La Mia Fantasia
About halfway along the Clarée (the local river that gives our valley its name), an asphalt road turns right into the mountains, winding up to the Col d’Echelle through a pine forest with fresh needles (it's spring). Between mid-high mountains lies an open meadow, where you'd want to leap out of the car armed with a checkered blanket and a wicker basket to have an impromptu picnic. The route then crosses into Italy, or well, not quite, but a somewhat dark, steep descent overlooks the valley of Bardonecchia, with narrow tunnels and crumbling mountainside, border police hidden behind sharp bends.
Now, you need to know one thing about Bardonecchia: there's a gelateria there, and in the summer, you can find it easily because the line starts roughly in France. I won't say its name because the line is already long enough, but chocolate and mango and strawberry and vanilla, and melon and pistachio. And amarena. And caramel...
If you resist the temptation of Pasticceria Ugetti (oops, now I’ve said it), you can turn left into Vallée Étroite. The steep valley, a French valley, or is it Italian? And that steepness is mainly due to Paroi de Militaire, an impressive mass of rock on the left side of the otherwise picturesque little valley, about four hundred meters high, full of routes and adventure and vertigo. We were going to climb "La Mia Fantasia" on this wall, a multi-pitch of about ten pitches that was supposed to start next to a small cave.
But found neither cave nor multi-pitch. And while we both wandered up and down various piles of rocks, searching for a specific series of bolts (la mia fantasia suddenly sounded a bit doubtful), I found a red stone with small crystals running in a network of threads over its surface. Dad! I forgot I was looking for a route, because now I was among rocks in the mountains that my father would know about, and I thought I should find a small one to send to him. His child among the rocks with bare legs and rough stones in hand. A child in the mountains. Until my partner called, and as soon as I joined him, he looked visibly impatient with my stones.
I placed them at the base of an alternative route, "Albatroz," but when we returned to the same spot hours later, they were gone. Someone else had found them beautiful. "Why don't you bring your father here," my partner said. "Yes," I said. We decided to get ice cream in Bardonecchia, but the shop was closed. So we drove back towards Col d’Echelle in our little blue car and talked about that big wall we had just spent hours clinging to. Strange that no one ever mentioned it. Italian alpinists had used it as a training ground to prepare for the big mountains, as Google told us, while Bambis and baby rabbits got ready for another night on Col d’Echelle. Their night, once we had passed by.
And then we followed the Clarée back home.
