THE PRESANELLA AND VAL DI GENOVA.
All the peaks soar, but one the rest excels;
Clouds overcome it.--R. BROWNING.
ENGLISH AND GERMAN MOUNTAINEERS--THE LOMBARD ALPS FROM
MONTE ROSA--NOMENCLATURE--GAVIA PASS--PONTE DI LEGNO--TONALE
PASS--VERMIGLIO--VAL PRESANELLA--THE PRESANELLA--PASSO DI CERCEN--VAL
DI GENOVA.
The races of English and German mountaineers, after making due
allowance for the exceptions which there are to every rule, will be
found respectively to embody many of the characteristics of the two
nations. Our Alpine Clubman affords while in the Alps an example of
almost perpetual motion. His motto is taken from Clough--
Each day has got its sight to see,
Each day must put to profit be.
Provided with a congenial friend, and secure in the company of at least
one first-rate guide possessed of the skill and knowledge necessary
to encounter every obstacle of the snowy Alps, the English mountaineer
runs a tilt at half the mountain-tops which lie in his erratic course,
meeting on the whole with wonderfully few falls or failures on the
way. He dashes from peak to peak, from group to group, even from one
end of the Alps to the other, in the course of a short summer holiday.
Exercise in the best of air, a dash of adventure, and a love of nature,
not felt the less because it is not always on his tongue, are his
chief motives. A little botany, geology, or chartography, may come
into his plans, but only by the way and in a secondary place. He is
out on a holiday and in a holiday humour. You must not be surprised,
therefore, if the instruments with which one of the party has burdened
himself give rise to more bad jokes than valuable observations. For the
climbers are in capital training, and can afford to laugh uphill--a
power which is freely used, even at moments when the peasant who
carries the provision sack is appealing audibly to his saints.
On their return home it is with some secret pleasure, though much
grumbling, that the leader of the party hurries off in the intervals
of other business a ten-page paper for the 'Alpine Journal'--an account
probably of the most adventurous of a dozen 'grandes courses,' full of
misspellings of local names, and of the patois he talks to his guides,
and, as his Teutonic rival would add, 'utterly devoid of serious aim or
importance.'
Far different is the scheme and mode of operation of the German
mountaineer. To him his summer journey is no holiday, but part
of the business of life. He either deliberately selects his
'Excursions-gebiet' in the early spring with a view to do some good
work in geology or mapping, or more probably has it selected for him
by a committee of his club. About August you will find him seriously
at work. While on the march he shows in many little ways his sense of
the importance of his task. His coat is decorated with a ribbon bearing
on it the badge or decoration of his club. He carries in his pockets
a notebook, ruled in columns, for observations of every conceivable
kind, and a supply of printed cards ready to deposit on the heights
he aims at. His orbit, however, is a limited one, and he continues to
revolve like a satellite, throwing considerable light on the mass to
which he is attached, round the Orteler or Marmolata; while his English
rival dashes comet-wise, doing little that is immediately useful, from
Grindelwald, the sun and centre of the Alpine system, to the Uranian
distances of the Terglou. His velocity also is relatively small; 'a
German,' as Hawthorne somewhere says, 'requires to refresh nature ten
times to any other person's once,' and to accommodate this sluggishness
he requires to pass the night on the highest and most uncomfortable
spot possible. Yet having slept or frozen--as you may prefer to call
it--scarcely 3,000 feet below his peak, he manages somehow to get
benighted before reaching the village on its further side. It must in
fairness be admitted that this slow rate of motion is often, partially
at least, owing to his dependence on the local chamois-hunter. On rocks
this worthy may be, and sometimes is, all that fancy paints him; but
on snow or ice the terror inherited from unroped generations possesses
him. At the first ice-rift an inch wide, or at a gentle snow-slope of
forty-five, he shies obstinately. The foreign mountaineer deserves
well of after-comers for the pains with which at his own expense he
trains this raw material, and thus founds in every valley a school of
native guides. But those who carry about one Almer as an apostle, and
associate with him the best local talent, do probably greater good at
a less sacrifice to themselves. The party who bring with them a whole
train from Zermatt or Grindelwald are of course wholly selfish, and can
lay no claim to have assisted in the progress of Alpine education.
But it is not until our 'klubist' comes home after having spent a
third summer in one valley that we realise the full seriousness of
his pursuit. No ridiculous mouse of a flippant article is born of his
mountains. We have first a solid monograph, properly divided into
heads, 'orographical, geological, botanical, and touristical,' and
published in the leading geographical magazine of Germany. This is
soon followed by a thick volume, printed in luxurious type, and adorned
with highly coloured illustrations and a prodigious map, most valuable
doubtless, but, alas! to weak English appetites somewhat indigestible.
The foregoing reflections will appear fully justified after any
researches into the literature of the Tyrolese Alps in general. But
with regard to the Lombard Alps in particular they may seem unfounded.
