This started as a daily email to a few friends to keep them abreast of my trip. When I got home it was revealed that every friend who got the email passed it on to one or two friends. I received quite a few notes from people saying they had missed the first ten days or two weeks, and could I please forward them those notes. Instead I put together this....

Day One: Milan

It’s curious, how travel leaves me feeling what I think of as lonely. I’m not sure it is loneliness, but there’s some emotional similarity. In the same way that jet lag feels like having been electrocuted or strapped to a massive bell and percussed.

But I minimized the jet lag by fasting for the length of the journey, then jumping back in with breakfast on approach at 7am. Wandered Milan for the afternoon, bed at 9pm, awake at 5am: very close to the home schedule.

Today I’m outbound for the mountains: two nights in Bressanone to get situated, then on foot, probably southbound.

Day Two

So this is what narcolepsy feels like. I could blame it on the lulling train ride, but it was just the end of the jet lag. Did that embarrassing head snap a number of times….

As planned, I got in a nice walk today. Taller than I expected, so tomorrow may be a day off just for the sake of getting myself sorted, not destroyed.

Autumn is inbound… fresh snow over on the peaks. Where I’m headed.

Overslept, but OK about it because I was awake in the middle of the night. Blaming the grappa. But not holding a grudge.

The farming here is vertical. Amazing how steep these slopes are. The trail led through one farmer’s goat pen. Unfond of goat affection, I outran them both directions.

The backcountry smells different here.

Lunch was at Rifugi Rodella, but I didn’t realize how stubbornly Austrian Bressanone and environs had remained: my Italian is passable, but all my German is from war movies. Yelling Mach Schnell! hasn’t been working, so I pretend I speak no German at all. And they pretend to speak little or no Italian, so lunch was a sort of surprise dish, but delicious. Weird.

But up above treeline is always good. The clouds were massing and tumbling right at our elevation, so sitting out eating was entertaining, and then cold.

I believe exercise is the cure for jet lag. Discuss.

Nicked myself shaving: tip of the left ear, apparently, in passing. While in the shower. Took a while to figure out where all the blood was coming from. Wore my red sweater to dinner, to prevent hysterics should it resume.

Day Four

One couple at this GuestHouse, speaking German, and two things occur to me: even when I’m attentive there aren’t subtitles; and that’s strangely ok, because there are people around, but their conversation is background.

Trying to make arrangements in advance for huts, but, as expected, many have closed until the snows guarantee wintersport traffic. And others have closed early on Italian whim.

I’ve always found it easy to believe in other people’s projects. I suppose I lack the ego required to believe in my own. Or the ignorance.

Genova was full last night… perhaps a tradition, to pack a rifugio on the last night of the season. The bar was packed, the dining room was full… it turned into a locals party. I got to watch.

I ate milk chocolate today.

My pack and garb stand out precisely because they are so low-key. I’m all in granite grey. Should I fall down, they’ll never spot me.

And snoring? One roommate spent four hours alternating between the wheezed exhalations of a man in the grip of a talented boa constrictor who always wanted to play the accordion, and a laudable sequence of self-administered petit-mort. With the occasional long apneated breath, those lying adjacent in the dark were teased to wonder if the winning blow had finally been dealt. Amongst those already in cahoots, I suspect a secret pool.

It was not a good night.

oh look: 8000′ and snowing

Eight

Two of the rifugi to which I made inquiry – and which failed to reply – turned out to be open. I took their silence for an indication of their closed status, not neglect. I had already chased down a room in Selva, so passed them by for the night.

I have friends who have never been single. They are moving through a procession of partners, always. And as strange as that is to me, I realize I have been the same with employment: I’ve never been self-employed. That’s part of this trip: break habits, think about what it means to be solo, and begin to formulate a plan.

My calves will be turgid little homunculi, eyes scrunched and teeth bared with effort in their casings.

My legs are holding up: knees solid, that’s the key. And loving the climbing, still greater than the descents.

You know you’re working when your mustache is salty.

How exhausting, to be an emigrant. And an immigrant.

I pack my bag, smug at how nicely it all fits, and then realize I’m still in my hut sandals. And look: there’s the shaving kit.

Now in Ladin territory: every sign in three languages. I’m so turned around people speak to me in English and I reply in Russian.

Nine

Melancholic, the sole guest in a place that sleeps sixty. The upside? No one is snoring.

Ultralight hikers say the best raingear is an umbrella. After one morning, I’ll agree. If there’s no wind. Mine is blue, like Pooh’s balloon.

