Lago Nero

For the third consecutive Sunday we’ve gone hiking in the mountains in a weather that’s got better and better. This time it was cloudless, if not perfectly clear, and I’m very glad it wasn’t, because the sun shone already bright enough to scorch our faces. We had planned to leave from Valgoglio and do the five lakes trek, which, with hindsight, would have been too ambitious an aim. In any case we couldn’t walk further than Lago Nero because we didn’t bring rackets, and our weight made us sink knee-deep and sometimes even groin-deep into the heavy snow. In those conditions walking was particularly tiring, so we eat our packed meal on a dry knoll overlooking the dam. The basin was half empty for the winter, but the bottom had a residue of frozen water covered by snow that along the curvy edges of the mountain took on a magical bluish tinge. Cracking plaques of snow covered a steep slope opposite in what looked like a natural amphitheatre of gigantic proportions.

 

For several times we could hear the ominous roar of snow slides which made us direct our gaze towards the source of the deep sound reverberating across the space, and we could see the flurry of white crystals shrouding the fall where tons of snow were unloading into a ravine.

Back to the city, a woman was waiting on her balcony to tell me that I’d left my headlights on and I wouldn’t be able to start the engine. I had nearly absent-mindedly left the car with its door wide open, but my friend pointed it out, so I closed the door and locked it, but forgot about the lights. My friends pushed the car and we could start it, although I had a very stressful time driving home with the threat of the engine stopping at the traffic lights and not being able to turn the ignition on again!