The papers of Lieutenant Payer, their principal German-writing
explorer, are as terse as they are full of matter, and several pleasant
articles have appeared in the 'Jahrbücher' of the foreign Alpine Clubs
on a region which has been strangely neglected by our own countrymen.
The exertions of our German fellow-climbers can, however, scarcely
justify the annexation of the district calmly carried out by one of
their writers. 'In all our German Alps,' says a learned doctor, 'there
is hardly a more forsaken or unknown corner than the Adamello.' 'In
unseren Deutschen Alpen!' There is not in the whole Alps a region
which is more thoroughly Italian than the mountain-mass of which the
Presanella is the highest, the Adamello the most famous, summit. But it
is only fair to the doctor to state his excuse, for the better half of
the group lies in Austria, and in 1864 Austria had not yet been pushed
out of Germany. The mountains of the Trentino may be still, politically
speaking, Austro-Italian Alps; in every other respect they belong
entirely to the southern peninsula.
What was written of their deserted condition in 1864 remains true,
however, ten years later, at least as far as the mass of English and
German travellers is concerned. The splendid gorges which give access
from Lago di Garda and Trent to Val Rendena, the roads of the Tonale
and the Aprica, are undisturbed by the 'voiturier;' the snow-fields of
the Adamello are trampled but once a season by the mountaineer.[39]
To most English frequenters of the Swiss Alps the Lombard snow-peaks
are known but as spots on the horizon of the extended view of some
mountain-top. It was thus that I first made acquaintance with them.
The full midday glow of a July sun was falling from the dark vapourless
vault overhead on to the topmost crags of Monte Rosa. A delicate
breeze, or rather air-ripple, lapping softly round the mountain-crest,
scarcely tempered the scorching force with which the rays fell through
the thin atmosphere. Round us on three sides the thousand-crested
Alps swept in a vast semicircle of snow and ice, clustering in bright
companies or ranging their snowy heads in sun-tipped lines against the
horizon. But we turned our faces mostly to the south, where, beyond
the foreshortened foot-hills, and as it seemed at little more than a
stone's-throw distance, lay the broad plains of Piedmont and Lombardy.
Through a Coan drapery of thin golden haze the great rivers could be
seen coursing like veins over the bosom of fair Italy, open to where it
was clasped round by the girdle of the far-off Apennine.
As from our tower we watched the lower world, a small cumulus cloud
here and there grew into being, some 7,000 feet beneath us, and cast
a blue shadow on the distant plain. These cloud-ships would from time
to time join company, and, under the favouring influence of some local
breeze, set sail for the distant Alps. A few stranded on the lower
slopes of Val Sesia, others floated as in a landlocked bay above the
deep basin of Macugnaga. A whole fleet sailed away, across the lakes,
beyond the village-sprinkled slopes of Val Vigezzo and the crest of
Monte Generoso, to find a port in the recesses of a distant range, the
first in the east where 'Alp met heaven in snow.'
Where and what, we asked, are these 'silver spearheads?' The
answer given has both before and since satisfied and deluded many
enquirers--the Orteler Spitze. But to have named these peaks might, in
1864, have puzzled a better geographer than a Zermatt guide.
Mountains are not born with names; most of them live for ages without
them. It is at last often a mere matter of chance and the caprice of an
engineer, to what syllables, soft or hideous, they are finally linked.
The herdsmen who feed their flocks on the highest pasturages are the
authorities to whom the officer in charge of the Ordnance survey most
frequently appeals. These worthy peasants seldom speak anything but a
patois scarcely intelligible to their educated fellow-countrymen. Very
often, as in the Italian provinces of Austria, they are of a totally
different race and speech to their questioners, and confusion of
tongues and national antipathy are joined to the fixed notion of every
peasant, that all enquiries are connected with taxes, as obstacles to
any clear understanding between the parties.
Moreover, the herdsmen have often never thought before of what
lies beyond their utmost goat-track. Sometimes driven to despair by
cross-questions, they invent, on the spur of the moment, a name drawn
from the most obvious characteristic of the peak; hence the crowd
and confusion of Corno Rossos and Corno Neros, of Weisshörner and
Schwarzhörner. Or they say nothing at all, and leave the map-maker to
exercise his own ingenuity.
Again, every mountain has at least two sides, and it is open to the
arbitrary discretion of the engineers to prefer the name given on one
or the other, which is seldom, if ever, found to be the same.
Until quite recently the two highest peaks of the Lombard Alps were
unnamed, and their names are still unknown to many of the people who
live beneath them. Two parish priests of Val Camonica, from which the
crest of the Adamello is seen for miles closing the distance, had in
1865 never heard of such a mountain. All that they knew was that there
was a 'vedretta' somewhere above the summer alps. To them it was quite
as remote and inaccessible as any other white cloud, and they had never
thought of naming, far less of approaching, it. The word 'Adamello' is
doubtless a creation of the Ordnance survey, derived from Val d'Adame,
one of the glens which penetrate nearest to the base of the mountain.
