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Michele Angileri

Torrente Morenile

The hills behind Cariati are made up of mighty banks of compact conglomerate. Tafonated peaks and unsuspected spiers emerge from Mediterranean scrub and clay soils partly cultivated, partly returning wild, all kissed by the sun and caressed by mild air.

In this fascinating landscape the Morenile creek runs through a gorge featuring splendid erosions, majestic sceneries, waterfalls and a lot of large pools to dive and swim.

I remember ...

While we were organizing a canyon exploration near Umbriatico, Domenico asked me if I had ever explored gorges near Cariati, or if I had news of them. No, I did not know anything about canyons by Cariati. On Google Earth I saw pools on a creek just behind the village, Domenico said, it looks interesting, do you agree?. I turned the computer on. Yes, that was a canyon and the pools could be clearly seen ... but canyon was very short and had little difference in height. Perhaps it was not worth to do to Cariati for the purpose.
Upstream the canyon there was a tilled plain, but further upstream the valley tightened again. That might have been another canyon, short and little like the former but it had no visible pools ...
I told Domenico that if one day we decided to go there we would have to go down both canyons, to give the day some sense. Only with good water flow, of course (in summer it would surely get dry).
Let's do it next year, at Christmas time: it is short, easy, almost at sea level, and the area has a mild climate ... it is perfect for Christmas!

At Christmas something went wrong, and we postponed exploration to next Easter. Not bad: the spring was rainy and there would certainly be more water than at Christmas ...
It was a beautiful sunny day, and the environment was wilder than I had thought, with beautiful rocky peaks surrounded by Mediterranean vegetation. Once I got on the edge of first waterfall I realized the canyon was not so easy and predictable as we figured. Rock was excavated in an unsuspicious way, waterfalls and large pools followed one another at a fast pace, ... We moved slowly through majestic and spectacular scenery, and so the gorge was actually long, far more than I had imagined.

It was a continuous surprise, manifested by each of us with exclamations of joyous amazement, more intense as we went down through.

Photos by Michele Angileri, Domenico Riga, Giuseppe Viggiani

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