you the rest of the excursion, absolutely I would do that (with another pack). Yes, I struggled a lot, I paid full strength on my legs and the weight of the backpack, but I got there at the bottom. And, swearing in part, dull pain in the muscles, sores on the feet flat, endless thirst, mosquitoes damned ... When you "wake up" at dawn and leaving a tent wet from the dampness of the night, in the middle of "nowhere" of an unnamed valley just below the ridge ... It all paid off. Rocks, bushes flattened by the wind, a perfect blue sky, silence and the sun rising from a carpet of soft clouds that hide valley. Where maybe you could see roads, tiny homes. But no. You are hiding the signs of man, and you realize that you're in a place that has remained intact for several centuries. You can be at any time, and you're there. The tip of the mountain that is colored in orange as the sun continues to rise and you're in the shadow cool but not cold, in the valley. Can you to appreciate all this, even if you have not slept all night due tent that connects to a Russian M1 A2 Abrams. Can you appreciate that even if Philip greetings with an oath in the morning. These are memories that surface when you're home. What you invest your mind while you describe them for others, for example. As I am doing now. And then you forget that at six in the morning, in the valley, the mosquitoes will have to jump on bucarti clothes, you have to do a dry breakfast on the fly, and you need to return backpacker, and you know what I'll get you hallucinatory pain throughout the body. But you do.

And he always thinks of when it will next time.

Why I want to be selfish: I want to enjoy in this holy solitude mental landscape with clouds in the valley.

I want to be just me, and think of me away from it all.

for five minutes.