MARANO. “I am happy to do this interview, but only to remind you that you need to respect the mountains and the sea even when you are on vacation. That you need to be careful even in moments of leisure. I would not want it to get out that mine, in Macugnaga during the flood, was an exceptional gesture. I was just there and I did what had to be done in a complicated moment”. The speaker is Matteo Buldrini, 37 years old, has lived in Marano all his life. A former high-level footballer, he wore the shirts of Bologna, Reggiana and Modena as well as Castelfranco – for ten years – in Serie D. Now, having left the football fields, he is a metalworker by profession with a great passion for the mountains and running.
Not by chance, precisely, this Saturday it was located in Macugnaga in Val d’Ossola (Piedmont). Ready to be with the first in the MEHT, the Monterosa Est Himalayan Trail, an 85-kilometer race up and down the climbs with an altitude difference of 5,800 meters. A tough undertaking, but not new to Buldrini who over the years has been increasingly refining his confidence with the trails. Even with the decidedly tough ones like the Monterosa Est Himalayan Trail in Macugnaga. It was said of the tragic moments of the flood: torrents flooded, villages full of mud, people fleeing and evacuated. A wave of bad weather that affected not only Piedmont, but also the nearby Aosta Valley.
History
Well, it’s more or less eight o’clock on Saturday evening when the 37 year old from Marano he finds himself “overwhelmed” by rain, lightning and above all mud: «It had already started raining the night before – he says – but the storm, the real one, surprised me while I was running inside a forest. I was calm, in contact with the race organization and followed, always by them, with the GPS. My goal, considering what was happening, had now changed: no longer to finish the race among the first, but to get through the forest and return to the main road where some workers were waiting for me. Among other things, as easy to guess, the MEHT had already been suspended. So while I cross this forest, with visibility practically zero, I realize that the small river next to me is now overcoming its banks and above all I notice that between one tree and another there is a light. It is that of the “headlamp” of another competitor, a Tuscan boy I had already met at the start. He is screaming, perhaps, but I can’t hear anything in that din of water. So I decide to get closer: I see him in difficulty, practically blocked by the overflow of the Anza torrent. It is the stream that enters the town. I dive into a point that fortunately has no current and between a rock and some trees that are still standing I try to understand if there is a possibility of escaping from that dangerous stretch. We talk to each other, we encourage each other and we understand that the only way to get back is to take the “road” – so to speak – that allowed us to reach that area downstream from the woods. So we do». In short, a happy ending: «Yes – these are still Matteo’s words – I must say that I have always remained in contact with the organizers, the same ones who followed me step by step also thanks to the GPS. When we arrived in the valley I understood what had happened and that even the town of Macugnaga had been severely hit by water and mud».
