Uuurrgh. We ache. We want to climb the Sfinge, and as it’s our first proper mountain we thought it would be a good idea to do a reccy up to the base, or near the base of the climb, especially as it’s unclear from a guide we translated with google whether we need crampons or not for the approach. A good idea, no? In theory yes, however we took the wrong turn immediately at the base of the valley, somehow following the faded old sign that said Omio (that’s the hut) 5.5 hours instead of the shiny new one directly above it which said Omio 3 hours. We followed an increasingly overgrown path punctuated by red dots of optimism that were secretly leading us astray. Our feet were so wet from the dew on the plants encroaching on the path that when crossing streams we resorted to just taking our shoes off and going along in socks.

We then came across a herd of mountain goats about 20 meters away from us and thought they looked pretty cute. We were wrong. They proceeded to chase us for what felt like a very long time, and trying to run when already tired and with a heavy backpack was pretty difficult. There are no photos of the goats as it would have been far too dangerous to stop, have you seen their horns? After we thought we had pretty much got away from the goats we realised we were quite lost and thought we would see if anyone was living at this little shepherd’s hut (how he got his shopping up there I’ll never know). When we approached the house two dogs came racing and barking at us which was fairly terrifying. The shepherd appeared and called off the dogs and between his non-exsistant English and our dismal Italian it transpired that we needed to go…up. So we set off through some spikey undergrowth and eventually ended up wading and climbing upstream. Usually the kind of thing I’d enjoy but given the demon goats, killer dogs and being pretty lost we were pretty emotionally and physically done for! We did make it to the hut in the end and dried our socks and had huge bowls of latte, odd but needed, with several sugars!

We also met Tilly, the mountain dog who was very friendly and came to sit with us and enjoy the views.

The boy went on to see if we need crampons and luckily we don’t, and we found the right path to get us back to chossy!