canyon exploring with Michele Angileri

U Uattenniere

The village of San Fele stands perched on a rocky hill below which developes the canyon of Bradano (not the near homonymous river of Basilicata) known as U Uattenniere. Local people say the name "Uattenniere" comes from an ancient factory for the wool processing that stood by the stream, but the name sounds heavy and terrible and so I guess it indicates the canyon itself. In campanian dialect Uattenniere means "beating the black", and in my opinion it refers to water falling down into the shadows of the canyon.

Since a few years the inhabitants of San Fele rediscovered the beauty and environmental value of the site and the Bradano waterfalls. They started promoting and protecting them and they made signed paths to the waterfalls. The news spread, and someone wanted to go and see if San Fele canyon is good for canyoning trips.

Yes, it is.

I remember ...

In september 2011 I found a videoclip on youtube, showing a team of extemporary canyoneers of the club "Lucani in Natura" doing the first canyoning descent of a place I never heard about: the San Fele canyon. It looked really nice, so I planned a trip to it and I did it one month later with my friend Carlo.

The place was as beautiful as shown in the videoclip, though we found less flow-rate (the clip had been taken in july), but we didn't exit the canyon at the little bridge shown in the video. I had looked at satellite images of the area and I had in mind that there could be more narrows downstream. So we went on and found nice narrows not shown in the videoclip, still unexplored (see photographs 11 to 16). It was even more beautiful than former narrows, though unfortunately water had a little pollution coming from the sewer depurator of San Fele.

Some days later I chatted with Michele Sperduto, who lives in San Fele and is the president of the committee for Uattenniere cascades. Michele confirmed to me that the second narrows of Uattenniere had not been descended before by canyoneers, but that narrows were not unknown to San Fele inhabitants. He himself had gone there, several times. Although he could not go along the stream because of cascades and pools he and his mates had been able to reach the most characteristic points by following ancient paths or venturing onto the rocks and through the bush.
With regard to the sewer depurator, Michele argued that the situation can be improved if not entirely resolved and assured me its commitment to that effect. Seeing what he and his fellow citizens did for the Uattenniere up to now, I'm sure they will get good results.

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.

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