Right at snowline this morning….

The comforters here at Firenze are 12″ deep! I worried when the room wasn’t heated, but at 0200 I got up and shook all the down over to one side of the comforter, and slept under the thin side.

The trails are beautifully marked, indicating time, rather than distance, to your next waypoint. If you are a fleet footed elf carrying only love in your heart and lembas upon your back. The rest of you can mark it up 30%.

We marvel at immigrants so quickly fluent in English, but it’s purest survival.

Sitting on the porch of Fermeda Hut (“Riposo”: napping, apparently, for the winter) pouring rain all night and day. No chance for that via ferrata: snowing up there.

I’m reading Pilgrim At Tinker Creek. Again. I have been in love with Annie since I was twenty. Her books – and my reading – are a long romance.

Odles Hut and Col Raiser are both closed now, as well. Odles rather effectively discourages those who would sit uninvited upon their porch with piped 70s era folka polka music.

And after a lovely wet five mile walk: cioccolata calde! That is good.

X

Two here in an escalating argument, voices rising, pushing, then both burst into laughter.

I barely overpacked: guide books and maps, the traveller’s forgivable sin. The shorts, perhaps, optimistic. And one sweater (a justifiable indulgence).

They lied. It’s an end of season party here tonight at Firenze. But I did get barbeque off of the grill.

Moved into my apartment today. As I was preparing to leave Firenze, the rain turned to snow. Three hours walking at 6500′, then a drop down into town. My trips henceforth will be down to a daypack’s weight. The full pack for a week+ has built me up, now I can stretch out.

Rifugi – when open – are a great sleeping value (if you can sleep). Meals are expensive.

Yes, the land of Heidi dreams. And the Grimm nightmares.

The duvet are all stubby. Not as if only short people ought use them, but for squirreling away, bouldered in your bed like bear, cuddled as a prickle of hedgehogs.

Oh look, he said, over the map. This trail over here follows the road. Surely that will be much less of a knee grinder…

Wrong again.

I love walking in the mountains, slowly shifting the backdrop massifs as I go. Climb the high pass, cross over, to the other side of the silhouette, shake out its fullness and its textures through a day’s effort, as an origami inflated with a puff of breath.

Europeans have a long symbiotic relationship with the land, most obviously here in the mountains. Not a conquering mentality, but a relationship.

Elevenses

I think part of the sequence of the last six months was one of separation from comfort, and this trip gives that a sense of finality (and daily reality). It also gives me something I love – these mountains – and a fresh outlook, and my photography back. With all of those curious pieces in place, things are looking surprisingly good. At the moment.

First Italian Nutella observation: the consistency is firm. American Nutella can be squeezed from a tube. Nutella can be cut with a knife.

Florian was showing me around the apartment and introduced the kitchen by saying, “Und here the chicken.”

Up in the clouds, and the combination of being fog bound, in this apartment with its architecture and wood and white, reminds me deeply of The Sea Ranch.

Second Nutella observation (easily overlooked): they’re still using glass jars.

The trousers I chose – technically, softshells – are of a nice burly weave and fabric. Their prime advantage is that, unlike the lightweight softshells with their traditional nylon ‘zipzoop’ whine when walking, these make a manly grinding noise.

Despite Florian and his wife having a big three story house, somehow Everything* That Happens, happens in the little room just below my apartment, from industrial crafts to arguments. I turn on classical music, and it becomes opera.

They have YogurtButter here. Still not sure what that means. Updates as available…

The window across from the couch looks onto the adjacent ridge. Or the clouds between. A perfect ambient visual track. Oops: it just cleared. Yup, that’s distracting.

12

I’m coming down with something. Or just eating too much Nutella.

It used to be that anywhere you went you’d find American TV – subtitled – so you wouldn’t get homesick. Today I finally found news in English, but immediately lost track of the cable channel number… somewhere in the one thousands, I think.

Found my San Pellegrino Chinotto!

No, I did not put Nutella in my yogurt this morning. It’s too thick to stir in. Tomorrow I’ll coat the spoon, and skim a little every bite.

Fanni Vágó plays women’s futbol in Italy. One sponsor has 'AGSM' centered across her… jersey.

I am just reporting the facts as they present themselves.

I spoke too soon: I just got a response from Rifugio Firenze, reserving a bed for me last Sunday.

