canyon exploring with Michele Angileri

Fosso Marangone

The Turano valley in the area of Longone Sabino and Rocca Sinibalda is rich in water, which flows from the perennial springs and reaches the river through wooded valleys that sometimes turn to gorges.
This is the case of Fosso Marangone. Its copious and clean water runs through a gorge whose walls are covered with mosses, ferns and creepers, a canyon featuring small waterfalls, rapids, deep pools.
A primordial garden.

I remember ...

All the exploration was easier than expected: the approach, the descent, the exit. The beauty and simplicity of the gorge gave us the idea to baptize it Romantica (a gorge for couples), and this was the name by which the canyon was published on this site.
A few years later someone tried to repeat it, guided by the detailed description downloaded from the site, but it was anything but "romantic": he told me he had fought against vegetation for hours. Something must have changed the environment, perhaps a snowfall that had filled the bed of collapsed trees, or a landslide ...
I could not believe it, Paolo and I had all gone smoothly ... I had to go and check, and in the meantime I removed the page from my website, to prevent someone else from a bad adventure. I was thinking of going there in a few weeks, but this and that and it was years before I could go back to Fosso Marangone. When I finally went there, I thought of starting the descent higher and ending it lower, to check if there were other interesting parts besides the one I had explored with Paolo.
It was not a good idea: the upper part was invaded by vegetation. Andrea and I struggled along for a couple of hours, then, exhausted, glimpsed an escape route, we exited the canyon.
There probably were no other interesting parts besides the one already explored. So I went to see what condition was the access path ... but I did not find it: gone, erased by the vegetation.
Thas was all, at least for the moment.

A few years later I tried to fully descend the Fosso Marangone, well equipped and motivated, ready to "fight" against dense and thorny vegetation. Some might wonder why, but this is canyoning: it is going through very harsh environments, moving in a nature not suitable for man adapting as much as possible to it, and then also through the impracticable vegetation, immense manifestation of Nature's vital force, feeling part of a world populated by alien beings that breathe without lungs, feed on light, move very slowly, have a hundred arms that grow back if cut, rough, thorny arms that leave marks on your skin. I went ahead, opening the road with my billhook for about two hours, but once again I could not reach the part explored with Paolo: my arms got too tired to continue using the bill, and I could do nothing but exit the canyon once again.
But since the day was still long, I dedicated the rest of the day looking for a completely different approach route to Marangone canyon.
And I succeeded in the end.
The following week I could finally redo the "romantic" part of Fosso Marangone. And in addition I could explore two further interesting parts of the creek :-)

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