Sleep on the floor

Pack yourself a toothbrush dear
Maybe also a sleeping bag,
‘Cause if we don’t climb this shot
We’re gonna freze here out.

Friday of a regular crazy week, started with a daily tour in the deepest Veneto, where the sky was all but clear. Nothing could save the day from the sultry heat and traffic jams.
Or, well, almost nothing.

Pack a sleeping bag, some cozy clothes, pick up a friend and a couple of beer. Then head to the mountains.

Climbing the last stretch we met a couple of guys descending from the top, they told us about some other misfits like us planning to spend the night on the bivouac.
Without them, we wouldn’t have known the name of the mountais we were looking at, and the night would have been way colder.

June’s full moon is named “strawberry” moon, and itreceived such s curious name because the Algonquin tribes, who used it as a signal to pick up the ripened fruits.

We were looking forward for the full moon rise, but chatting and laughing together we almost missed it.

After the strawberry madness it was finally time for some well-deserved alpine-cold sandwich.

The full moon and the general atmosphere of contemplation following the full sunset gave the chance for having another shot from the series of the Overwatch.
After almost two years from the original picture which sparkled the love for these open and wild spaces, attempting again a reinterpretation of a personal milestone was not only a photographic challenge, but also a great opportunity for trying to fix the current chapter of this greater wandering.

Like a lighthouse in the dark, or like a king wisdomly looking over his territories, the refuge Brioschi dominates the highest peak of the Grigne’s mountain range.

A good compromise for weight saving and long esposures is represented by the widely spreaded gorillapods (and general anthropods).
The main feature making these products very attractive to light travels is the extreme flexibility of the system, allowing you to hook the camera to the branches of a tree as well as to the structure of an urban scaffold. The maximum load and stability of the tripod are, however, its weak, very weak rings.

I would say something more stable than gorilla and lighter than the awighty icelandic tripod is needed.

At 4.30 am the phone inside the sleeping bag pocket began to vibrate, waking from the drowsy sleep that accompanied the night, half-snapped and twisted within the comfortable shelter. After fighting an uneasy war with the recall of the comfy sleeping bag, I crawled out of the metal dome.

The sun was still well concealed from the mountains on the horizon, giving the landscape some tiny blue shades, almost sinking all visible in a dreamlike dimension.

This was a time of awakening for both the surroundings and us; while staring in one direction, the others were already changing.

5.15 am, the sun breaches through the mountaing igniting the sky.

Tender pinkish tones reached over Monte Rosa (Mount Pink, literally) revealing the far sleeping giant in his most beautiful dress.

With the sun rising above the horizon the tones moved to more common pale yellows and heated up the mist creating beautiful sunrays piercing through thevalleys

Our shades reached from the lower grounds where we left them the day before.

The crimson cross of Sigaro Donnes is a constant call, challenging and deeply meaningful.

Such a man-made beauty placed in one of the most difficult places to reach of the whole mountain synthesizes the beauty and hardness of these peaks.

During the economic boom some eco-monsters were built to leverage the increasing amount of tourists populating the valley.
The legacy of this period is heavily engraved in these lands.

Despite the lash of past architectural mistakes and urban sprawl, the beauty of these valleys overcomes everything and shines bright.

With the end of dawn the first mist started to rise, and hunger as well kicked in.
During the descent we encountered a perfect stranger coming from a ridge on which we didn’t know any path, after learning the direction to keep, we went down that trail.
Almost in the valley, in the height where the first berries populate the green fields, we felt rolling boulders; our first thought was to shelter from a possible rocks shower.
After finding that no stone had fallen on us, and not even in our surrounding, we looked at the source of the noise.
Apparently we weren’t the only ones hunting for breakfast.

As he (or she?) noticed us, he (let’s pretend its him) made the last thing I would have imagined: he took a nap, and then stared at us in total comfort.

Meeting this real wildlife is reassuring. Due to the generous amount of tourists crossing these paths I always thought the original inhabitants were totally migrated to quieter pastures.

Or maybe, pointing to the top and sprinting all the way up in an attempt to shorten the fatigue is what makes us lose the hidden beauties.

As we were packing again the camera, a quick storming of knuckles behind us materialized in the shape of a younger roe, probably following his parent.

After another quick set of vertical jumps (and no breakfast) he was already on the other side of the trail.

I must admit I felt kinda related to this roe, probably for his facial mimic.

Dumbness apart after some more vertical hoofing, he gave us a last look, and in a blink of an eye he was already behind the hill.

I like to think of it as a sort of last goodbye.

Again, there is no higher nirvana waiting for you on the mountains, nor there is any sort of magic happening there. But probably, blending yourself within the mountain during the ascension, and above all having feeling the mountain like a living piece of nature which evolves and transforms together with you during your time and sweat on it, this is what creates the deep connections with these stones.

Which would be nothing more than simple rocks if their being constituent parts of the mountain was not something higher