There’s something about having a place of one’s own… but something certainly to be said for being resigned to a semi-public space – like a rifugio – where restrictions are in place, options are limited… even if it’s pouring rain, you’re probably going to go out in it, rather than sit through a day in an unheated rifugio. But in your private space? Put on the classical music, stretch out on the couch, read Annie, read A Soldier Of The Great War (and there is No Better Place In The World to read that), check on the clouds periodically… nothing wrong with any of that, but easy to remain comfortable, rather than continue to push.

snowing in town all afternoon

Thirteenth

Fourteener

This apartment has nice bones, but finished in the most half-assed fashion: old couch, odds and ends of pans, mismatched flatware (and no normal sized spoons: serving spoons and pablum spoons, but not one Nutella spoon in sight), six different wood finishes….

Boy, they don’t want anybody oversleeping on Sunday mornings in this town: church bells going at 7am. And going. And going.

Ten minutes of bells at 7am!

If you’re going to throw someone in at the deep end – and want them to succeed – they will require three things: the reinforcement of repetition, their many questions answered, and to have their mistakes managed as part of learning.

Ortisei is locked up tight on a Sunday. It’s a good thing the TP situation hasn’t devolved to the pine cone stage. When Mass lets out at eleven, the people pour onto the cobbled high street together where they window shop and point and blush, ladies arm in arm, and chat as they stroll, the men in their hats.

XV

Coming up the stairs from the street to a flurry of wings: surprised the crows tearing up the moss between flagstones.

Washed those trousers yesterday. Wore them into the shower.

These people Could Not Wait to put on their little puffy down jackets. Nothing, apparently, could be finer. Makes them feel like they’re skiing already.

This is not the Italy you’re thinking of, nor the Italians. These are Austrians, caught, for now, on the wrong side of the fence.

Another brand of Chinotto! Smoother than San Pellegrino… sweeter? But still that Chinotto astringency.

One of the few neglected buildings I’ve seen in the mountains.

Woodcarving is the traditional regional craft… think Hummel figurines. Florian’s workshop is right below this apartment, hence the noise. Which makes the noise meaningful, instead of just noise. There is – somehow – a difference.

16

When the Nutella has dipped to the point that you can no longer scoop your cracker to acquire the requisite amount, it’s no longer a snack.

I wondered why they had TP on both sides of the aisle. I, of course, picked from what turned out to be the paper towel side, and No, they’re not interchangeable. So: the third climb down into town was required yesterday afternoon. Could have been a nice walk through the pine forest….

My legs, as expected, are developing. And just from running errands.

The ugly American: no sweet chartreuse down sweater. Tried to buy an horrid plaid shirt, but nothing in my size. Way to ruin a morning, Italy!

They don’t refrigerate their eggs here. No: their >chicken< eggs. They inoculate their chickens against salmonella, and leave the cuticle on the egg. We wash the cuticle off, and fridge them. And we have more cases of egg-sourced salmonella.

Chestnuts, firm, round, and glossy as the buttocks of ungulates.

Hard frost last night, all the way down into town. I love autumn, and this is a beautiful one.

17

Happy Back To The Future Day!

The gondola ride to and from Sasso. On the map it looks like a big meadow, but in person it’s hilly, muddy, snowy, and tucked within a rim of peaks.

Downtown is just above the shadow line. My place is above the centerline, halfway between the right edge of the image and the cable, just left of an island of trees. Look: I’m waving.

Somehow got the song ¡Que Será, Será! stuck in my head….

The towers for the gondolas are set at worrisome angles, until you realize it’s the balance between gravity’s pull and the perpetual tension of the cable.

Gentleman on top, traditional Tyrolean garb, his cart and burro at rest, thoughtfully eating a banana.

To manage these vertical drops, you have to keep knees bent, and direct – not control – your flow downhill. It’s a uniquely simian gait, but you won’t grind your knees down to nubbins, which is awkward, because they’re in the middle of your legs.

I’m amazed at the speeds these bicyclists maintain. They’re cheaters, of course: you easily spot the battery packs.

The switchback, apparently, never occured to these people. And although they have the wheel, they prefer to use it for gondolas.

I’ve never understood this impulse to decorate toilet paper, or even paper towels. My new TP has diminutive gingko leaves never nearing the edges. Stranger, my accidental paper towels are Travel themed. Why not a nice plaid, or perhaps a solid avocado to go with the old appliances?

18

There’s a comfort in being so isolated. Few here speak English, and since I speak no German and the Italians no Italian, I find myself looking up simplest words (“round-trip”) to communicate simply, and sneaking peeks at displays to know how much is due at the grocer. The less communication, the less miscommunication. Since I have thus made myself vulnerable, there is the reward of the requirement to trust.