The people of Val di Sole called the whole mass of snow and ice--the
unattainable ground--on their south, 'Vedretta Presanella.' Strangers
are now teaching them to confine the title to the highest peak, and
foreign custom is leading to the gradual disuse of the name Cima
di Nardis, by which the peak was alone known a few years ago in Val
Rendena. The kingship of the Lombard Alps was in 1864 still unconferred
between these two rival claimants, the Adamello and Presanella.
On August 23, four weeks after our day on Monte Rosa, we left the
Baths of Santa Catarina for the Gavia Pass. The unsettled weather
coupled with the reaction after an ascent of the Königsspitze, stolen
in a gleam of sunshine on the previous day, would probably in any
case have made us ready to take this easy road in place of trying
our fortunes over one of the snowy gaps behind the Tresero. But we
had a better reason for our want of venturesomeness. It was necessary
for us to ascertain the exact position and means of approach to our
mountain. For this purpose our maps helped us little, if at all. We
had in fact nothing to trust to but the little sheet in the 'Alpine
Guide,' compiled on inaccurate authorities, and hiding ignorance under
a specious, but to travellers very inconvenient, vagueness.
We knew, it is true, that the Presanella lay on the ridge south of the
Tonale Pass, the carriage-road crossing the deep gap which severs the
Orteler and Adamello Alps. But whether the path to it opened from the
top of that pass or from some point in the upper Val di Sole we had
no means to decide. To cross the Tonale with our eyes open seemed,
therefore, the only prudent course.
The Gavia is but a gloomy portal to the beauties of Santa Catarina. The
summit is a wild desolate plain, not cheerful even in fine weather,
and deadly enough in winter snowstorms. Three rude crosses under a
rock mark the spot where as many peasants overtaken by storm sought
shelter in vain, and where their bodies were found and buried. Further
on the path becomes a street of tombs--a 'Via Appia' of the mountains.
Cross succeeds cross, each carved with rude initials and date, varied
here and there by a stone pyramid, in the recesses of which, in the
place of the usual picture of a virgin or saint, you find a skull and a
collection of bones, open to the air and bleached by long exposure. For
riders this is the only escape south-eastwards from Santa Catarina; but
moderate walkers--ladies even, who do not mind snow--may find a better
and brighter path by turning away to the left over the broad shoulders
of the Pizzo della Mare, and descending through Val del Monte, and past
the dirty bath-houses of Pejo to the upper Val di Sole.[40]
Ponte di Legno is a shabby village, and in 1864 its inn was in
character. Since then, however, there has been an improvement, and
a very fair country inn now offers a convenient starting-point for
travellers who wish to cross the Pisgana Pass, the easiest of those
leading to the head of Val di Genova and Pinzolo. During our meal--a
banquet of hot water flavoured by pepper, followed by sodden veal,--we
were disturbed by the entrance of a venerable personage who seemed
anxious to render us assistance. As he spoke a patois Italian, and was
as deaf as he was talkative, his attentions soon became embarrassing.
Having listened to a long harangue on the excellence of the road and
the inns between us and Trent, we ventured mildly to hint a dislike
for roads and to enquire with solicitude about the Presanella. But
our protest and enquiries were put aside with equal indifference.
Even on the only topic of immediate interest to us, what sort of a
place was the inn near the top of the Tonale, we could get no certain
information. If age despised the innovating spirit of youth, youth, I
am afraid, grew impatient of the resolve 'stare super antiquas vias' of
age. When we found that we might as well enquire about the mountains of
the moon as the Presanella, we also became deaf, and turned to our veal
with such affectation of enthusiasm as that immature viand can command.
Soon after leaving Ponte di Legno, the road, a rough cart-track, climbs
a wooded hillside by the steepest possible zigzags. The air was hot and
steamy, and dark clouds were creeping up Val Camonica. The mists soon
enveloped us, all further view was lost, and the rain began to pour
as it only can pour among the mountains. Thunder boomed away behind us
like heavy artillery, each report followed by a sharp fire of musketry,
as the echoes ran along the crags.
The top of the pass is a wide tract of pasture, in the absence of
distant view more Scotch than Alpine. At last the road, which, to avoid
a swamp, rises higher than the actual gap, began to descend, and tall
black and yellow posts, crowned by two-headed eagles, announced the
Austrian frontier. The country road of the Italian side suddenly came
to an end, and a military highway, marked by a long line of granite
curbstones, wound down before us. A deep hollow, the head of Val
Vermiglio, presently opened at our feet, and the road, swerving to the
left, approached the Tonale Hospice, a massive, modern, whitewashed
house. Unfortunately for our comfort it was crowded with labourers,
employed on the new fort which the Austrians were then erecting to
protect themselves against their neighbours.
