Stromboli Sunday.

I joined a tour group to climb Stromboli on Sunday. I wanted a private guide, but all the guides were busy trying to make the last money of the season. The group I joined was filled with leggy French people and moved too quickly. Despite the guide urging everyone to go slowly ("piano, piano..."), he and the leggy folks moved at a pace that, well... at that angle ended up being 1 step for every 2 that I took.

One pushy guy insisted I hand my pack over saying, "I can carry 15 kilos! If you do, we'll move faster and we'll all be happier." Wrong thing to say, schmuck. Like I give a rip about what makes an arrogant bastard happy. Bugger off.

So I told them I was going back. I waited for them to leave, then kept climbing. I was quite slow. The rim on the climb side is 900 m. I made it to about 800 m and stopped to have a good think.

For one thing, it was dark. For another, I didn't know if someone was at the top making sure folks were accompanied and I didn't want to get in trouble or to get the guide in trouble. I also didn't know if there were obvious guard rails or paths or if it was easy to fall in! Oh, and then there's the matter of finding the path back down. It's easier than the hike up because, I hear, some of it is on sand and you can slide down much of it. But how easy is it to find?

So, I stopped and sat. I could hear the booms from the eruptions and occasionally the sky would light up with a faint red glow, as the eruptions lit the steam. I looked at the stars and found Orion and the Big Dipper. I looked at the boats in the harbor below. I remembered climbing Etna the previous year and how, despite how cool it was afterward, much of it was really awful while I was there. Now I'm pondering the whole Kilimanjaro trip. I'm still going to Africa, but I'm not yet sure whether I'll climb or just enjoy safaris and Zanzibar.

Anyway, there were some nice views from the slopes. Much of the later climbing was in the dark and I was very tired, so you don't see the really steep stuff. It was brutal, though, trust me!

I left around 1700 and got back to Gusti's parents' house around 2330. Still a bit sore 2 days later. One thing, though, is that I am pretty sure I made the right decisions for me -- to keep climbing and to stop. No judgment or mean stuff from any of the folks I talked to. No one telling me I was crazy for going or stopping. Indeed, Valerie (Gusti's mom) told me a story about how she'd climbed it 20 years ago with a friend on the condition that he not bother her to increase the pace at all or she would turn around and go back. And it was only through doing that that she made it.

I may go back in December and hire a private guide.