Thursday, March 24, 2011 (Part 6)The gentleman in Cornelia was right. In the last leg of our hike, on the trail between Vernazza and Monterosso al Mare, we were definitely challenged. There were many sections of the trail that were extremely narrow, that hugged the cliff side, and that had no protection of any kind on the downhill side. There were also a number of messy, muddy sections. And I have to admit that some of the trail sections were a bit on the dangerous side. It was not surprising, therefore, that we ran into several crews working to repair sections of the this trail.
Some of the obstacles that we came across included piles of stones -- very large stones -- boulders actually -- laying directly on the path. There were also path sections where one-half or more of the path had washed away and had been patched with a few wobbly planks. But our biggest obstacles were those that consisted of large canvas bags of boulders that sat in piles on the path. They literally blocked our passage, and the only way to continue on the path was to climb over them!
At one point on our hike, we noticed that there was a helicopter flying along the cliff side. I thought maybe the park service was trying to keep track of the number of hikers on the trails, but we learned later that the helicopters were working with the repair crews. It was the job of the helicopter pilots to drop the big canvas bags containing the boulders onto the
path where the workmen could easily access them and use the stones and
boulders in the bags to shore up sections of the trail.
What a challenge this trail turned out to be. And what classically silly American tourists we were to make this trek through "closed" trails. Our only defense (perhaps) is that we were not alone. There were a surprising number of equally silly tourists on the trails today!
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