Now that the Big Thaw is taking place, one of the most disturbing thing that happens up here in the mountains takes place in our Grotto. An area of mountain that many, many years ago had a huge landslide, I can’t find out any information on it. Diana remembers it happening when she was a very small child but she cannot recall the cause. On both sides of the valley two huge landslides created the grotto area, bleak, step slopes of rock leave huge welts scaring the the landscape.
But there are several reasons as to why the land would slide and although ranked 7th in the National Disasters Table there is very little recorded history on them other than they tend to be more frequent and destructive in steep mountainous areas, and they are considered an expression of a natural process which reduces steep slopes into less steep slopes.
For me it is probably one of the most distressing times of living up here, when I hear great big chunks of land slide, the bone cracking sound of the trees as they are uprooted, followed by the rumble of the soil, stones and rubble as they cascade, creating even more damage before they come to rest in their new position. It is almost eerie, the wind seems to pick up a little, the trees creak and grown as if saying a final farewell, before the land moves and even then the cries from the distressed land can be heard.
Today I stopped on the old goat track leading from Renaio to Santini, as I heard the first landslide, then listening again for several minutes trying to pinpoint the position of the next slide. For me it is quite distressing hearing the trees creaking and cracking as they are literally torn from the ground, not to mention the noise as the once majestic tree hits the rugged terrain only to be railroaded down the mountain and shattered into several pieces.
I was mesmerised as I stood there, listening, watching and waiting. I didn’t fear Sensone as the slides seem to be in one position, I am guessing it is because of the water soaked land, expanded to its limits with the freezing temperatures, unsettling the already destabilised ground. All is fine until the warm rays of the sun, melts the ice and then you hear it. As the land looses its grip from the mountain side.
My concern reaches out to the Bell Tower, safe at the moment on an island of hillside, but as the winds and snow roll around the amphitheater style mountainside, beating against the Grotto’s already bared sides slowly encroaching piano, piano. In the three years that I have been living here full time I can see the difference, part of me can see the positive side of the movement, the level ground at the bottom, but nothing saddens me more than to see the severely scarred and exposed sides of the mountain.
There is nothing one can do to stop the erosion. Although in many areas, deforestation is blamed for a lot of landslides its difficult to know for sure if this is indeed a reason for this, during and after the war large amounts of the big trees were taken from the area and I heard only the other day of a large forest fire in the area years ago, which took out many of the huge Chestnut trees. But its strange because if you look across the valley you can see almost parallel to here a similar landslide area, mirroring almost identically.
Perhaps its just the natural movement of the mountains the backbone to Italy. Who knows the reason? All I know is that it is very unsettling, not only for the land but also for me as my house is nestled into the mountainside.
Article by Sensone – all of the Sensone Diaries can be seen here