The kitchen fire lighted up a picturesque scene. Over the flames hung a
huge caldron of polenta, into which two dark-haired girls dashed from
time to time some new ingredient, while a hungry crowd of men, young
and old, sat round, watching eagerly the progress of their supper.
Room was made for us in the chimney-seats, where we steamed in our damp
clothes until the crowd had been fed, and some one could find time to
give us our meal of potatoes and butter. By the time this was over it
was already late, and we were ready to distribute ourselves between
the two spare beds which the house afforded, while François went off to
join the workmen in the barn. The inmates retired into an inner room,
and all was still by nine o'clock, save for the ceaseless patter of
the rain. Before five next morning the women came out of their chamber,
and from that time there was a constant flow of company backwards and
forwards through our room. Seizing on propitious intervals, we dressed
in spasms, and, seeing the weather still hopeless, made up our minds
to set out at once for the nearest village in Val di Sole, where we
might hope to obtain better fare and possibly some further information;
for at the Hospice our endeavours to learn anything of the Presanella
had again been fruitless. No one had ever heard of such a mountain.
One fact alone was ascertained before leaving. The stream which waters
Val di Sole has its highest source in a wild glen at the back of Monte
Piscanno, named in the Lombard map Val Presena. This I had believed
would lead us up to the Presanella, but through the glimpses of the
storm no conspicuous snow-peak appeared in that direction, and it was
plain we must look further for our mysterious mountain.
On a projecting knoll, about half way to Vermiglio,[41] stands an
Austrian blockhouse, mounting seven guns. It is commanded by many
neighbouring heights, but would be of use against a Garibaldian inroad.
As we passed it a momentary break revealed a lofty snow-peak at the
head of a glen opening immediately opposite.
There at last was the Presanella. A fir-forest clothed the lower
slopes; higher up a large glacier spread out its icy skirts. The
vision, though sufficient for our purpose, lasted only a few moments.
In clear weather the view from this spot must be one of the most
picturesque glimpses of a great snow-peak anywhere to be seen from a
carriage-pass. Clinging still to the northern slopes of the valley,
the road presently entered Pizzano. The first house was the Austrian
douane; the second, the inn. We of course gave up our passports,
but François, being unprovided, handed the officers his 'livre des
voyageurs,' containing his certificate as guide.[42] The Austrian, with
much show of sternness, pushed it away contemptuously, and delivered
himself in this wise:--'You have no passport. You must go back to your
country. At any rate you can enter no further into the Imperial and
Royal dominions.' Here was a serious crisis. We felt our only chance
was to temporise. 'Very well,' we replied, 'if you must refuse our
servant permission to enter Austria, at least there can be no objection
to his getting something to eat next door before he returns.' This
concession the officers did not deny; and entering the inn we ordered
breakfast, and prepared to wait for better weather. A scout was posted
outside by the douaniers to prevent François from giving them the slip.
In the meantime we of course again enquired after the Presanella, and,
almost to our surprise, everyone in Pizzano was acquainted with the
name. 'Oh, yes!' said our host, 'a German Herr Professor from Vienna
tried the mountain a year or two ago, and found it quite impracticable.
The final peak is like the stove in this room, and all ice.' 'Well,'
said I, 'but the stove is easy,' and climbed to the top. Staggered
by this argument, he offered to bring the man who had accompanied
the Viennese Professor in his attempt. In due time a native made his
appearance, who satisfied us that he really knew where the mountain
was, and could lead us to its foot; which was all we wanted.
The name of our predecessor was at the time unknown to us, but I learnt
afterwards[43] that he was Dr. von Ruthner, then the Vice-President
of the Austrian Alpine Club. From the account given of his attempt it
is clear that he followed the same route as ourselves; our Italian in
fact led us in his footsteps, up to the saddle at the north-west base
of the mountain. His failure to get further was entirely owing to his
guides, who, unused to such expeditions, and appalled by the sight of a
broken and somewhat steep snow-slope, refused to proceed. The Italian,
as our experience proved, was a poor creature, his second guide, Kuenz,
though, as we are told, renowned as a keen chamois and bear-hunter,
declared to Dr. von Ruthner 'that he had once in his youth descended
amongst the wild chasms of the glacier which pours steeply over into
Val Cercen, and that he would never do it again,' This descent we
subsequently found an admirable spot for a glissade!
