Lost in Italy a.k.a. Climbing the Etna
November 19th, 2006
Today we got up very early for our big adventure day or “the experiment” how Giorgio would say. We started at 07:30am to a three hours ride to Randazzo, a small village on Mt. Etnas north side. There we picked up a few sandwiches and continued to a parking area at 1000m (3280ft) where we left the cars and made our way up to 2000m (6561) to find a misterious ice cave using just Giorgio’s GPS navigation system.
To get it more challenging we didn’t went on the paths, instead we choosed the “cross country” way. The first part through the woods was not so hard so that we were quite fast. It was getting more interesting and exhausting when we arrived those lava rocks or lava mountains, but that was a lifetime experience. It looked like a moon landscape and it was absolutely quiet up there - kind of a scary atmosphere. I took my hat off to our two american mates Nicole and Ashley who made it souvereign.
After 3.5 hours we finally found the ice cave, the “Grotta del Gelo” where it was damn cold! We went in there and took a few pictures of its icicled walls. It was defenitely worth climbing up to the little cave, because I’ve never experienced such temperature differences within a few meters.
After a lot of victorious group photos and our lunch we made our way back into the valley. But this time we tried the regular paths. After we saw that we were running out of time because it was getting darker, we tried a first shortcut through the woods - with success.
After arriving again on the crossing path we’ve followed it again, but it was getting darker and darker. Giorgio’s suggestion was, to try another shortcut under heavily assistance of his two torches (for seven people ;-)), and so we did. At a snail’s pace we walked through the night and the bloody woods, stumbling over tons of branches, rocks and especially those prickly plants which always try to kill me when we meet each other 
Anyway, a few times we cam into dead ends and so had to went again a bit up and then another way down.. and up.. and down.. After a few tries, we decided that it would be the best, and of course the safest, to give the regular path another try and so we tried to find it back using Giorgio’s GPS system what was again very exhausting. But we finally made it and went another 90 minutes or so down the regular road where we finally found our cars and everybody was happy again (it was 08:30pm by the way). Just my girl Ewa was very sad, because when we arrived in Palermo after three more hours of driving she was waiting for me alone at Giorgio’s place for four hours (we wanted to go out for a pizza).
Anyways, it was a great adventure and I want to thank Giorgio for this nice day which I will definitely never forget. 
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