canyon exploring with Michele Angileri

Torrente Apa

Canyon of Torrente Apa gives us a nice hiking trail in water. It begins as a wide gorge populated by majestic beeches, then stream flows through short compact limestone narrows with a few small pool and some simple downclimbings.

I remember ...

When you go through a rugged and wild environment like a canyon it may happen to take a small hit, a scratch or a graze. It can also happen that you put one foot on a branch stuck by a flood, and it turns under the weight and hits the other leg. The blow that you take in such cases is slight and, I imagined, absolutely harmless. I learned it isn't always so.

It happened to Andrea: the branch turned and struck him on the calf from behind. I did not notice the thing, but a little further I saw a trickle of blood coming out the calf. It was too much blood for a graze ...
At the time I did not give importance to it. As we went on, however, Andrea felt a growing pain and he began to limp. Once at the end of canyon he had become almost unable to walk.
Next day he went to his physician. The diagnosis was: phlebitis. The branch that hit his calf must have a small sharp spike that had penetrated into the skin for a few millimeters, at a point where, unfortunately, there was a superficial vein. The wall of the vein had been damaged. It is not a mild disease, and must be treated with drugs for some days at least.

Well, now I know that among the thousands of ways to get hurt in a canyon there is also the traumatic phlebitis. Upon reflection, however, I realize not to be exposed to this risk as much as Andrea: he is slim and I'm fat. My veins are protected by a layer of adipose tissue: the spike would not have arrived to my vein!

Who said that body fat is always a problem?

Photographs in this website show ultralight ropes (6 mm ropes made of high tenacity fibers). Read multimedia book Ultralight ropes canyoning technique to learn how to use them.

Copyright © 2002- Michele Angileri. All rights reserved.