ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF ALPS
Relatively few Alpine climbers of the present generation know the
Alps. They know a district or two, perhaps, though even that amount of
knowledge is not so common as might be expected. It were truer to say
that the normal present-day climber knows a special kind of climbing and
only cares to go where that is to be found. The popular kind of climbing
to-day is rock-climbing. The new mountaineer is a specialist
rock-climber. Having once fallen in love with rock-climbing, he devotes
himself to it, becomes more and more skilful, hunts out harder and
harder climbs, and only cares to go where those are to be had. He has
discovered that England is not ill-provided with such scrambles, if you
know where to look for them; and he knows. He may be found at Easter and
Whitsuntide in recondite gullies in Wales, the Lakes, Derbyshire, or
Scotland. In the summer he is to be looked for among the Chamonix
Aiguilles or in the Dolomites, or, if at other centres, then on the more
difficult rock routes. Naturally a small area suffices him. It is not
mountains he seeks but climbs. A single peak will afford him several, a
small group might even occupy him for a lifetime of scrambling holidays.
[Illustration: 20. FRANCOIS DEVOUASSOUD.]
He does not care for easy ways. He hates snow-pounding. A glacier route
does not attract him unless it be difficult. Hence his knowledge even of
his own particular district or districts is likely to be incomplete. He
is not drawn to travel far afield. A wanderer by nature he cannot be;
nor is the wandering instinct likely to be developed in him. He does not
care for all sorts and conditions of Alps, but for one sort. Only where
that kind is to be found is he attracted to go. All present-day
mountaineers, of course, are not of this type; but this is the type that
present-day mountaineering tends to develop; and of this type the output
is considerable.
The old generation of climbers--the founders of the Alpine Club--men
who were active in the sixties and seventies, were essentially
wanderers. The craft of climbing was less an object of pursuit to them
than the exploration of the Alps. Probably the reason was that they had
the Alps to explore, and theirs was the pleasure of exploration which we
have not. The Alps have all been explored before our coming. The old men
had not even decent maps of the snowy regions to go by. No one knew what
was round most upper corners, or whither passes led, or how you could
get by high-level routes from place to place. It was a great delight to
solve such problems, and it led climbers to become geographers and to
interest themselves in the general structure and topography of the Alps.
No such problems now remain to be solved. Admirable maps exist, solving
them all. The game of exploration is played out in Central Europe. He
that would take a hand in it now must wander further afield.
Yet even now to know the Alps would be a life-work for any one. To know
them, like the writer of a Climbers' Guide, is more than a life-work.
For the Alps cover a much larger area than most people realise. Ordinary
persons think of the Alps and Switzerland as almost identical, yet less
than a third of the Alpine area is in Switzerland. By the Alps I mean
the whole mountain area between the Mediterranean and the plains of
North Italy, France, and Northern Europe, from where they begin at an
arbitrary point of offshoot from the Apennines, called the Colle di
Tenda, to where they fade out along a curved line, which may be vaguely
described as joining Vienna to Fiume. They lie therefore in the five
countries, Italy, France, Switzerland, Bavaria, and Austria.
Very few people indeed have any considerable general knowledge of the
whole of this great area, or indeed even any sense of the size of it and
the main features of its chief divisions. I spent one summer in the
attempt to traverse round along the curved middle line of it from the
Col di Tenda at one end to the neighbourhood of Vienna at the other, and
after walking approximately a thousand miles, including zigzags, I only
reached the termination of the snowy ridges, but by no means that of the
forest-covered eastern outliers. That journey, however, taught me how
much there is to know, and enables me to realise how little I have
actually learnt of the contents and character of the Alps as a whole.
This one fact, however, it demonstrated to me: that the several
divisions and subdivisions of the Alps contain varieties of scenery of
the utmost diversity. Thus a man who knows only the great ranges of the
Central Alps must still regard himself as ignorant of the Alps at large.
Not only are there all sorts and conditions of peaks, but there are all
sorts and conditions of types of scenery, and between these types there
is as much divergence as there is between a Kentish landscape and a view
from the Gorner Grat.
In this chapter I by no means propose to describe all the regions and
types of scenery that the Alps contain, but only to mention a few of
them as specimens of far more numerous other types, which there is no
space here to include or of which I am ignorant. A scientific writer
would divide these types of scenery according to the geological nature
of their upbuilding and substance. For instance, he would broadly
contrast the limestone with the slaty-crystalline areas, and show how
scenery and structure match. I propose to adopt no such rational method,
but to roam at random through the region of old memories, and refer as
chance directs to such types of scenery and such local varieties as
happen to suggest themselves in turn for description or brief analysis.
