Beech Autumn - from a Acquafredda Vaquarro by Timpone Cannocchiello Piano Iannace
a glimpse into the beech woods, along the path from Vacquarro to T. Cannocchiello - photo by Indio. below: 1. end near Timpone di Mezzo, just out of the woods, 2. the stream to Frido Vaquarro 3. loricati pines on the slopes of Cannocchiello Timpone, with Serra del Prete in the background, 4. cloud on top of Mount Pollino; 5. Plan view of the beech wood Cannocchiello from Piano Iannace 6. Autumn colors in the Plan of San Francesco
was a long time I wanted to get a good walk in the woods in autumn colors during this period. The weather was promising and then Friday was a day that I should not escape me. The route that came to my mind I had already done it once, but on the contrary, and joins two sites characteristic of our mountain Vacquarro Plan and Plan of Iannace. If I had taken the car, which forced me to return to a starting point, I could not make the circular route that I had in mind: that from the fountain Acquafredda, including Timpone's Murzo Timpone and Middle-reach Plan Vaquarro and then from there follow the path (not marked on the map but in Braschi) through the beech forest floor leading to the Timpone Cannocchiello Iannace. From Plan Iannace Finally I would follow the road to San Francisco until Acquatremola Plan and then by there to my village down to the woods and pastures. So to hell with the cars and all motorized vehicles ... you go on foot!
You get great-Acquafredda Frangiosso starting Conocchielle and along a dirt road .. But I cut from the source of Frida climbing the trails through the pastures of the shepherds who now overrun by brambles. No one has ever passed in mind, however, to publicize and report with a nice chart the path Conocchielle Vacquarro. Among the other was a path that was always a dear friend who sadly passed away. I could take with me but the dog would have great difficulty crossing Frida in the middle of the river, maybe you would be scared and then refuse to carry, and I pulled the air would be filled with dreadful curses. So, I'm sorry dog, but now you're home. I take part of a motto of Into the Wild "... no phone, no dogs and cats ...." No cars, no people, no dogs ... now I want to recapture the spirit of solitary contemplation in the wilderness!
To overcome the torrent Frida takes me a bit 'of time: I walk along a wall keeping me clinging to the iron mesh to reach the point where I can pass the stream with a jump from rock to rock. He began the most tedious part of the excursion, because the trails are overrun by brambles. The thorns scratched my head. The area is full of excrement and footprints of wild boar. Sooner or later I would meet them. I can finally get to the dirt road. Before me lies the beech forest of the Middle Timpone, while the top of Serra del Prete check from the forest. I head to the fountain in front of me I see Acquafredda and wild boar crossing the road quickly. I'll go ahead and see them more in running and jumping in the bushes. Will be thirty. It 'amazing how they felt from quite far away and my presence. If I were a hunter one day I would have caught. How strange: I am thirty, and could drag me away but they're afraid of this strange being bipedal. I continue on my way. I find a good group of fungi Tricholoma portentosum, that command filer or in local dialect. I collect them and put them in your backpack.
After the fountain Acquafredda Vaquarro going to have to climb to the right, where you will come out in a beautiful glade with dozens of huge beech trees. The trail follows the Middle Timpone through a dense beech forest, near the river Frido, of which I can already hear the dull and distant sound of the full. Some giant, centuries-old beech trees. Some wreckage, some rotten tree that bears witness to the greatness of the past. It comes out on top of a rocky and bare, a vantage point from which you can admire the small loricati clinging to the rocky summit overlooking the wooded Frido during and immediately before it, the elongated shape of the Serra del Prete wrapped in reddish mantle of the forest. Here the path crosses a rocky terrain, then it goes down to get to the Plans of Vaquarro. The plateau is full of the bubbling waters of Frido, who digs the green pastures of Vaquarro dividing into streams, which then joins the main road and enter the dark and mysterious forest. Many willows along the stream, drawing spots round light green and shiny. We are in the lower part of the plans Vacquarro.
Now I remember the entrance of the path, until a few years ago, marked by a pile of rocks. I consult my notebook where the entrances are designed as a reminder and directions unfrequented paths. I drew and described a large juniper bush, another smaller, and above a large boulder. The drawings are but the pile of rocks collapsed. And here I am to trudge along the path that climbs steeply through the beech. In the exposed and rocky slopes above the Cannocchiello Vaquarro grow pine seedlings loricato. Going known a young white spruce. Emerges at the point of termination of the long ridge of beech forest cloaked by the Madonna di Pollino. Far away, on the rocks, also known loricato a small pine tree. Then you will come out a clearing among the rocks, where you can admire the view of the Serra del Prete and Plans Vaquarro. After all, the goal of the excursion was this pass that will lead me through the area Iannace Cannocchiello. He told my father that it was in these woods once lived a woodcutter hermit. He had built a hut and stood there even in winter, with snow. Cut the beech trees and turned them into sleepers. The area apparently underwent significant cuts in forest ...
are near the top of Cannocchiello. Before me now stand only long-limbed beeches, vertical lines that follow one after another until rarefied overlapping each other over the horizon of the slopes. I am in the heart of the beech forest and the silence here seems to "deafening". You do not hear voices of birds or other animals. Beech foliage with reddish residue, a carpet of dead leaves covering the path, and from which emerge from time to time various species of fungi that break the monotony with their bright colors color of the soil. A few isolated white spruce. The trace of the trail starts to become more and more sparse. Finally arriving in the clearing that I know well, crossed by a stream. I'm almost at a Piano Iannace. There are the remains of a small fire made probably by shepherds who know these woods. A Plan Iannace do a trip to the ruins of the old barracks of the forest and the nearby source detected by the tank. Now go on to the Plan of San Francesco. Wandering along the road between the trees. I go in search of mushrooms fir (Lactarius deliciosus), characterized by bright orange, the hat and the slimy red latex dirty hands. But the smell is almost the "flavor" of the white to make so special about this fungus. I can climb a snowy mountain, cross a forest, follow the course of a stream, collecting mushrooms. What interests me is always at the bottom of the immersion in nature, always waiting for what the mountain can provide us with its atmosphere, its surprises and its landscape ...
