"I had heard about the stupendous iridescence of the aurora upon the Ionian Sea, when you contemplate it from Etna's summit...The earthly and marine vastness revealed to our sight stretched as far as Africa, clearly visible, and Greece, as far as you could have guessed. It was one of the supreme moments of my life. Nothing was missing, not the golden fringe of a cloud, nor the eagles..."

Adapted from "Adriano's Memories", Marguerite Yourcenar.
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Across Italian boundaries...

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...from "Calanna Valley" to Wales!
Sgwd yr Eira
We took another detour from our "Etnean knowledge sharing mission". As we had the chance to visit a bit some interesting areas in Wales, we decided to publish an easy, interesting path inside the "Waterfall Country" in Wales. We spent a few hours into the Beacon Brecons National park, surrounded by rivers end waterfalls that definetely deserve a trip.



Rainbow at Calanna valley
This doesn't mean we forgot about Etna! We finally found out the time to describe and publish a trail we walked on with some friends at the beginning of the year: Calanna valley . Until 1991, the valley was green and used for etnean fruit coltivations. In that year, the eruption that covered the Bove valley reached this place, destroyng everything with a lava flow larger than 2 km. Italian Army tried to stop the lava flow, also building a wall whose ruins are still visible close to mount Calanna, but the lava flow went over the wall. Once again, the volcano won, deciding to stop a few meters before the town of Zafferana.
Now, is possibile to walk easily above cold lava flow, staring in front of nature power.
Enjoy Etna!

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Last Updated ( Friday, 18 June 2010 16:12 )
 

For lazy nature fans...

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Ladroni's cave entrance
In order to see the most beautiful things, on Etna as on any other place, you must work hard. There's no shortcut: if you want to visit the Ice Cave, if you want to see a magma flow at the sunset, if you want to go inside the Bove Valley, you must walk for many hours to find what you are looking for.
By the way, sometimes Etna gives a chance to people who can't walk for hours and wants to enjoy nature as well.. In this case, we point out two elements on Etna definitely affordable by everyone, as them are quite easy to reach: a cave and a secular tree.

A resin drop on the Zappinazzu
On the road leading from Fornazzo to Citelli refugee you can find a sign indicating the presence of the "Thieves Cave". The entrance is just a few meters far away from the road. It was once used as snow container, so the it is possible to go inside using some steps digges on lava rock.
The second place we point out is the biggest pine tree currently living on Etna: the "Zappinazzu". The tree is quite close to the road and is indicated by a sign.
Both the cave and the secular tree are inside two enormous woods. If you want, you can go for a walk, and who knows if next time you could afford something more challenging... on Etnatracking you can choose among a lot of trails!

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Last Updated ( Sunday, 20 June 2010 21:26 )
 

Every path hides a surprise!

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2002 lava flow cutting the trail in two
We went around on a couple of paths, also looking on Etna's Park official web site. Due to the hot season, we avoided demanding trails, focusing on two easy paths.
The first trail was Monte Nero degli Zappini (Black Pine Trees Mount). We also found, among nature and old lava flows an unpleasant surprise. Following the indications we read on the park web site, we arrived in front of the 2002 lava flow which cut the path in two so that it is impossible to to go beyond the observation point 6.
We had to go back and it took us a while to find an alternative path, which indeed exists but is not indicated not even on the Etna's Park web site! But 7 years passed since that eruption. To make it short: the information on the Park Site are not up to date...


Mounts Sartorius
A few days after, we went tracking Monti Sartorius path. Here we found a very well tracked path, with a lot of painted signs indicating the trail, easy to walk on. We also went trough a detour from "official" trail toward Monte Baracca, and we found a nice surprice: the wood was full of wonderful pine trees, and one of them was so big the we had joined two pictures to show it on the site!
You'll find all the information and pictures regarding this path on the section "Etna Trails".

Enjoy Etna!

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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 01 June 2010 22:08 )
 

First etna caves on the site!!

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Finally!

We managed to create our Cave's section, and we could not start in a better way!
Our first exploration brought us to the famous "Grotta del Gelo" (Ice Cave), probably the most famous Etnean cave!
It took 10 hours and more than 10 km walking, but our efforts had been totally rewarded! You can see one of the pictureswe've taken inside:

Inside the Ice Cave

You can find the whole track on cave site section! To get more pictures, just register and download them on download Ice Cave area !

Enjoy Etna!


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Last Updated ( Friday, 06 August 2010 12:43 )
 

We are back!

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Finally! As spring arrived, the web site has been updated with a new track!

In the "Trails" section it has been added the Monte Zoccolaro path. It is a track we carried out during winter season, but due to lack of time (for all of us, the web site is a hobby we do during our spare time...) we put it on the web site a few months later.

As good season arrived, we hope we can increase our visits on Mount Etna, trying to make the Mountain (for Etnean people, Etna is simply "the Mountain"!) available to everyone loves nature.

We'd like to thank those ones who registered themselves on the web site. We hope the group will grow up and that people could start helping us tracking new path, even just telling us about new trails to track.

In these days we'll try to go to "La Grotta del Gelo", the most famous cave on Etna... keep visiting the site or register to be up-to-date with the new tracks!


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Last Updated ( Friday, 02 April 2010 16:17 )
 
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