Watching from our window the rain, which after a deceitful lull
now fell again in torrents, we saw the scout, who was still on
duty, in deep converse with a friend. In a few minutes the friend
sauntered casually into our room, and enquired our plans with an air
of indifference. I assured him that our intention was to climb the
Presanella, without thinking it necessary to add--and find a way down
the other side of it. His object thus satisfactorily attained, the man
soon left us, and no doubt imparted the valuable information to his
brother officials, for their demeanour suddenly changed, and one of
them told us that they should not object to our guide's accompanying
us to the Presanella. We of course expressed ourselves duly thankful
for their small mercies, and in fact felt much relieved at this happy
issue of a dilemma which might easily have become serious. Soon after
three o'clock the clouds grew gradually lighter, the sun struggled
through, and patches of blue broke the leaden monotony of the sky. No
more watery storms swept down from the Tonale, but a steady northern
breeze carried away the vapours, except one or two unfortunates which
had sunk so deep into the valley that they could not find the way out
again. We hurried our dinner, got together our provisions, and sent
the porter to look for a rope--a necessary which we were too young in
Alpine travel to have brought with us from England, according to the
custom of experienced mountaineers. Vermiglio did not possess a cord
more than thirty feet long; but after a good deal of delay some leather
thongs were procured, and about 5 P.M. we finally got off, leaving the
douaniers to look out at their leisure for our expected return.
Instead of remounting the Tonale road we kept by the side of the river
for half-an-hour, until it was joined by the torrent from the lateral
glen which we had passed in the morning. A well-made path led up a
steep hillside covered with bilberries and Alpine strawberries, and
turned some precipitous rocks by picturesque wooden galleries.
After passing a group of charcoal-burners' huts the ascent ceased,
and winding round a wooded brow we entered a secluded basin shut in
by steep ridges, where the stream rested for a while in its troubled
course before plunging into the valley. Far above gleamed the object
of our expedition--the long-talked-of, and at last almost-despaired-of
Presanella, no longer shrouded in mist, but sharp cut against the
darkening sky. It presented an apparently level wall, turreted at
either end; the western tower was of rugged rock, the eastern more
massive and snow-clad, rising in the centre to a sharp shining point,
evidently the true 'cima' of the mountain.
A flock of Bergamasque sheep were huddled together in our way;
disregarding the protests of the shaggy sheep-dog we forced a passage
through them, and reached the hut--a rough shelter, half open on one
side to the sky.
Pushing back the rude door, we entered a small cabin, looking at first
sight like a butcher's shop, for several carcases of departed sheep
were hung up to smoke over the smouldering fire. Its occupants were
three shepherds, who received us most hospitably, packed away the
drying meat, and made room by the fireside. Presently one of them went
out with the dog. On enquiring where the man was going so late, we were
told that they were obliged to patrol by turns at night to keep off the
bears; several were known to be prowling about the mountains, and one
had been seen only the previous day. Our hosts took needless pains to
assure us that the animals would not enter the châlet, and that there
was no occasion for alarm at their vicinity.
As fresh logs were piled on, and the blaze rose higher, a horned
monster with a pair of gleaming eyes was seen gazing at us from the
upper gloom. It was only a patriarchal goat, stabled in a loft opening
on one side into the châlet. Two of us spent the night in a bed of hay,
built up on pine-logs; the third lay down with the shepherds among the
skins and logs by the fireside. François scrambled into the loft, where
he was welcomed by the old goat, which settled itself beside him. Later
in the night the rest of the flock became boisterous, quarrelled with
the biped intruder, and expelled him from their abode.
At 3 A.M. the waning moon was still bright enough to guide our steps
along the zigzags of a well-marked track leading to the rocky waste,
furrowed and polished by glacier action, which lies above the head of
the glen. Our porter was very anxious to take us round by the spur on
our right dividing Val Presanella and Val Presena, but we preferred a
much more direct course over the ice. Although the valley at our feet
was already bathed in golden light, the early rays still left cold the
snows we were about to enter. The rain of the previous day had frozen
over the glacier in a slippery crust, and made every slope into a sort
of 'Montagne Russe.' We crept catwise as best we could along cracks,
cutting steps when these failed us, until the more level and upper
snows were safely if not quickly gained.
We were now at the very foot of the Presanella, and could judge of the
nature of the work immediately before us. From the western extremity
of the wall which we had seen from below, a ridge receded from us
ending towards Val di Genova in a snow-dome. This secondary peak (Monte
Gabbiol) with the rock turret at the angle (the Piccola Presanella)
and the sharp eastern crest, probably make up the three summits to
which the mass owes a local name, 'Il Triplice.' The only route open
to us seemed to be to cross the lowest point in the ridge between the
Monte Gabbiol and the Piccola Presanella, and then gain the eastern or
highest peak by the back of the snow-wall. Dr. von Ruthner's Italian
scouted the idea. 'Then,' said François, 'we must cut steps up the
face of the wall.' This proposal struck our native with horror, and
he protested against it as 'Molto molto impossibile!' His idea of the
impossible was evidently somewhat vague, and not founded on experience.
