Landslide Threats Ponale Road as Safety Concerns Rise
Just as discussions about the future of Ponale resurface, and as the Province, through assessor Iva Berasi, hints at abandoning the ancient road by considering the potential safety work financially too burdensome, yet another obstacle has fallen on Ponale. In fact, a massive and dangerous landslide – not figuratively, but quite real – seems to have all the characteristics to become the final nail in the coffin of the many hopes for the rebirth and enhancement of the Austro-Hungarian panoramic route.
The landslide, falling perpendicularly onto Sperone Beach, has blocked the entire roadway and caused worrying cracks in the asphalt surface. Cars whiz along the Gardesana Occidentale, just a few tens of meters below. They look like small, fragile toys compared to the rock fragments that have once again detached from the mountain and which loom above silently and invisibly.
I wonder what faces those drivers would make if they could see this spectacle. The only ones who seem unconcerned are the bikers, who, as usual, are unstoppable and show no signs of hesitation even in front of the collapsing mountain. Most of them are German and move like true panzer tanks: crossing fences, circumventing obstacles, and when faced with the landslide, after riding for a few minutes on that silent, dying monument to road engineering, they simply take their bikes under their arms and climb among the enormous boulders.
Behavior of bikers and the future of the road
«I’ve got my helmet» replies one of them unperturbed when asked about the danger of the area. A response that provokes amusement but clearly explains the attitude of these particular tourists towards this road, which takes hours to traverse. Attempting to stop them seems as utopian as trying to make Ponale 100% safe or fooling oneself into believing that once closed, it will remain truly deserted.
The only solution to save it appears to be, paradoxically, to make it disappear as a road. Constantly monitor the slope of the mountain, carry out regular maintenance and clearing works, but downgrade Ponale to the status of a trail, removing the current unnecessary fences and placing signs to inform cyclists of the area’s dangers.