Edited by:
redazione
"With my paintbrush I have marked centuries-old paths": Gianni Fantonetti spent his spare time preserving the mountains he loves in the Anzasca Valley
.After thirty years of honourable (and free) service, he has hung up his paintbrush.
Gianni Fantonetti is not a painter, but a 'sentierologist', in the noblest and most concrete sense of the term, as he has spent his spare time marking the paths of the marginal and lonely Baranca and Olocchia valleys. The mountains above Bannio have been his home. He knows them better than anyone, having experienced them in his long wanderings up and down the peaks, which in truth are not very popular with hikers, except for the Pizzetto, which for some years now has been very popular in all seasons for its first-rate panorama even though it does not reach 2000 metres in altitude.
The most frequented pass is Col d'Egua, between Baranca and Carcoforo, where Gianni Fantonetti also lent his services to the construction of a small, precious bivouac, as he had also done in the past for the Scarpignano bivouac, later dismantled and rebuilt at the Riale pass by the Anzino volunteers.
"I always set off before dawn, in the company of the basket with the necessary tools, the faithful little dog and sometimes my wife," he recounts.
Not only paint and brushes, but also the sickle, as the maintenance of the path network is combined with the cleaning of the brushwood that advances inexorably, wiping out even the centuries-old traces of the mountain dwellers. Mountains of silence, those of the Olocchia valley, on the border with Valsesia.
"And above all Valsesians are the few I have met, always kind in thanking me for my work".
Stronger than vandals
He has placed more than a hundred signs and planted dozens of posts. All transported on his back, never using a helicopter, perhaps even loading up with cement to secure solid plinths. More than once he found the signs shot out. Patiently he rebuilt them and relocated them.
"They were having fun being vandals and didn't understand that the fun for me was to relocate them". Some criticised him for setting too many markers. "But in certain areas it is better to abound because if fog comes it is easy to lose your bearings". For many years an active member of the Gruppo escursionisti della Val Baranca, he has now passed his hand on to the youngsters, with the rightful gratitude expressed by the new president Giovanni Pozzoli, another great fan of his home mountains.