We stuck therefore to our first plan, and, walking briskly up the
glacier, reached in half-an-hour a gap at its head overlooking the
ice-fields which enclose Val di Genova. At this point the real attack
on the mountain began. Hitherto we had only been making for a pass.
The ascent now led us over steep slopes of snow, broken by great rifts
and icicle-fringed vaults, none of which, however, were continuous
enough to cause any difficulty. Often a few steps had to be cut, but
the delay was pleasantly spent in studying the glorious view already
spread out behind us. In the foreground lay the unknown glacier-fields
of the Adamello; the Orteler and Bernina ranges rose in the middle
distance; on the horizon glowed Monte Rosa and the Saasgrat. Even these
were not the furthest objects in view, for I distinctly recognised the
Graian peaks melting into the saffron sky.
The deep moat crossed, a dozen steps had to be cut up an ice-bank;
then, after climbing over an awkward boulder, we reached the ridge.
Great was the anxiety as to what would be seen on the other side, for
on the steepness of the back of the wall between us and the final peak
our success hung. Great in proportion was the satisfaction of those
below, when, as his head rose above the rocks, François shouted, 'Bien;
tout est facile!'
The semicircle enclosed between the three summits of the Presanella was
filled by the snow-fields of an extensive glacier which flowed away to
the south-east. The snow rose nearly to the level of the lowest point
of the crest connecting the Piccola Presanella and the highest peak.
We quickly passed under the former, and found ourselves standing on the
summit of the wall we had gazed up at the previous evening.
We now looked down upon the shepherds' hut and the Tonale road, where
the Austrian blockhouse and its constructors seen through the glasses
appeared like a diminutive beehive. A coping of fresh snow overhung the
edge of the wall; this we dislodged with our alpenstocks, sending it
whirling down 1,000 feet upon the glacier beneath.
Our hopes of immediate success now met with one of those checks, so
frequent in the Alps, which test most severely the moral endurance
needed, much more than physical strength, in a good mountaineer. The
crest suddenly turned into hard ice; each step had to be won patiently
by the axe. Careless or inefficient work might have led to an awkward
tumble; an attempt such as a tyro would probably have made to make use
of the snow coping would have inevitably resulted in sudden disaster.
In such positions amateurs without guides most often fail. It is
rare to find a party of whom some member will not utter an impatient
exclamation, or suggest some tempting, but unwise, expedient to gain
time; it is rarer still to find a leader who will act as a good guide
invariably does--refuse to pay the slightest heed to such murmurs in
his rear. Yet if he listens to them he will learn sooner or later the
truth of a line which ought to be emblazoned as a text over every A.
C.'s mantelpiece, 'Hasty climbers oft do fall.'
We advanced but slowly along our laboured way. Once the porter was sent
to the front, but after cutting some half-dozen steps he retired again
of his own accord to the rear, informing us, in passing, that 'he could
do no more.' He accordingly reserved all his strength for frequent
ejaculations respecting the impossibility of attaining the top under
at least eight hours! François had all the work to do, and for the
next two hours and a half he did it manfully. Hack! hack! went the axe,
till a step was hewn out; then with a final flourish the loose ice was
cleared off, and the process began again. At last the wearisome task
was done, and we all stepped gladly on to a little snow-platform, about
half of which was occupied by a huge cup-shaped crevasse. The final
peak alone now remained to be conquered. 'Encore dix pas seulement,'
said François, and he hacked away as if it was his first step. We cut
across a steep ice-slope, and in five minutes stood upon some broken
rocks which ran up the southern face of the mountain. Here we had to
wriggle across an awkward boulder; and our porter, who had insisted on
throwing off the rope, was fain to be reattached. By a vigorous haul we
cut short his hesitation and drew him halfway over, but there he stuck
clinging on to the rock with all his limbs spread out in different
directions, like a distressed starfish. At last some one went back
and stretched out a helping hand; then, aggravated by the delay, we
made a rush at the last rocks, and in a few moments were treading down
the virgin snows at which we had so long and wistfully looked up. The
actual top was a snow-crest lying as a cap on the brow of the cliff
which faces Val di Sole. The ascent from the hut had taken us eight
hours--a long time for a mountain of only 11,688 feet.
As soon as the first excitement of victory was over we began to look
with interest at the new mountain region spread at our feet. The
central mass of the Adamello was for the first time before me in such
nearness and completeness as to allow of a ready insight into, and
understanding of, its character. It is a huge block, large enough to
supply materials for half-a-dozen fine mountains. But it is in fact
only one. For a length and breadth of many miles the ground never falls
below 9,500 feet. The vast central snow-field feeds glaciers pouring
to every point of the compass. The highest peaks, such as the Carè Alto
and Adamello, are merely slight elevations of the rim of this uplifted
plain. Seen from within they are mere hummocks; from without they
are very noble mountains falling in great precipices towards the wild
glacier-closed glens which run up to their feet.
