A volcano a day keeps Aeolus at bay (Salina Walk/Day 3)
A volcano a day keeps Aeolus at bay
[Day 3]
by Rudston Steward
fundamental tenet of my walking philosophy is this: whenever possible, start your hike at sea level and walk up to the top of a mountain. In due course walk down the other side, all the way back to the sea. When you get to the water, jump into it. Swim, soak, drip dry. Repeat—as soon, and often, as possible.
It’s a formula that I adhere to any time the opportunity presents itself. As it happens, today and tomorrow—the second and third days of my Salina hike—afford an opportunity to double the dose: two twin-peaked volcanos on two successive days. Today (picking up where I left off yesterday) from Pollara to the top of Monte dei Porri and down the other side to Malfa on the coast; tomorrow from Malfa to the summit of Monte Fossa delle Felci and back down the other side to Santa Marina. Both rounded off with swims at Punta Scario (today) and Lingua (tomorrow).
I am feeling quite philosophical about the prospect.
The trail from Pollara ascends Monte dei Porri’s northern slope. It’s a path walked much less frequently than those that head up Monte Fossa delle Felci, because the latter is the slightly higher peak, so everyone opts to climb it instead. They’re after the bragging rights earned by making it to the highest point in the Aeolian Islands. But the summit of Monte dei Porri is, in fact, more spectacular than its eminent twin’s. The vegetation is lower, visibility is far superior. On top of Porri, if the weather holds, you get a mind-glowingly spectacular 360 degree panoramic. And the feel of the place, once you settle in up there, is somehow more contemplative and more illuminating than the partially-obscured summit at Fossa delle Felci.
AT FIRST ONLY ALICUDI AND FILICUDI ARE VISIBLE, GNOSTIC GUARDIANS OF THE DISTANT WESTERN FRONT. THEY SLIDE SLOWLY OUT OF SIGHT, STEP BY STEP, AS I ARABESQUE UP AND AROUND PORRI'S CONE.
Today’s hike unfolds like a dance. As I gain height from the sea level start at Pollara, the six islands that lie scattered in couplets around Salina appear and disappear in rhythmic sequence. A seductive game of hide and seek. At first only Filicudi and Alicudi are visible, gnostic guardians of the distant western front. They slide slowly out of sight, step by step, as I arabesque up and around Porri’s cone. Stromboli’s squat isosceles and the flattened fishy form of Panarea float into view on the ethereal north-eastern horizon. But they too soon exit stage left. Onwards and upwards I go, until, quite abruptly, gravitas-green Lipari and the amber lump of Vulcano rear into foreshortened view. Beyond, further south, the outline of the Sicilian mainland is a pallid filigree.
Just before I reach the summit, in a small dip crowded over with strawberry trees, visibility drops and the islands evaporate. I press on through the foliage, a final upsurge, to emerge onto the apex. The wayward beauty of the Aeolian design is revealed: six archipelagoed sisters arranged around central Salina like sentinels. A rough three-pointed star cast into the rippled sheen of the Tyrrhenian Sea.
This is why I walk up mountains: to remind myself of my place in the world.
Into the island wild (Salina Walk/Day 2)
Into the Island Wild [Day 2]
by Rudston Steward
henever I disembark on an island two contradictory impulses take hold of me: a desire to climb to its highest point, and, at the same time, an irrepressible urge to circumambulate it on foot.
The Aeolian Island of Salina presents a special case of this dilemma, as it has twin peaks of virtually equal height, Monte Fossa delle Felci (965m) and Monte dei Porri (860m). The idea of climbing one and not the other seemed to me an unreasonable prospect; they are quite different mountains, two perfectly conical and perfectly alluring volcanoes both ripe for the picking. So I found a reasonable solution: a 3-day hike around the island’s circumference (clockwise from Rinella round to Santa Marina and Lingua), walking up both peaks along the way.
Rinella is Salina’s secondary port, a calm far cry from the bustle of Santa Marina’s constant activity. In April the quiet is interrupted only by an occasional hydrofoil, and the splutter of Ape three-wheelers careening up and down the switchbacks to the port.
A fisherman sees me lacing up my walking boots, asks where I’m going, and offers me nespole (medlars) from his tree. His tassled grey beard has engulfed his mouth and cheeks in a fuzzy bear-hug, it’s much wider than his face. I pick half a dozen fruits and set off up the lane behind the port.
HILLSIDES OF YELLOW BROOM FLARE ACROSS RUST-COLOURED VOLCANIC SCORIA. THE PUMICE-LIKE GRAVEL SCATTERS AND CRUNCHES UNDERFOOT LIKE CRACKLING.
From the top of the town cobbles zigzag steeply through terraces of wild olives hemmed in by prickly pears, up to the town of Leni—seat of one of Salina’s three municipalities. It has a stark, proud church to prove it. At the Bar Chiofalo on the main drag the proprietor serves me an espresso dark and acrid as soot.
A contour path heads north-west from Leni, around the base of the Monte dei Porri. It goes into the island wild: the remotest flank of Salina, dramatic gorges and cliffs accessible only on foot. Gradually olives and terraces give way to lentisk, heather, cistus, artemisia, euphorbia. Hillsides of yellow broom flare across rust-coloured volcanic scoria. The pumice-like gravel scatters and crunches underfoot like crackling.
The place names on the map unfurl as word-poems on the tongue: Vallespina, Pian del Vescovo, Vallone Borrello, Praiola. And, finally, Filo di Branda: a russet-hued crag plunging vertically into the sea. The path veers hard right straight up to the saddle at Pizzo Corvo.
Here is the domain of the Falco Regina, Eleonora’s Falcon. It migrates eight thousand kilometers back and forth from Madagascar every year to nest on these cliffs. I watch a pair of falcons cutting and swooping into the gorge, until they dissolve into the shimmer of the sea below. They fill me with a longing for Madagascar, where I have never been. Islands can do that: they beckon to you from across the seas, calling out in their secret insular language.
ISLANDS CAN DO THAT: THEY BECKON TO YOU FROM ACROSS THE SEAS, CALLING OUT IN THEIR SECRET INSULAR LANGUAGE.
Across the saddle the path plunges down through quite distinct vegetation. The northern slope is wetter, more lush. Low maquis is replaced by strawberry trees, pines, clusters of chestnut. The descent follows the lips of two craters: first that of Pizzo Corvo, born of the earliest volcanic activity on the island 430,000 years ago, and then the collapsed caldera of Pollara—formed during Salina’s most recent eruption—which crumbled into the sea 13,000 years ago.
I re-emerge from the island wild, dropping past plantations of capers and fields of budding wheat, through the hamlet of Pollara, past the fisherman’s caves that line the waterfront cliffs and finally down to the water. Then I dive into the sea, all the while thinking of those Eleanora’s Falcons, yearning to learn their secret insular language.