canyon exploring with Michele Angileri

Spina dell'Asino

Forests, granite surrounded by luxuriant vegetation, pools and some cascades are the elements that make up this typical canyon of Sila mounts, an ideal destination on hot summer days for those who love to move through the wilderness.

I remember ...

Saverio is a free spirit, who likes to get lost in Nature and then find the way back. Nature attracts him, sucks him in, and he goes in ecstasy away from earthly things, from the details of everyday life ...

At the beginning of descent we realized that Saverio was no longer with us. We had all come together to the ford. Then Domenico and I had continued along the track beyond the creek to see if there was a better startpoint, but soon it was clear that the ford was the best startpoint, and so we came back.
At the ford we found Giuseppe but not Saverio. "Where is he?". "I do not know, I did not see him". "But he was here with you, didn't he tell you anything?". "No."
I called Saverio out loud, I used the whistle too, but nothing. He had not come behind me and Domenico, otherwise we would have met him when while walking back to the ford. Perhaps he had climbed the river to see if there were pools and waterfalls upstream, and in that case he did not hear me because of the roar of water. I went up a part of the stream: nothing.
The only further hypothesis was that Saverio, in a moment of distraction, had not understood that Domenico and I were going to look for a better access point and, considering (rightly) that the descent must start from the ford had gone along the bed, and therefore he was waiting for us downstream. So we changed and began to descend along the stream, but again there was no trace of Saverio.
When we reached the edge of first waterfall, it was evident that even this hypothesis was unfounded: Saverio had not arrived there.

What to do? go down the creek in three counting on the fact that we would find Saverio by the car in the evening? I wanted to make one last attempt. I came back with the intention of arriving at a high point from which my booing whistle could have been more easily heard. However I began to whistle before leaving the shore ... and finally a reply whistle came to me. It came from above, from the hill that separates Spina dell'Asino from the next valley. A few minutes later, Saverio reappeared and the descent could take place more or less normally.

But the mystery remains: how did Saverio disappear and reappear there? I have a couple of hypotheses ...

1. a space-time tunnel instantly transported Saverio to the hill on the opposite side, just to see if he was able to find the way back
2. ghost figures identical to me and Domenico appeared ahead of Saverio and he followed them for a long time before realizing they were ghosts
3. the complete fusion with Nature: Saverio, in mystical ecstasy, has been dematerialized into stones, grass and trees, and then rematerialized

To say the truth, I also have another hypothesis to explain the disappearance of Saverio (he followed me and Domenico along the track, then, distracted by thoughts, he inadvertently overcame us when we had left the track to watch the stream from above, so he found himself climbing alone the dirt road, thinking that we were further ahead and that the canyon was beyond the hill) ...
But the three previous hypotheses are more beautiful, aren't they?

Photo 22 by Giuseppe Viggiani

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