Imagine an enormous white cloth unevenly laid upon a table, and its
shining skirts hanging over here and there between the dark massive
supports. The reader, if he will excuse so humble a comparison, may
thereby form a better idea of the general aspect of the snow-plains,
the rocky buttresses, and overhanging glaciers of the Adamello as they
now met our view.
It was clear that the descent of the Nardis Glacier, leading in a
direct line to Pinzolo, was perfectly easy, and we half regretted
having left our goods on the pass.
Returning a few paces to the highest rocks we spent an hour of pleasant
idleness, only broken by the duty of building a cairn in which to
ensconce a gigantic water-bottle charged with our cards. About three
weeks later our representative received a visitor. Lieut. Julius
Payer,[44] an Austrian officer whose name has since become familiar
to the English public as the leader of a North Pole expedition, had,
unknown to us, been spending the summer in exploring the peaks round
Val di Genova. The Presanella, owing partly to the difficulties he
found with his native guides, was left to the last, and consequently,
when its summit was at length reached, the astonished mountaineers were
greeted, not by a maiden peak, but by a fine stoneman.
The staircase which had taken three hours and a half to hew was readily
run down in forty-five minutes. On the pass, hereafter to be known as
the Passo di Cercen, we dismissed our hunter, with materials for many
a long story, and our kindest regards to the douaniers.
A steep, short glacier fell away from our feet into Val di Genova. The
ice was at first much fissured, but by bearing towards the rocks on the
right we found a slope clear from crevasses and favourable to a long
glissade. Soon afterwards we left the glacier, and descended through
a gully and over some rough ground till, reaching a lower range of
cliffs, we bore well to the left, and discovered a faint track which
led us down through underwood to the side of the stream and the first
hut. From this point there is a noble view of the Adamello, with the
Mandron and Lobbia glaciers[45] shooting out their icy tongues over the
rocks at the head of the valley. Hence we dropped down by a good path
into the bottom of Val di Genova, which was reached in two hours from
the pass.
Although the description of Mr. Ball relieves me from the
responsibility of standing sponsor for this wonderful valley, I
cannot pass over without a tribute the long, yet though now four times
trodden, never wearisome twelve miles which separate the sources of
the Sarca above the Bedole Alp from Pinzolo, the first village on its
banks.
The Val di Genova leaves behind it an impression as vivid and lasting
as any of the more famous scenes of the Alps or the Pyrenees. It is in
one aspect a trench cut 8,000 feet deep between the opposite masses
of the Adamello and Presanella. From another and perhaps truer point
of view it is a winding staircase leading by a succession of abrupt
flights and level landings from the low-lying Val Rendena to the
crowning heights of the Adamello itself. In the valley there are four
such flights or steps, locally called 'scale,' each the cause of a
noble waterfall; the fifth step closes the valley proper, and the fall
that pours over it is of ice, the flashing tongue of the great Mandron
Glacier. The last step divides the glacier from the snow region, and is
partially smoothed out by the vast frozen masses which slide over it,
as a rapid is concealed by a swollen flood. Besides the falls of the
Sarca in the bottom of the valley, the meltings of two great ice-fields
have to find a way down its precipitous sides.
[Illustration: THE HEAD OF VAL DI GENOVA.
Lobbia Alta. Lobbia Bassa. Mte. Mandron.
Lobbia G1. Mandron G1.]
Hence Nature has here a great opportunity for adisplay of waterfalls,
a branch of landscape gardening in which as a rule she seems strangely
chary of exerting her powers. The skill with which a large body of
water manages to descend a mountain side at an extremely high angle
without dashing itself anywhere to pieces is, I fancy, often extremely
provoking to the tourist in search of a sensation.
In the Adamello country, however, the greediest sightseer will be
satisfied. For 'grandes eaux' Val di Genova is the Versailles of North
Italy. Besides three first-rate falls of the Sarca itself, there are
two more of the torrents draining the glaciers of Nardis and Lares. But
I am in danger of falling into a numerical, or auctioneer's catalogue,
style of description, by which no justice can be done to the manifold
charms of rock, wood, and water, which await the wanderer in this
forgotten valley. We must return to the Bedole Alp and endeavour to
sketch some two or three of the splendid surprises of the path to
Pinzolo.
We entered the valley above its highest step on the level where
the Sarca first gathers up its new-born strength. A smooth
meadow-foreground, alive with cattle, spread between low pine-clad
knolls from under the shelter of which issued a thin column of
smoke, showing the whereabouts of the châlets. Close at hand two
great glaciers poured their icy ruin into the pastoral scene, which
was encompassed on all sides by bare or wooded cliffs, most savage
in the direction of the river's course, where the vast outworks of
the Presanella, keen granite ridges, saw the sky with their solid
pinnacles.