And being down to one bag’s worth of stuffs, as the girls say. How economical. How few choices to be made. When I lived in the adobe submarine, I finally figured out that I needed to put away all but two plates, two bowls, spoons, forks, etc. so that I wouldn’t overwhelm the kitchen, and, thus, myself. Some lessons are hard to learn.

Americans always escape to Italy.

The important thing, when hand washing socks, is to revive the nap on the inner soles, so that you have cushion. And to wash your hands well after.

I was borderline savant Tuesday: stopped at a rifugio for lunch, accidentally greeted my rifugista in French, and immediately inquired in my best German if she spoke English. I may have a well-hidden knack for language, but I have a blatant one for accent, so she gave me a long, curdled look before guardedly discussing the ravioli. And I said au revoir in Italian.

There are so many things in Europe that are simply smarter than those in the US: the preference for trains, small cars, diesels, scooters and bicycles, that their windows both open wide, and tilt back from the top to vent but remain secure, that windows and doors all have rolling shutters built in… and then you go to adjust the thermostat on the radiator and discover that the range extends from * to 6.

Something about October precludes the early start.

House and car don't even belong to the same family. To say nothing of the sky....

The sunlight, the trees, the fog, the warm wood and white walls, and, I realize, the classical music, all are markers of those years when The Sea Ranch house became a way to get outside the habits and patterns of childhood, of adolescence; there was a gesture towards, not maturity, but a humanness – a quietude – outside my experience.

They’ve moved the cows down from their high summer pastures, and they’ve moved them somewhere very close by.

IXX

It seems to me there are two kinds of photographers. The Ansel Adams, documenting the eternal, the natural, the permanent. And the Robert Capa, chasing the ephemeral, the human, the transient.

As much as I love the forest, what I really need is the alpine, and I’m having a hard time getting myself there from the valley.

I took offense at Nikon’s slogan, ‘We Take The World’s Greatest Pictures.’

I love these boots, except for one flaw: a too-low toe box: the first time the tops of my toes have ever been damaged.

The drivers here are attentive, assertive, non-competitive, and generous, and the model for my own road conduct.

One of the problems here – the October Early Start Problem – is that the sun didn’t hit my place until 9:08am this morning.

Tour bus just unloaded in town: a Chinese contingent... for an hour, I passed for Italian.

It’s difficult to overcome the entropy of a couple of welcome days off the trail. Compounded by the OESP. And being valley-bound.

I just got served an Americano that, in the US, would be called an espresso shot.

A feral pair of sparrows live here in the corner café. As if it were a diminutive Italian Sam’s Club.

XX

The traditional Tyrolean home is a great cube with a shallow roof – sloped counter the angle of the land – set deep within a steep hillside. Draw a square for the profile of the house, then a diagonal from corner to corner for the land: that is a diagram of a Tyrolean home in cross section. It’s not unusual for each of, say, three stories, to have ground level access: lowest level at the front, mid at one or both sides, and top at the rear. A Tyrolean home built on the flat is ungainly and ill-proportioned, but on a hillside it emerges and stands both proud and humble, half its mass buried, insulated, and protected.

The Europeans consider everything sport: yesterday, on a velodrome, pairs of bicyclists circling: the one in front casually pedaling on an upright townie electric-assist bicycle at a good pace, and trailing in his wake is a full race bred bike and aero-tucked cyclist working like mad. A Derny Race.

A beautiful day. Packed the bag last night, got up and ate breakfast, dropped into town and started climbing, southbound. Two thousand feet later I’m back up on the Sasso plateau. I cross it, east to west, to Compatsch, climb another 600′ north, then drop over the edge onto one of the steepest trails I’ve ever been on, and in two hours lose all of that elevation and am home, and before dark. The pedometer says fifteen miles.

21

Don’t think I’ve heard one American since I left the airport. Not counting my own blathering.

Took a shower at 7 last night after cooling down from the hike. Then, like a child, spent two hours trying to stay awake.

Working in my journal one day – years ago – in a café, and the waitress, during a lull, wanders by and asks, “Whatcha writing? Just junk?”

I will never get ahead working for anyone else. I don’t have the political savvy to play the game (they love my work ethic, and then forget about me). Time to work for myself, and trust that my skills/talents will be sufficient to the task of staying alive, and, coincidentally, getting ahead.

