I am all alone here, when I arrived there were two Italians I chatted with, they were just leaving for Chironico like the guardiano who had come up to do some work. Sponda is not pretty, but comfortable, there is warm water and electricity, which means I can charge my phone and as I have just discovered Internet works here! Amazing.

I'm glad for all that after the day I've had. Woke up at six because the Augsburgers were making a racket, but stayed in bed until after eight. I had breakfast and checked the bus schedule to Sonogno in case I had to go down there. Then I left for Bassa della Barone at 2585m. After a 200m climb I arrived at Lago Barone which was really still frozen over and looked very interesting. I had to walk around the right side which was full of snow. I went quite well but once my left leg went into the snow and it was a little trouble getting it put again. It was then a steep climb to Bassa della Barone. This is the view on the like from there.

I've declared war on the the cold I am feeling. I've lit the fire in the kitchen stove here at Sponda hut, had a plate of "angle hair" pasta with butter and Grana and opened a bottle of red wine. A small one. You see wine and other drinks as well as coffee, tea etc are always there. I'm sitting on a blanket and my clothes are hanging over the stove.

Saturday 23.6.2012

I was really cold, made tea (tea, milk powder etc is free) and ate "Butterkekse" some German had left behind. I'm sitting there with a Swiss army blanket, the ancient Augsburgers have abandoned attempts to light the fire. So it's red wine to warm up. This is such a beautiful place. It was strange to leave Soveltra though. Walter, Arturo and Carla were busy preparing did the "Campus" kids to arrive, Arturo wanted me to call from the Campala pass to see if I was ok with the snow, but I couldn't, no problem with snow.

Saturday 23.06.2912

I have arrived at Capanna Barone, it is completely hidden in the clouds. So, no photo of the beautiful Barone. When I left Soveltra it was sunny and hot with clouds I was happy with in the long ascent to Bocchetta della Campala with the rabbit-shape rock I remembered well from when I climbed up there three years ago with Dayal, so even if orientation had been a problem I would have known where to go. Photo shows the first view, but with lots of clouds. 


The descent to Barone is not nice, I remember that too, what I did not remember was some serious scrambling with some secured spots, better to go up than down. My foot hurt but as I discovered it was that special bandage that hurt because it put pressure on the tender spot. I took it off in the descent and it was better immediately. When I arrived at Barone I was surrounded bg thick clouds, I thought I was alone, but then two men from Augsburg materialised. They had been up to Lago Barone and said it looked like Iceland, lots of snow. I wonder how far I will her tomorrow because that is my direction to Sponda hut.

Before they arrived I had washed myself and picked the best place in the beautiful dorm, you con see the view in the photo, but only about because of the weather. 

When I was making myself comfortable a mountain goat (Gemse, camoscio) arrived right outside my window. See in the photo.

This is serious rain. Oh, no, stop, not just rain, thunder (far away, but thunder) and lightning too. The weather is mad. I woke up to clouds, but it was very warm and it didn’t rain until the late afternoon. Then it rained hard, then the sun came out and now it is raining hard again…

My two guests did not show up. I tried to call them at five in the afternoon to see if they were coming or not, but - no answer. I do not know who is going to eat the caponata, quiche and the cake I baked today and am glad that I didn’t start cooking the other stuff I had planned.

It was a busy day today. I slept until nine and after doing the usual things – drinking ovomaltine, cleaning the fire place, airing the hut etc.- I baked an apricot cake and then went into Terminator mode on the grass. Let’s see if you see a difference between the two pictures:

Before...

After...

To be honest, I think it looked nicer before that after, but I was told that cutting the grass and nettles, especially now that the kids are arriving, was very important. So, no arguing, but mowing. I spent four hours cutting grass and I must say I enjoyed myself. I had to get used to the equipment and how to use it, but had a good time. It is again the kind of work that agrees with my sense of order and I tend to do it thoroughly. But I was terrified that I might kill something after I first stirred a frog (a frog? At 1500m in the heat?) and then a viper. Yes, a real and quite long viper. I hope I did not end the lives of too many small or very small creatures. Anyway, this is the Terminator’s weapon:

In between attacking the grass and other green stuff I had to check on the cake and also on some passers-by. First a lone man, whom I had already seen from a distance passing by in the morning, had beer, coffee and cake and then two, rather stressed, Germans came, gulped down two big beers and hurried off again towards Prato Sornico. After putting away the equipment and massaging my now sore shoulders and neck I set out with a small bucket and scissors to collect flowers for the small vases that we put on the tables in the dining room and I did not only cut flowers, but also my finger. I have never cut myself with scissors before. Idiotic. Now I have various blisters and a fresh, rather deep, cut on my hands. Sigh.