After a few hundred yards of level we came to the brink of what we
could hardly tell. The grey water which had been flowing at our side
dropped suddenly out of sight amidst a mighty roar. A slender and
hazardous bridge of a single log crossed the stream on the brink of the
precipice.
From it, if your head is steady enough, you may watch the waters
as they leap in solid sheets into the air and disappear amidst the
foam-cloud, until a growing impulse to join in their mad motion warns
you to regain the bank. It is as well to remain content with this
impression. But those who wish to see more may easily push their way
through a tangle of pine and thick undergrowth by tracks best known
to the cattle who come here to bathe themselves in the cool spray.
From below the fall is still noble, but it is no longer a mystery. The
plunge into the infinite has become only the first step in life.
A second plain is covered with lawn-like turf or bilberry-carpeted
woodland; here and there stand shepherds' huts, locally known as
'malghe,' built of ruddy unsmoothed fir-logs. Overhead tower the sheer
buttresses of the Presanella, so lofty that it seemed incredible how
a few hours ago we had been higher than the highest of these soaring
cliffs. At the next 'scala' the foot traveller should cross by a bridge
to the right bank in order to pass in front of the second Sarca fall,
where the river, caught midway by a bluff of rock, is shivered into a
wide-spreading veil, in which the bright water-drops chase one another
in recurrent waves over the bosses of the crag.
The succeeding plain is shorter and more broken. At its lower end
are some saw-mills and a group of huts, the summer residence of a
worthy called Fantoma, once employed as a guide by Lieut. Payer, a
great talker, and, by his own account, still greater Nimrod, having
slain to his own gun seventeen bears and over three hundred chamois.
Here we came on another fall of the Sarca, or rather a succession of
leaps imbedded in a deep cleft crossed by bold bridges, and lit up
by the scarlet berries of the mountain ash. High upon the right an
unchanging cloud hangs on the mountain side where the Lares torrent
hurries down to the valley. A cart-road made for the saw-mills now
traverses a flat stony tract where the river for the first time breaks
loose and devastates the meadows, and huge blocks, fallen from scars
in the cliff-faces above, lie beside the track. Sheltered from the
spray-shower between two of these we paused to admire the last great
cascade, that of the Nardis, which comes shooting and shivering out
of the sky down almost upon our heads in a double column. Seen once in
June, when the snows were melting, it seemed to me the most beautiful
of Alpine water-showers.
Some distance further, on the verge of the last descent into Val
Rendena, we reached, as evening fell, the old church of Charlemagne,
and looked down for the first time over the softer landscape and sylvan
slopes of the lower valley. The fading light below brought out on the
hillsides the delicate shades of green lost in the full blaze of the
noonday sun, while high up in air the red cliffs of the Brenta, glowing
with the last rays of sunset, seemed unearthly enough to form part of
the poet's palace of Hyperion which,
Bastion'd with pyramids of glowing gold
And touch'd with shade of bronzèd obélisques,
Glared a blood red through all its thousand courts,
Arches and domes and fiery galleries.
FOOTNOTES:
[39] A change seems, however, imminent. In 1873 some of the
leading inhabitants of Trent and Arco formed themselves into
an Alpine Society. Its object is at once to excite in the
youth of the Trentino the taste for healthful exercise, and
to increase the material prosperity of the mountain valleys
by drawing to them some of the abundance of foreign gold
which flows so freely into Eastern Switzerland. One of the
first consequences of this step has been the establishment of
Alpine Inns at Campiglio and San Martino di Castrozza.
[40] See Appendix C for two routes from Santa Catarina to Val
di Sole.
[41] Vermiglio, like Primiero, is the name of a group of
villages, of which the highest is Pizzano.
[42] From an article, _Die grosseren Expeditionen in den
Oesterreichischen Alpen aus dem Jahre 1864_, von Dr. Anton
von Ruthner, published in Petermann's _Mittheilungen_ for
1865.
[43] This refers to eleven years ago. Proofs of nationality
are no longer asked for anywhere in the Alps unless, perhaps,
in France, where even a Republican Government finds itself
forced to gratify the peculiar passion of the nation for
restrictions on liberty of travel by retaining passports for
Frenchmen only. So long as this distinction is maintained,
members of other nations are liable to be occasionally
required to prove their disqualification for the privilege
of carrying about one of the minute descriptions of their own
persons, which seem to give our neighbours so much pleasure.
[44] Lieut. Payer's pamphlet _Die Adamello-Presanella Alpen_,
Petermann's _Mittheilungen, Erganzungsheft_, No. 17, Gotha,
J. Perthes, 1865, is a very valuable contribution to the
orography of the group he describes.
[45] I follow Lieutenant Payer's nomenclature, as it has been
adopted in the Alpine Club map. Mr. Ball prefers the name
of Bedole Glacier for the Mandron Glacier, and of Matarotto
Glacier for the Lobbia Glacier.