How is the old banned wood? A trip from Moggio, to beyond the abandoned villages of Moggessa

Active Slow Tour

8 March 2019

Active Slow Tour

How is the old banned wood? A trip from Moggio, to beyond the abandoned villages of Moggessa

We leave at 8.30am for Moggio. This time we want to go and inspect the path that leads from Moggio to Moggessa di Qua and then goes to Moggessa di Là.
The idea is to go up to the old banned wood of black pine trees that we really care about, to assess the damage caused by storm Vaia (the name meteorologists gave to the storm caused by the exceptionally bad weather that struck the area of north-east Italy at the end of October 2018), and assess any difficulties along the route.
I'm accompanied by four girls and Wolf, one of my dogs. All the men have pulled out of this trip. I seriously start to think that the world will really be saved by women, both for their sensitivity to nature and for their attachment to life, since they are able to carry it in their womb for nine months and sacrifice themselves, often without complaining, for the rest of their years.
In the mild winter, the day starts magnificently on the snow-covered peaks. We begin to climb, upwards from Moggio, observing the wood, still marked by the fury of events yet already in the hands of the silent industrious people of Friuli.

The old mule track, still intact, here and there, with its stones set in the hard ground, reminds me of my childhood, when, still a young boy, I climbed up into the woods to greet my grandfather. On the climb, the landscape opens up to the mountains all around and to the bed of the river Fella, which shines brightly while gently descending. The girls climb up the winding path to the saddle of the mountain without any apparent fatigue. Beyond this you enter a wild world. The woods change and the beech trees and rare oaks give way to the black pine that clings to steep and loose rocks.
The mountains, sculpted by water, reveal their age in the slow decay of their stones, whereas the path descends rapidly towards the old abandoned village of Moggessa di Qua.

The first house we find, four stone walls and no roof, is overlooked by an ancient pear tree, surrounded by brambles. Its trunk, enormous for the species and a silent witness to the ancient life of a mountain village, could be over 250 years old.
We enter the narrow alleys, some houses have been rebuilt, whereas others, totally destroyed, have been left in the grip of the slow return of the wood, which over the last 50 years has eliminated all the meadows that surrounded the village.
I feel like I'm in an old Greek village, now abandoned, with its white stone walls devastated by time and war. We go further. We can see the village of Moggessa di Là through the bare branches. We go down the stretch towards the old mill that is not yet visible. We cross the bridge over the Rio Mulin and Wolf dives into the clear water, running happily. We go a little further and the first houses of the small village with its tiny church appear before us. We go up towards the banned wood and I can't wait to inspect any damage.

I can see the tree trunks, with their enormous layers of bark that are so white due to too much time spent on the trunk, very similar to Heldreich's pine trees in Calabria, rising vertically among beech trees and brushwood.
"My" black pine trees have been saved. Fortunately, only a few have fallen. I caress the scales as we stop to listen to the silence, fascinated by these majestic trees that have protected the village for centuries.
Then we go down to explore the ancient houses of Moggessa di Là. The typical architecture of the arches, the careful use of stones collected directly from the mountains, the old beams that support the roofs, preserved houses, some rebuilt, others ruined and many fountains. Everything blends into a slow silent waltz of bygone times, memories and vanished hopes. An ancient world now lost and unrecoverable, where the echo remains in the few traces of the old houses and in the bony green of the old silent witnesses that overlook the village.
We turn back.

But when we get back to the mountain saddle, I leave my companions and run down to Moggia along the steep old mule track, enjoying the day, followed by my dog and pursued by the smell of pine trees and the ancient spirit of the mountains, whose incomparable singsong still rings in my ears.

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Andrea Maroè

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I look for, climb, measure and defend the oldest, largest, most majestic and mysterious trees around the world, but I love exploring our own woodlands and nature too.