cookieless, no-ads, no threats canyon exploring with
Michele Angileri

Fosso Bagnatore

The castle of Arsoli and the village that surrounds it are perched on a rocky hill, defended on two sides by Fosso Bagnatore gorge. The locals call Pozzo del Diavolo the narrowest and most inaccessible part of the gorge, and set legends like the one that identifies the two high pinnacles of rock that emerge from the wood on canyon's side as two lovers transformed into stone by God. The perennial sound of water falling down the cascades, reflected upward by canyon's walls, certainly contributes to the sinister charm of popular legends.

Nowadays the gorge no longer has a defensive function, and the sinister fame that for centuries kept people away from this place, today can attract canyoneers searching for harsh and majestic places.

I remember ...

In the 90s I came to Arsoli during one of my usual tours looking for gorges and I immediately noticed the "Devil's Pit". A tourist path went up the gorge, made ad hoc on the steep and landsliding sides of the valley, with illustrative panels and rudimentary wooden balustrades on exposed sections. The path overlooked the falls, the gorge, the monumental holm oak trees that grow on the edges. The rock, however, appeared of poor quality, probably not suitable for being bolted with self-drilling bolts that were the only artificial anchorage I used at the time. Moreover, water was contaminated by wastewater.
So I decided not to explore the canyon.

20 years later I began to systematically explore canyons in Aniene valley, and so I thought back to Arsoli gorge. I went back to the place. The tourist path no longer existed, destroyed by landslides and lack of maintenance. Water, however, was substantially clean: certainly in the meantime purifiers had been built in the area. And in those 20 years I had learned how to place anchors even in rock much worse than that ...

Copyright © 2002- Michele Angileri. All rights reserved.