Bushwhacking from Ferentillo to Monteleone di Spoleto, Oct 07

#1 [ITALY, UMBRIA] Precetto di Ferentillo to Monteleone di Spoleto – October 2007.

I’m NOT a professional guide – for your personal and others’ safety, if you want to organize a trip in these places, please be sure to contact local guides at\or the CAI local office and to contact local authorities to declare your planned route. This itineraries are just small reports, made mostly for friends of mine. Carefully understand what the suggested itinerary is about if you plan to visit the same place (level of physical work required, weather conditions, season, field conditions, etc) and don’t just repeat it – this is just a basic sketch aimed to describe, share and motivate others.

Also, for the safety of the natural environment, stick to the LEAVE NO TRACE rules while moving or, to make it brief, act in a responsible behavior. Be careful when you risk to trespass private properties or protected areas. Single night or prolonged camping is not allowed until you can organize a permit with the local autorities

Prologue

Ok, this is my first page, so it will be way less complete then the next ones (i hope :) ).

It took a bit to make it ’cause i’m doing lot of different things and i still have to hook up with the habit of constantly updating the blog. I promised some friends for photos and instead of sending them by email i’m going to post them here with the whole itinerary – that’s something i reckognize as useful about this whole blog thing, again. As we didn’t bring photo equipment i’m going to put something we shot during a winter walk on the same places.

Location\s

Ferentillo is a nice small town situated in the Terni’s province, it counts roughly 1800 people. It’s birth goes back to 700 AC, when Liutprando and the Longobards buildt the town in one of today’s best spot in the region of Umbria, the Val Nerina valley. Bla bla bla, enough. Some of you could have already eard about Ferentillo for two reasons: for the mummies exposed in the museum or because one of it’s “borghi”, Precetto di Ferentillo, is one of the greatest spot for some free climbing in the center Italy together with Sperlonga – home to lots of great and passionate climbers and recently visited by some world class climbers like the italian Mauro Calibani and the polish wonderwoman Aleksandra Taistra that fired an 8c right in front of our eyes.

We passed through a near village, Monterivoso, then went up to Colle Olivo, advanced straight to Mount Aspra (1652) and have a night stop there. We finally descended in the morning to the near town of Monteleone di Spoleto, located inside Perugia’s province, a really beautiful piece of the valley that is best walked during winter to have the luxurious pleasure to end the walk with a massive amount of grilled local sausages.

How to arrive\depart from the place

To arrive easily and fast to Ferentillo, call me :)

Otherwise if you’re sociopathic or you just hate me, take the train from Rome to Terni, and then grab a bus from the station (blue bus, number 21) and get out asking to the driver for the right stop.

For more references, here’s the right place to look for them

What we did

We originally took inspiration from a similar walk passed to us from one of the most amazing guides, sage elder and local legend Silvano Lepri. It’s really difficult to describe his role in the local territories, but just think about this: Silvano is a name that means “he who leaves in the forest” and Lepri is the plural form for hare – he just breathes local nature.

The itinerary we made goes through Precetto di Ferentillo, climbs up to the local “rocca” and passes right on top of the local rock walls where people freeclimbs (called Balcone e Lu Strittu) and goes straight to Colle Olivo village.We went to the rocca, but then followed the walls instead of going up, passed through Monterivoso and then walked up again to Colle Oliva to have the pleasure to see the villages.

We followed our planned direction passing by Acqua del Trocco and followed a piece of a path keeping Mount Solenne to our left to make a detour in the forest and aimed directly to Aspra. The air was fresh, we stopped to have some food and enjoy the scenery and to talk with a man we encountered with his cows. Horses passed by while we were almost on top and a raising wind started. We finally descended to Monteleone enjoying the wonderful flora and fauna.

Here some photos, unfortunally made with just a mobile phone, during a different walk in winter time.

The itinerary -

Where — Val Nerina (TR), Umbria, Italy

What — Itinerary: Ferentillo — Monterivoso — Colle Olivo — Fonte Del Trocco — Monte Aspra — Monteleone Di Spoleto

When — October 2007

Why — Enjoy the place

Who — Matteo Bartolini, Me

How — Walking :). We took our time to enjoy the place, and ended up walking something like 11 hours more or less. I think this should be something in the range of E difficulty, or between E and EE. We followed roughly a 20% of roads\ previously walked paths, expecially in the first part – no tools are required but if you have some trekking poles they could be useful.

Some links, bibliography, contacts

http://www.caiterni.it/

http://www.comune.ferentillo.tr.it/

http://www.comune.monteleone-di-spoleto.pg.it/

http://www.precipizirelativi.it/

—-> If you have a Garmin GPS and a bike, click to check the suggested cool route in the same territories by Mauro Attili.

Previous Itineraries:

None.