[Illustration: 21. AT BIGNASCO. Old Bridge over the Maggia. Shrine at
end, looking up Val Bavona. Basodino in background.]
Literally speaking, "alps" are high pastures where cattle go to graze in
summer-time. We here use the name with no such meaning, but to designate
the mountains in general. The Alps, _par excellence_, to the normal man
are the great groups of snowy peaks in the heart of the Alpine area. Let
us in the first place confine our attention to them. In popular
estimation these groups are the following, the Dauphiny, Mont Blanc,
Monte Rosa, Oberland, and Engadine masses. In the second rank come
others we will refer to later.
_Place au geant!_ First among all is Mont Blanc and its satellites,
pre-eminent in size, pre-eminent also in dignity. For this group is
really one buttressed mountain, and all its minor masses are supports to
the central dome, like the semi-domes, vaulted porticoes and abutments
of Hagia Sophia to the uplifted cupola. He who stands on the summit of
the great mountain beholds that this is so. His position there is
pre-eminent. No other neighbouring height rivals that which he occupies.
The highest are many hundred feet below, and they are all obvious
supporters and tributaries of Mont Blanc itself. It is only the yet
smaller and remoter elevations that assert a claim to independence.
This pre-eminence of the central mass is the key-note of Mont Blanc
scenery. Moreover the mountain is not merely pre-eminent in altitude,
but in volume and simplicity of form. Its upper part is a great white
dome, whereas the buttress-peaks are for the most part rocky pinnacles.
The contrast between these slender, jagged supports and the reposeful
majesty of the Calotte is a most picturesque feature and a very rare
one, not repeated, so far as I remember, in any other part of the Alps.
It dominates the scenery of the whole district. No doubt within the
district there are views of great beauty and considerable comprehension,
where Mont Blanc forms no part--such, for example, as the Montenvers
view up the Mer de Glace--but the characteristic prospects contain Mont
Blanc as their central and most important object. This is specially true
of all the views from summits, a quality that distinguishes them from
summit-views in other districts. Whatever Aiguille you stand upon, and
whatever may have been the character of the scenery passed through on
the way up, the moment you arrive upon the top, Mont Blanc assumes the
predominance and all else takes second rank. The ordinary summit-view,
the wide world over, is a panorama, in which the uninterrupted roving of
the vision round the whole circuit is the chief charm. From a minor
summit in the Mont Blanc region, the great mountain shuts out a large
fraction of the distant panorama and attracts chief attention to itself.
Of the other conspicuous beauties of this district, its glorious ice
scenery, its astonishingly precipitous crags and slender needle-peaks,
we shall take occasion to speak hereafter. In this place it is only the
dominant note of each locality that calls for brief description.
From Mont Blanc we naturally pass to Monte Rosa and the Matterhorn.
The fact that the two peaks call for co-ordinate attention, at once
marks the dispersion of interest characteristic of the Pennine Alps.
Indeed not two but nearly a dozen mountains in that group are of almost
equal importance, each having votaries who prefer it to the rest. The
Matterhorn, of course, is in its own way pre-eminent, if seen from
certain points of view; but, when beheld from other summits around, it
does not maintain an appearance of leadership. Monte Rosa from
Macugnaga, the Dom and Taeschhorn from Saas, the Weisshorn from north or
east, the Dent Blanche from the Triftjoch, are objects as imposing each
in its own way as is the Matterhorn from Zermatt or the Riffelalp. That
peak, as we shall hereafter take occasion to observe in more detail,
surpasses them, and perhaps all the rock mountains in the world, in
grace of outline from certain points of view. It likewise rejoices in a
rare prestige, due to its tragic history and its geographical position.
But to those who know it from all sides, and know its neighbours also,
it is not the unique and dominating mountain of its district that it is
popularly supposed to be. The Zermatt mountain area is probably best to
be differentiated from the other great Alpine groups by the almost
uniform magnificence and relative equality of its chief peaks. It
resembles some splendid Venetian oligarchy as contrasted with
monarchical Mont Blanc. The nobles of the Pennine Court with their
satellites present greater variety, a more elaborate organisation, and a
more varied historical record. Each seems worthy to be chief when beheld
from a selected vantage point. Seen from elsewhere, each subordinates
itself to some other. This is the region of large independent glaciers,
of deep recesses, of noble passes from place to place. It is also
specially rich in minor points of view about 10,000 feet high, and of
good sites for hotels some 3,000 feet lower, where each possesses a
specially fine outlook of its own, which it shares with no other. The
dominant note of the district is grandeur; if it lacks anything, it is
charm. This, in fact, is a stalwart group, which must be wandered over
and inspected from many sides and along many routes. No "centre" reveals
it. It is a place for walkers and climbers in the heyday of their
vigour.
