Historical Trip

March 15, 2013



Torre Pallice Hike

Spring!

It's here it's finally here! Spring has arrived! It has just been absolutely gorgeous this week! Sun sun sun. I think we got to like 65 degrees here and it was just fantastic. Today we made a historical trip! I don’t know how much you know about Italy but if you know anything you will know that Lorenzo Snow opened Italy to missionary work. And where did he do this? Torre Pellice (TO) Italia! So one of the perks in the office is that we get to be lab rats sometimes for the president in trying things out.

 

Torre Pellice  Site is nob on the left

In May, President will be taking a group of people up to a mountain where they dedicated the land of Italy to missionary work. And well, he had never been. So we decided to go and find out how to get there! We read the journal entries in the car on the way there (about 2.5 hours in car from Opera) and we also read the account of President Benson when he came to Italy to re-dedicate the land of Italy for the reopening of the missionary work. Both occasions took place on a rather high mountain above the tiny town of Torre Pellice in Piemonte. Wow what a p-day it was. Unfortunately after much hiking we ran into about 4-6 feet of snow in some places and were forced to turn back before reaching the very peek of the mountain where Lorenzo Snow and President Benson once stood. We tried our best to make it wading through the snow waste deep but after soaking and freezing we called it quits and came back down. We never made it to the place where the dedicatory prayers were given but we were so close and could almost see the top. But on the way up we got some just incredible views of the Italian and French Alps. I even could see some ski resorts in the distance. I hope that I will get to go back when we go in May. But we are not sure if it will be before or after I go home. However if we ever come to Italy we will go to Torre Pellice and finish that hike. I will say that it was not an easy hike. Man the Italians just make trails straight up the mountain. They don’t really know what switchbacks are. The straighter the less time right!? Not sure what they were thinking when they made this trail! Man it was a doozy. It was really great though and I would have to rank this up in the top 3 p-days of all time in Italy. It’s a must do. It was probably one of the most beautiful hikes that I have been on and well you know Idahoans, we know hiking better than some of these Italians! But I do have to say they beat us on this one. It was just fantastic. There was a little bit of smog and fog in the low valley so the pics did not turn out that great. But it was one of those first hand experiences that you have to have. I am exhausted. I will attach a file explaining the story about all the fun we had today written by a historian professor at BYU. It is great and has tons of cool pictures and facts in it including the prayers.

Well that’s all I got for today! Love you family!