About my "roots" I was born in a small village (seriously small, about 400 people) in the Italian alps: Salbertrand, 80Km from Torino. You can have a look to the location with the following link: http://www.comune.salbertrand.to.it/

It is close (a few Km) to the main skiing resorts where the Winter Olympics 2006 have been held, in the Susa valley (Val di Susa). Its main attraction is the Natural Park that bares its name, the Parco Naturale del Gran Bosco di Salbertrand.

In one of my previous lives, I worked in the Natural Park as a ranger for several years. I was holding the ID card number 00001 of the Piemonte's rangers.

The pictures below witness me involved in some activity in the park: they are taken from the N. 1/2 (1991) issue of the magazine Oasis (OASIS -SERGIO MUSUMECI EDITORE  - 11020 Quart (AO) - L.tà Amerique, 99).

The picture shown in this page of the magazine portraits a colleague and myself preparing a trap for capturing a capriolo, and this other one shows us patrolling around. Incidentally, that kind of traps was completely ineffective. We had better success with large fenced rings and nets for capturing (and moving to other parks in the north of Italy) caprioli, camosci and cervi.

Here a few links to have an idea of the natural and cultural (well.....) environment:

http://www.cmavs.it/

http://www.cmavs.it/granbosco.asp

http://www.valduira.com/

http://www.piemondo.it/torinoevalli/valsusa.htm

http://www.parks.it/parco.gran.bosco.salbertrand/index.html

http://www.montagnedoc.it/new/index.php

http://www.altavallesusa.it

Fun in mountains

I became a mountain ranger because I liked a lot the Alps and mountains in general. Here there are a few pictures.

Ecrins1, Ecrins2, Ecrins3, Pointe Noire 1, Pointe Noire 2, Pointe Noire 3.