Il Falcone

Today is our planned hiking day out of Bellagio. We catch the ferry over to Menaggio, get a taxi up to Breglia, and away we go. Our goal is Mt. Grona, 1736 meters. And there’s a rifugio about 30-60 minutes from the top. It’s a nice hike up, but hot. On our path we cross the hair-pinned road a few times. We pass by the upper houses of Breglia, we see lots of cool mushrooms along the way. We all lick the bright red mushrooms and start to hallucinate and Danny turns into a bird. Just kidding.

We pound the water and then finally hit the hut, which has no water. We have a great lunch of cheese, bread, olives, salami, some candy, some PBJ. Then we make our decision for the top. We’re slightly worried about the water situation. Supposedly the top is 60 minutes away. Figure 2 hours for round trip, we have about 1/3 of our total water left. Jayne decides to chill at the hut, and Dan/April/peter decide to go anyway. After 5 minutes there’s a fork. There’s a Via Direttissima route (direct route, straight up) and the sign indicates it’s only 30 minutes. And there’s a Via Normala route that’s longer, one hour, it curves to the right to a saddle then ascends Grona from the north. Dan’s excited about the Direttissima, April prefers the saddle route. We split up, Dan goes alone, and I accompany April up the normal route. The other factor was the clouds had rolled in and we were uncertain of the view.

Away we go.

April and I make the saddle in about 20 minutes, slightly ahead of schedule. A few minutes later we see Dan at the top. And we hear him talking to the camera as he’s decided to film himself at the top. He seemed to be enjoying himself up there, as he filmed us sitting down at the saddle. At the top, Dan meets two Italian climbers who asked him about the Direttissima route down. Dan explained it to them and told them it was only 30 minutes. Dan loves to give trail information. I know the feeling. Now the other thing is when Dan’s hiking alone, he really pushes it. You can hear his little hiking poles going click, click, click with each step. He averages around 4/mph which is really really fast.

Anyway we had no views because of the clouds so we sat there and waited for Dan to come down to us, we could see him descending our way. So we all head down, it goes quickly. We get back to Jayne in about 20 minutes, she had taken a little nap. About 5 minutes later the two Italians pull in to the rifugio. They don’t speak any English, but they’re very surprised that Dan made it down the longer way faster than they did on the Direttissima.

Now here comes what turns out to be a key moment in Dan’s life. I mean super important.

The Italian waves his wings and declares Dan must be like Il Falcone.

Dan gives a little smile, then it really starts to sink in. He’s not “smoky pants” anymore, he’s a freaking Falcon!

So a little history is necessary to understand this incident and all that follows. When people hike the Appalachian Trail the whole way, they’re called “through-hikers”. And many of the though-hikers get trail names; examples half-gallon, rainman, the coyote, cascades girl, whatever. So when Dan and his kids did the NH portion of the AT, his kids gave him then trail name of “smoky pants”. That’s because he was pouring lots of Gold Bond down his pants to prevent jock rash, and when he walked, little clouds of talc powder would sometimes puff out of his pants. Nice.

Ok, so here he is in the Alps, soaring over the mountains, and now he’s become Il Falcone.

And just so you know, Dan decides he’s not just Il Falconi. He’s IIIIIIIL FAAAALLCCOOOOONNEEEE!!!!!! He takes to pronouncing it with a low guttural drawn out snarl. It takes him about 5 seconds to get it all out. It sounds like he’s being introduced as a professional wrestler. Now weighing at in 147 pounds from Manchester, NH,, IIIILL FAALLCCOOOONNEEE!

Often it’s followed up with a low villainous smirky ripple of HE-HE-HE. So just a new trail name would be fine. In fact we’re all happy for him. Who wants to be known as smoky pants?

Furthermore in a moment of deep Buddhist insight I had given myself an occasional nickname of PEM for his trip. The E standing for equanimous. The M for Mark. None of us can quite figure out what happened to the S. But anyway in moments of stress when we need pure unadulterated equanimity, I become PEM, the level-headed one without any cravings or aversions.

Well now Dan had a really cool name, Il Falcone. Like I said, that’s good.

But then he proceeded to ride that thing like there was no tomorrow! Dan had disappeared. Il Falcone was everywhere, in every sentence, as only Dan or maybe POC can hammer home when they get locked on to a phrase.

Il falcone is soaring over the mountains.

Il Falcone doesn’t need stairs he’ll fly up them.

Il falcone will scratch your eyes out with his talons.

Il Falcone’s people will take care of the connections in Milan.

Il Falcone doesn’t need food.

Are you talking to Il Falcone?

Il Falcone will swoop down on you if you don’t watch out.

Il Falcone is talking to some people about the movie rights.

Il Facone will be getting a new Falcon tattoo.

We’re eating breakfast on the piazza and there’s Il Falcone outside the glass wall waving his wings. I’m not making this up.

Of course he’s now referring to himself in the third person.

And it doesn’t just end there, it seem he’s adopting this persona in more dimensions. Perhaps by night he becomes a stiletto specialista who works night jobs out of Marseille? Maybe it’s the Europe thing, he’s hanging around the train station with his dark glasses on looking every inch a spymaster from a John le Carre novel.

Sigh.

We all threaten to pound him if he keeps it up but of course there’s no stopping him, he’s past being on a roll, he’s a new man.

I expect you’ll be seeing big changes in the man previously known as Dan O’Connor when he returns to his old life in Manchester.

Dan O’Connor is long gone.

Il Falcone will be returning.

Perhaps he won’t even use the plane for his return journey?

PS – It is a pretty cool name.

PEM.