And it was still all there. The Austrians had left, leaving tons of war material, trenches and corpses. We also found corpses, which were half buried by ice. Some recyclers joined these poor men; they were blown up while hammering on bombs to open them and recover the copper strips inside. But my brother and I were very careful and we never got hurt. We would avoid the bombs and shrapnel and the rest was all good stuff. Pieces of cannons, cableway wheels, cartridges and cartridge cases: we would bring them down from the mountain tops and huts at high altitudes. We would sleep up there in order not to lose too much time and we would stay there even for weeks at a time. Our father would come up with a cart from Val Genova to bring us food and retrieve the material that he would then sell to foundries in Pinzolo.
This lasted a few years. And they were beautiful years. Then I had to do my military service as a clarinet player in the military band. When I got home, mining activity had restarted, metal prices had plummeted and it was no longer worth retrieving these things. No one retrieved such things anymore.
After this I started touring around the Adamello with a camera in my hand”.
Written by Alessandro Cristofoletti