Tomorrow is my last day here at Soveltra and my feelings are mixed. On the one hand I can’t wait to get going, despite doubts about my ankle and my general condition, and I am excited about all the things that are going to happen, on the other hand I am almost a bit sad and envious of the next guardianos, who will have lots of guests to take care of. I have been taking some reservations, but all of them for July. I will really miss the open fire.

I have finished my list for Fiorenzo, which will reach him somehow. Arturo will take care of that, but, most probably, neither Arturo nor Fiorenzo will be able to read my handwriting. I’ll see what has come of it when I arrive at Piano delle Creste at the end of July. I have also made reservations for the first three places I plan to stay and have been told that the weather forecast for the weekend is good.

Today is the longest day of the year, but it is almost dark at not even quite ten o’clock here. I imagine that in Germany now, if the weather is good, it will be light until almost eleven. Well, we’re south from Germany here. I wonder what all my friends and family are doing. But, wait, isn’t Germany playing today? I haven’t had any news from my Bernd-hotline yet.

Tomorrow morning I will do some more washing (clothes) and then Claudio is coming up (he just sent an SMS) to finally repair the wheel barrel’s wheel. I’m glad I will see him once more before I leave. I have no idea if I have guests in the evening, the ones that didn’t come today apparently said they may stay two nights. A misunderstanding maybe. But I will be busy. I have agreed to bake four cakes for Walter. And there is a lot of other work to do. And my washing, and, and, and.

I was up at quarter to eight, cleaning a bit, having a hot ovomaltine, preparing the fire place etc when Walter Lösch and Claudio arrived. Walter is another guardiano over sixty. These men have all worked for this hut for many, many years and are continuing to do so as long as they can, it seems. And almost all of them are still fit enough to walk at least the path from the first bridge, which is a steep, one hour-long ascent.

I am nothing compared to them, a complete new-comer, but ignorant compared to them, I have ended up here for very specific reasons, know nothing really about the region, their lives, the written and unwritten laws and ways. I suppose they consider me an exotic kind of tourist with good intentions and high morals concerning interest, work and service. They accept me in a way, but in another they do not. Which is their right. And I apologise for anything I have done wrong or continue to do wrong without knowing.

After coffee and ovomaltine, Claudio started to replace the broken wheel barrel wheel and mow the grass and Walter and I went through all the provisions. He had lists of all the food he needed and the dishes he planned to prepare for a total of about 35 persons in one week and checked everything on his list, adding the amounts he needed to be delivered. He seems to me to be a very amiable man with a good sense of humour.

They had originally planned to leave very early again, but I managed to persuade them to stay for an early lunch, so I could give them my caponata and the planned quiche. I abandoned plans to bake a cake, because they would definitely not stay long enough and nobody else was scheduled to come. They were hesitant about staying a little longer, but Walter, who, as I discovered later, is a sweet tooth, was hooked when I told him I had already prepared tiramisu the night before.

We had lunch together at about twelve, I must say the caponata with toasted slices of white bread with garlic was delicious. I wasn’t too happy with the quiche, the dough was a bit too thick and I had no adequate alternative to “schmand”, “crème fraiche” or the likes. And the tiramisu didn’t turn out as nearly perfect as usual. The crème wasn’t as it usually was, maybe it was the weather, I had trouble beating the cream and the mascarpone was a little too thin. Maybe it was the “thunder storm weather”-effect (remember the same situation in Berlin, Bernd?), but still it is quite edible and Walter and Claudio seemed very happy and content with the food.

Claudio did not succeed in repairing the wheel barrow, so the piles will remain where they are for the time being. Instead, he showed me how to use this special “lawn-mowing”-machine before he left because he had not managed to finish everything and I was glad to have some work to do. Then, at one in the afternoon they were gone again. I put on the wellies and got ready for some orange-clad, extraterrestrial-looking law-moving action when it started to rain. And I found the mouse. It was dead. My mouse was dead. Dead, right on my door step. I don’t know why. I took it to the river for a proper “sea funeral” and am now mourning.

It RAINED. So I put everything away and went to bed. I normally never lie down during the day or sleep, but these past days I have. It rained and rained and rained and I was in bed. Until four. It was still raining when I got up again. Definitely no lawn moving today. So I started to prepare things for Saturday, what maps, clothes and other things to take with me, make a to-do list and a list of food for my week as guardiana at Piano delle Creste. I will leave the list here for Arturo to give to Fiorenzo as well as my parcel that will be brought up to the hut and will be there when I arrive.