The truth is that I went up to Selva to do a via ferrata: rock climbing on a route with fixed protection. Everyone loves this route, because it’s new and nearby and… anyway, no one told me they took it down. And because I’m stubborn and whatever else I am, I kept pushing up this ravine, sure that I’d find it. Steep ravine. After a half hour, I looked down and thought, "I am not going back down that!" So up, for two thousand vertical feet. At times using my hands because the ground in front of me is that close, so why not. (Yes, I started down there at the bottom, at that narrowest gap.)

Finally at the hut on top – closed – and a gentleman wanders up, and strikes up a conversation. So we walk back down to Selva together – on a trail – and he gives me a ride back to Ortisei because he lives halfway up the hill to my place. He was a wildlife photographer for 40 years, and now is a woodcarver. He’s cousins with my landlord. Hans.

I’ve enjoyed being mute, or, as the traditional phrasing has it, dumb. Guess I’d had enough chatter for a while. Guess I’ll do ok as The Last Man, post-apocalyse.

Just got a piece of torte, and my first thought is, “She’s right-handed!” I grew up in a family where those who served layer cake were left-handed, so, discreetly flipped, it can be managed.

Near freezing out, but these two kids just have to have their gelato. And here’s another.

Day off, after a bad night and the return of autumn weather. Tomorrow the same, weather-wise. Friday is to be beautiful: one last long walk.

XXV

Listening to Barber’s Adagio For Strings, while reading Memoir From Ant-Proof Case, and the word adagio presents itself in the text as the final note is played….

I suppose that I’m attempting to live a moral life, which, in the 21st century, is naive. And when I find my directness confounded by those whose moral compass points only to their self, or money, I am, at best, baffled….

People prefer patio seating, even on a wet day like today. Yes, beneath awnings and umbrellas, but still… the Europeans, of course, haven’t given up smoking.

I grew up with the understanding that good, honest, hard-working people were rewarded. That myth was for a past generation, though it may have been a myth for them, too. In my experience, only those who run the alleyways get ahead. Those who follow the rules – the streets – are seldom rewarded.

I have spent too little of my life in the alpine. It is too subtle for someone so easily distracted. The blame is mine.

One of my problems is, having been derailed from my natural path when young, I’ve accepted what was available, rather than claimed what was mine. So now I venture. And, it would appear, I venture boldly. This is what happens when you corner yourself.

I don’t believe that I understand yogurt-butter, but I like it just fine.

The problem with solving problems is the people who first refuse to acknowledge that a problem exists, and then choose to conflate problem-solving and trouble-making.

26

It’s funny, watching the kids. They all ride public transport, so if you’re at the piazza during those magic hours, you get the pleasure of watching their interactions without the trouble of hearing the horrible things they’re actually saying to one another. But you can tell by body language. And you recognize the phenotypes you had forgotten.

Met three shepherd dogs, one so excited that he circled in a canine sneezing fit until he forgot where he was, what prompted it, and stood looking off into the distance. Then he saw me and remembered and came over for a shy skritch.

A hat with a brim can block the sunlight. And the views. And that signpost you have been looking for….

On top I meet another trekker, and when we stop to chat, realize we’re both grinning like idiots: the day is perfect. Sharing that recognition with someone like-minded is a treat, and was our only shared language.

The public transit system here is so thorough it borders on baffling.

Towards the end of the day I overtook an older man, said hello as I passed. A half hour later I inexplicably overtook him a second time. We both smiled as I greeted him again. And as I approach the bus terminal for the ride home, he sheepishly waves hello.

Long day: pedometer says 20+ miles (the map says 15). And a near-perfect one. Start with a near-freezing climb. Break out into the sun and keep climbing, turn west late morning and make a long, contouring traverse with the sun. Drop into the valley, follow it back to people and a gondola ride back down to the valley, and a busride home, getting in at dark.

27

There’s something about a tower, a spire, in village, town, or city, that, from afar, calms. It denotes a center, but it denotes civility. It punctures the carapace of rooftops, of uniformity. It acts as a reference point, as a gesture outward, beckoning.

The people of Verona have color sense: their houses are an array of colors I have never seen before, all tuned and complementary to their trees, their earth, the Verona sky. The colors all run hot, and rich.

The Galeria and neighborhood was absolutely packed this afternoon, children prepared for Halloween. Walking down and back was more exhausting than all day in the backcountry.

And on that note, I’ll leave off these thoughts, and you without a photo. Tomorrow I depart, hoping to be in my own bed before it’s Monday morning. Then the challenges begin.