WHERE THE PRIMORDIAL FIRE BURNS 

In November 2025, the photographer Giacomo Meneghello set off on a new adventure in the heart of Sardinia. The expert but improvised team also included the guides Saro Costa and Fabio Vigezzi. The goal: to complete the route in less than 60 hours.
The Selvaggio Blu (“Wild Blue”) is often called the hardest trekking route in Europe, or even the world. With hard-to-find sections, exposed rappels, and a complete lack of shelter, it’s an adventure in pursuit of primordial fire and a recognition of the value of every single drop of water.
 

What’s the flame that ignites your desire for a new adventure? For Saro, Fabio, and me, it’s definitely the unknown: realizing that we don’t know what landscape we might find on the other side of a boulder, or even where we’ll camp for the night. If approached with good judgment, any project in the mountains can find its fulfillment following an initial question mark. That’s what happened with the Selvaggio Blu. We liked the idea of ​​not having to label this route, which combines mountaineering-style trekking and adventure in a multiday outing. There’s no external support along the way, other than a makeshift bivouac.

We set ourselves the goal of reaching Cala Gonone after two nights, starting from Santa Maria Navarrese and extending the official route established in ’87 by the mountaineer Mario Verin and architect Peppino Cicalò. This would add almost 24 km and 500 m elevation gain, but the alternating Mediterranean scrub and limestone cliffs of the Baunei area made us want to enjoy this unique setting to the fullest. And in silence. In November, there wasn’t much chance that we’d meet a living soul, save for a few domestic goats that had escaped from their herders and gone feral over the months. A bit like us, who find our natural habitat in the wild (blue).

Saro Costa is the horse of the group. In 2024, I accompanied him on a good part of his enchainment project in the Ticino alps. Forty-one peaks above 3,000 m in 10 days, with only Kastelhorn missing (due to snow and the late hour) from an otherwise perfect loop. In reality, the summit was never very important to us; rather, we sought a connection with the forms of nature and the satisfaction of the fatigue that comes from long days moving at a sustained pace. The approach here would be the same, of course.

Fabio Vigezzi and I had never crossed paths before, but his status as a member of the International Federation of Mountain Guide Associations and a member of the governing board of the mountain guide association of Lombardy spoke for itself. With his focus on safety, we could trust him to lead the way! He was the team’s sentinel.

As for me, I consider myself a fan of fast and light mountaineering who’s fortunate enough to participate in unusual traverses with my athlete friends. My tools are a keyboard and photography, and with the power that these provide, I simply bear witness to the journey.

My backpack is heavy primarily due to the ropes we’ll need for rappelling. I’m also carrying pane carasau (traditional Sardinian flatbread), salami from Valtellina, goat cheese, and a few cans of Ichnusa beer. Plus a couple of thermal layers for the evenings and wind, a helmet, and a sleeping bag for sleeping under the stars.

We have to be adaptable, like the adventure that awaits us.

We start in the afternoon, as if we were going on a simple outing to the countryside. The fragmented journey to reach Santa Maria Navarrese has lengthened the approach, and our pursuit of silence has done the rest. The first few kilometers fly by, and we already imagine returning with lighter backpacks to boost our heart rate, suspended in the still-neat Mediterranean scrub, between the rock face and the coast.

Evening finally falls, and we climb to the ridge where a cluster of farmhouses emerges — our first improvised shelter. A few flashes of light catch our attention. We approach a door, only to be immediately deterred by the barking of a dog inside. The stars illuminate an unseasonably warm evening. We put away our headlamps and stand gazing upward. Our second attempt is successful. Guided by instinct, we find the entrance to another rustic building, which has a large table and a floor that can accommodate our sleeping mats. Our acclimatization has been reset; we already feel at home.

The main difficulty with these trails lies in picking up the almost imperceptible wayfinding clues scattered along the way. We’re used to often having to decipher trails, even in our own mountains, but here it requires extra effort. Rocks hanging from tree branches, or tree limbs positioned vertically to indicate rocky steps. After a brief initial frustration, we learned to recognize and appreciate these clues left by guides and locals. They are subtle but necessary hints that take us back in time — to a time when we had to improvise (and yet we understood each other!), because on the Selvaggio Blu, maps and GPS are not enough.

But some signs aren’t left intentionally. We realize this at dawn on the second day. We’ve already been walking for a couple of hours and are determinedly heading for the first stretch of coast, guided by the sun that’s starting to timidly warm us.

We decide to heed the invitation of a crude ladder positioned to the side of the trail, interpreting it as yet another sign. As the minutes pass, we realize that we were mistaken: we’re going too far inland. After less than half an hour, we manage to orient ourselves and decide to return to the point where we took the wrong turn.

Perhaps we’ve embraced the role of the explorer too much; the darkness is certainly starting to slow us down and erode any remaining confidence. What’s certain is that fatigue has taken over, and hiking during the night here is strongly discouraged. We have no choice but to seek some kind of shelter. Fortunately, we’re quite skilled at this. We find a small recess in a cave. A real lifesaver, as we’re truly tired and hungry.

We’re so engrossed in retracing the path that led us to the wrong destination that we don’t immediately notice the brushwood and dry branches piled up, who knows by whom, nearby. Instinct prevails over necessity. We’re not cold, and we have nothing to cook, but we find ourselves lighting a fire. The flame illuminates the evening and restores our lucidity. It’s just what we needed to rediscover our primordial fire and organize our thoughts. The imaginary line we need to follow is now clear in our minds. A cheese sandwich, a beer, and a night under the stars.

Sometimes it’s wonderful to be able to improvise the segments of an adventure!

The next day, we’re back on the wall at the start of the via ferrata.

The milder, breezier conditions forecast for these days have not materialized. If it weren’t for the leaves on the ground and the early sunset, we’d swear we were in the middle of summer. Managing our water supply, with humidity levels up to 70% during the day, is the main obstacle left to concluding our Selvaggio Blu and enjoying some rest at Cala Gononè, our final destination.

This time, fortune favors us. A little farther ahead, we hear a steady plink, as if a drip is marking our steps. We discover a bucket placed at the base of a cave, collecting the clear water falling from the rock above. A vision, an unexpected gift.

We had underestimated the importance of this critical but taken-for-granted element. The decision of how much water to carry on the Selvaggio Blu affects the management of rest stops and traverse times, as well as the fatigue accumulated by the weight to be carried. This is the case with every trekking route or mountaineering trail, but never before have we experienced this unwritten law firsthand in such a way.

It was in that moment that we understood that the Selvaggio Blu isn’t simply a trek, but a place where you rediscover the value of essential things. What amazes me, several months later, is the aridity of such an extreme territory, just a few hundred meters from one of the world’s most popular beach areas.

At the same time, this fully explains the adventure we chose to explore Sardinia. We are mountain people; swimming in the sea isn’t for us.