Today began early at 6:00 a.m., alone for the first morning of the trip so far as my friend Gabe slept in a hotel up the road in Milan. The early start was needed to get ahead of the heat as much as possible on a very lengthy day of planned hiking – nearly 40 kilometers. I chose the distance somewhat out of necessity as the only city with services and accommodations between Cavaglià and Vercelli is Santhia which is only 11.4 kilometers from Cavaglia which would have made for a very short hiking day. Additionally, I was hoping to avoid the forecasted rain on Sunday and take in a zero mileage/rest day on Sunday (tomorrow) in a comfortable, larger city as well. So, I decided to tack the remainder of Leg 8 of the hike (Cavaglia to Saythia) with an already challenging 27.5 kilometer hike of Leg 9 from Santhia to Vercelli in the farmlands and heat of the Italian summer.

The day began simply enough as I exited the City of Cavaglia by the train station and almost immediately found myself in farming fields.

I would spend the next 10 hours weaving in and out of alternating fields of corn and rice and irrigation canals with very few trees to shield me from the sun as I worked my way through the fertile Po Valley.

After more than 10 hours of hiking I arrived at my destination for the day: Vercelli. I arrived exhausted after having consumed my “backup/reserve” food supply and beginning to dip into my “backup/reserve” water supply. The 19km from San Germano Vercellese were almost devoid of services (food and water) and even the services in San Germano Vercellese were scant (see below my lunch of potato chips, cheese puffs and beer). My cappuccino and croissant in Santhia would fuel me for the day until I pulled out my backup/reserve snack bar about 5km outside Vercelli.

During our Day 6 hike, I began experiencing pain in the medial collateral ligament (MCL) in my left knee (inside portion of knee just below knee joint). As we hiked, I thought through scenarios which might have resulted in a strain/spain of my left MCL and eventually landed on repetitive stress. We’d been walking on the left side of the Aosta Valley intensely for the last 5 days logging more than 95 kilometers (60 miles) with my left foot over-pronation (ankle turning inward) step after step with a 25lb pack on my back, resulting in a repetitive motion injury. The rest of our hike on Day 6, I was careful where I placed my left foot with each step and by the end of the day, my knee began to feel better.

After a decent night of sleep and doses of ibuprofen pills and cream, my knee felt much better and ready for the kilometers ahead in Day 7. In addition to anti-inflammatory medicine, I decided to add extra support to my knee with a neoprene knee wrap I packed in the event knee trouble arose. I’m happy to report my knee held-up well under the stress of the lengthy hike, but I received an unintended consequence from the neoprene wrap: it doesn’t breathe. As a result of my body temperature rising significantly under the intense Italian heat and exertion from kilometer after kilometer of walking over 10 hours, I developed a second degree burn on my knee. A pharmacist around the corner from my B&B provided me with a cream and I’m caring for the wound to the inside of my left knee.