Words by Yuri Basilicò - founder of Va’ Sentiero

I had heard about the GR20, a 15-day hike that runs through the mountainous ridge of Corsica. It was a period full of doubts and worries, that trail seemed challenging enough to satisfy my hunger for adventure and to help me stay away from ny thoughts. At the end of September 2016, I landed in Bastia.

After a few days I found myself surrounded by a dense sudden fog, I was crossing a vast plateau just north of Monte Cinto and got completely lost. Wandering to find the trail again, I came across three Swedish guys. They were traveling the GR in the opposite direction and got lost like me. We found the trail together and, before leaving, they asked me: “since you are Italian, do you know the Sentiero Italia?”. I had to admit it was the first time I’ve ever heard about it.

A few months later, on a cold night in the plain, that episode came to my mind and I went to look for it on Google. I found little information but that was enough for me: a 7,000 km trail along all the Italian mountains, for years now forgotten. It didn’t take me long to start fantasizing about an expedition discovering this great mysterious trail. I still didn’t know it, but that evening a new chapter of my life was about to begin.

May 15th, 2019. Gemona del Friuli. 232 km.

Today is my birthday. It’s getting dark outside and it started to rain again.

I am at the Gemona’s ER, a small village at the foot of the Julian Prealps that I knew only because of the 1976 earthquake. This afternoon, while I was going down among the pastures towards the village of Prossenicco, a fat tick slipped into my calf: I managed to extract it completely, but I had a great infection and we thought it would have been better to go to the hospital. We thought: the guys and I.

We left two weeks ago from Muggia, on the Trieste Gulf, the starting point of Sentiero Italia. We are five: a photographer, a videomaker, a logistic manager, a clerk and I. Va’ Sentiero: that’s the name of the expedition.

We hit the road on May 1st, northwards, along the border with Slovenia. The first few days we crossed the Karst woods, unfortunately the sun left us almost immediately and the rain returned.

Finally, with almost a sense of relief, we started going up in the Natisone Valleys. It was cold and it started to snow a lot above 1,500 m: exactly where we were going. Together with bad weather, the first tendinitis, the first normal aches, had come up: we were not very well trained yet. And swarms of ticks. Of course, it was still early to go down in the damps, but there was some discontent and every now and then it came up.

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