I will have two guests tomorrow, at least they haven’t called yet to cancel their stay. I have loads of food ready and ideas how to feed them. Tomorrow morning I hope to get some lawn-mowing done, weather permitting, and then bake a cake. Collect new flowers for the vases on the tables, do some washing and call at least the first three huts I plan to stay to make reservations.

Those who have actually read all the stuff I have been writing at length and maybe even found it interesting, must prepare themselves for a probably long silence from me now. When you read this many days will already have passed by and I will no longer have anybody to take care of my blogging. When you read this I, hopefully, will already have walked for at least a week and will be somewhere on my way towards Engadine. There will be no more entries in the blog, unless I happen to stay in a pension or similar place with Wi-Fi or other Internet access.

I am telling you this because the next two days will go by quickly and then I will be writing on my HTC and taking photos, but I will not be able to send them off. And then it will be back to short texts, because updating the blog by HTC, even though it is a really good device, is a lot more complicated than with a normal computer. I can hardly believe I will actually be walking again in two days. My foot feels quite good, not normal and there is a spot that is still quite tender. I am optimistic but careful. Tomorrow it will be exactly two weeks ago that I hurt myself. Maybe I am too optimistic. We will see. After the first day of walking to Barone hut I will already have an idea of the state I am in.

I made fire and breakfast for my guests at seven and went back to bed again. No guests today and nothing much to do. The second night in a row I dreamt about fire, lots of fire, and always in places it was not supposed to be, in houses, on rocks, even on animals like my now long dead and beloved cat Trusca. I dream a lot about cats too. I am dreaming a lot in general, and most of my dreams are unpleasant ones, maybe it is all the accumulated stress that is coming out, slowly… After I got up again I spent two hours working outside, doing this:

It may not look like a lot of work to you, but it was and it was hot. I stopped moving wood and cleaning up when I felt I had blisters on my hands. Well, it’s my own fault, I forgot to put gloves on again just like last time. I couldn’t get rid of the piles because the wheel barrel is still “out of order”. Claudio has bought a new wheel and will bring it up tomorrow or on Thursday.

Even though there were many clouds the sun was really strong and I sat under the big red umbrella for some time after I’d had a shower and washed my few clothes again:

I sat there for some time, studying my maps and eating the last piece of cake, seeing nobody else was going to. I have decided to start really slowly on Saturday, considering my hurt ankle and all this time I have done hardly anything but cleaning and working a bit and feeding a few guests. It has been more like a special kind of holiday than a typical “guardiano” week. Instead of going directly from Soveltra to Capanna Sponda on Sunday, I will leave on Saturday and stop at Alpe Barone, which I already know and which is very, very nice. This way I split the tour in two and have two short walks. You can see the path on the map:

I’ve walked it before, but the other way round, coming from Barone and arriving at Solvetra. My highest point will be the “Bocchetta della Campala” at around 2300m. I should be at the hut, even in “slow motion”, in about four hours. So, weather permitting, I can leave in the early afternoon after having putting everything in order for my fellow guardianos, who will arrive in the morning to take over. Everything has to be clean and tidy. Normally we also prepare food to make the start easier for them, according to the bookings etc. This time Carla, whom I already met ten days ago, will come up with a group of at least 25 children aged 6 to 10, a cook and kitchen crew. It is a regular event for children called “Campus”. During that week no reservations are taken for Soveltra, only those who pass by can stay of course. Early tomorrow morning the cook, Walter Lösch, who is also a regular Soveltra guardiano, is coming up to take stock of the food there is and make notes of what he needs. He is a “real” cook and I have heard of him, but haven’t met him yet.

Today I also spoke to Fiorenzo, who is responsible for the Piano delle Creste hut, where I worked for a weekend past September and will be guardiana for a week from 28 July to 4 August. He told me that for the first day, the Saturday, I already have 21 bookings. Once again I am on a guardiano duty on my own, which is unusual, nothing I wanted and nothing to be recommended. Fiorenzo told me that during that week, which is one of the busiest, it would be simply impossible to cope on my own. So he will be coming up on the Saturday to help and will maybe stay the whole week. On Saturday also my friends Baggy (Bernd), Olaf and Paul plan to come up to the hut and stay a few days. They will be on their way back home from their walking holiday in the “Seealpen” in France and Bavona valley is no great deviation.

It is raining slightly. I had a plate of penne with my fresh pesto and feta cheese tonight, which was very yummy, and then prepared caponata and tiramisu. Both will keep for a few days. I have at least two guests on Thursday and Friday. And if Walter and Claudio come tomorrow there will be something nice for them to eat. I also plan to make another apricot cake and a quiche with green asparagus tomorrow. Anybody coming?