Turn we next to the Bernese Oberland, the queen district, if Mont
Blanc is the king. The Oberland has always seemed to me to be the most
graceful and romantic of the great Alpine masses. The very names of its
peaks enshrine the poetry that the peasant-dwellers on their flanks
learned from them in days long gone by. The Maiden, the Monk, the Ogre,
the peak of Terror, and what not. And then how richly they roll off the
tongue--Finsteraarhorn, Lauteraarhorn, Bluemlisalp, Strahleck! No other
part of Switzerland can rival the Oberland for names--certainly not
Zermatt with its Meadow-peak, Red-peak, Broad-peak, Black-peak,
White-tooth, and the like feeble designations. Easily first for beauty
and prestige among Oberland mountains is the peerless Jungfrau--but you
must only see her from the north. Thence she is beheld, a most effulgent
beauty, fair among the fairest mountain visions upon earth. The elegance
of her form, displayed and emphasised by the white samite of her
drapery, and beheld from the lake at her foot, abides in the memory of
all who are privileged to behold her. Only one rival does she possess in
the district, and that is not a mountain but a glacier, the Great
Aletsch, greatest of all in the Alps, beautiful exceedingly to look down
upon, beautiful in its middle course, and fairest of all in the wide
expanses of its ample gathering ground. It subordinates to itself all
the high surrounding peaks and renders them the mere rim of its cup. To
a less degree magnificent, yet far finer than the general run of Alpine
glaciers, are the other chief ice-rivers of the Oberland district, which
thus becomes _par excellence_ the home of long glacier-passes, leading
through great varieties of mountain scenery, and connecting centres
relatively remote. The longest and finest glacier-traverse in the Alps
is that which leads from the Grimsel to the Loetschen valley right
through the heart of the range.
[Illustration: 22. LOOKING DOWN THE ALETSCH GLACIER FROM CONCORDIA
HUT. Eggishorn peak dark.]
Dauphiny, compared with the Pennines and the Oberland, presents to one
sensitive to mountain character more contrasts than similarities. For
this is an austere region, which gathers itself up together and stands
apart, away from natural through routes and the ordinary courses of the
human tide. Its valleys are deep, sombre, and stony; its alpine pastures
meagre; its forests few and thin. Its peaks hide themselves behind their
own knees. He that would know them must search them out. But they reward
the search. It is because of the steepness of their bases that they are
so recondite, and that very steepness gives them a dignified character
all their own. The Meije is their typical representative, a mountain of
strangely complex sky-line and irregular shape, that supports its own
private glaciers cut-off upon cliffs, and presents the climber with
surprises round every corner. Few are the regular pyramids, fewer still
the domed snow caps in the tangled complexity of this region, where
Nature has impressed her chisel deeply, and has hewn out the great rock
masses with unusual ruggedness.
Very different is the remote Engadine group, remarkable for the high
level and broad expanse of the floor of its chief valley, where lake
beyond lake reflects the summer sunshine and carries the white curtain
of winter on its level frozen surface. A region, this, of fine forests
and large expanses of rich grazing grounds, of picturesque torrents and
smiling flower-strewn slopes. Its snowy group is little more than an
appendage of minor importance to the general scenic attractions of the
district. Two fine mountain cirques, defining the basins of two
picturesque glaciers, are its dominant features, and in each cirque one
peak shines forth pre-eminent. The scenery of these cirques, however, is
not of any special character that calls for mention as distinguishing it
from the scenery of the other great Alpine groups. The _note_ of the
Engadine is not sounded there, but rather in the wide, lake-strewn
valley itself, where the snow-crests count mainly as the silvery
embellishment of its frame.
[Illustration: 23. ASCONIA--ON LAGO MAGGIORE.]
Climbers who have spent a season or two in each of these five groups
may think that they know the Alps, but they will be greatly mistaken.
Most of them, indeed, will admit that they cannot afford to neglect the
Dolomites, and will at least intend to spend a season amongst them. From
a scrambling point of view, if they are rock-climbers, they will be well
rewarded, for Dolomite rock-climbing is a thing apart. Dolomite scenery
is even more truly unique. Less grand than that of the great mountain
groups, it has a distinction all its own. There is nothing forbidding
about the precipitance of its cliffs and summits. Their relative
lightness of tint and the warm suffusion of the sun-pervaded atmosphere
that so frequently envelops them, makes their elevated parts seem almost
to float in the sky. The visible traces of the horizontal bedding of the
rocks that compose them render the effect of even their slenderest
pinnacles less aspiring than that of the flaked and tilted
slaty-crystalline spires of older and more rugged formations. Some of
the sentiment of Italy hangs about the Dolomites. The airs that are
drifted over them seem steeped in Italian colour, even as their names
re-echo the music of the Italian tongue. The valleys between them soon
dip into the level of chestnut and vine ere yet they forsake the
mountains. The chalets are pregnant with suggestions of Italy, and the
inhabitants possess more of Italian grace than of Swiss ruggedness. It
is, however, colour, and especially atmospheric colour, that the mention
of the Dolomites first calls to the mind of the votaries of those hills
and valleys. Who that has beheld dawn or sunset on Cristallo or
Rosengarten can forget the glorious display of rosy lights and purple
shadows? The mountain forms are sometimes fine, oftener picturesque (as
Titian knew). They have the rare merit of seeming to group into the
happiest of combinations and contrasts as though by exceptional good
luck; but the luck is of such frequent recurrence that instead of being
an exception it must be counted the rule. In the presence of Mont Blanc
or the Matterhorn it is natural to adore. The Dolomites men love.
Such, then, are the six main groups of Alps that the ordinary run of
tourists know. They include the most majestic scenery, but are far from
including all the finest. There yet remain a bewildering multitude of
minor groups and areas, each rich in its own charm. Such are the
Maritime Alps, the Cottians around Monte Viso, the Graians led by Grand
Paradis and Grivola, the limestone Alps of Savoy, the green hills of
north Switzerland and Bavaria, the Lepontine Alps, the hills of the
Italian Lakes, the Toedi, the Rhaetikon, the Adamello, Ortler, Oetzthal,
Stubaithal, and Zillerthal snowy masses, the Hohe Tauern, the Carnic and
Julian Alps, and various other mountain groups of Styria, Carinthia, and
Carniola. How many of us know a tithe of all these? It is impossible
here to do more than refer briefly to a few of them.
Amongst the fairest of them all, the Maritimes should assuredly be
reckoned, little visited though they be except by Italians. Their
eastern and northern valleys, which alone are known to me, must be
counted lovely, even judged by the high standard of loveliness that the
Italian Alpine valleys set. Any one of them, transported to the midst of
a Swiss group of mountains, would be the pearl of the district. What
more enchanting resort can be imagined than the Baths of Valdieri,
planted amidst umbrageous copses and beside laughing waters? Here all
the elements of picturesque landscape group themselves together in the
most perfect natural harmony. Nowhere in the opening season are the
flowers more rich, the hillsides more verdant, the foliage of the trees
more varied. Nowhere do woods climb slopes in more graceful procession.
Nowhere are the rocks and lofty snow-peaks set in more fascinating
frames of unexpected foreground. It is a valley of endless surprises and
delights. Moreover, its waters are clear and glancing. They burst from
the hillsides, tumble in crystalline brilliance over clifflets, dance
through the meadows, and race-along beneath the shadow of beeches and
chestnuts. No ogres, we may be sure, lurk in the fastnesses of these
hills, but only the most delicate fairies, glittering with dew. And then
the views from the peaks--how memorable they are, how unlike those of
the Central Alps! For from these summits you behold always the sea, far
stretching, and ever apparently calm. It looks indeed like any other
sea, but you know that it is the Mediterranean with all Africa beyond
it, away there in the sunny south. On the other side, far, far off to
the north, is the great Alpine wall, and at your feet the sea-like
Lombard plain. Those sweeps of flatness on either hand, how they tell in
the midst of a mountain view! They bring into it a sense of repose.
There Nature has finished her work of pulling down, and man can rest
upon the fertile soil in peace. Sweet indeed is Valdieri, but it is no
sweeter than its neighbouring glens. He that loves mountains in less
savage mood than the great giants are wont to bear, let him fly to the
Maritimes and he will not be disappointed.
[Illustration: 24. LOCARNO FROM THE BANKS OF THE LAKE. Madonna del Sasso
on the slope above.]
Proceeding northward, the Cottians and the Tarentaise and Graians
present loftier peaks and valleys beautiful, though lacking the richness
and luxuriance of the Maritimes. In fact these groups stand between the
Pennines and the Maritimes alike in position and in character. From the
Pennines the fertile valleys are so far removed as scarcely to enter
into the normal scenery of the region. In the Maritimes the chestnut
woods are at the very foot of the peaks. They are further away in the
Cottians, but not absolutely removed from the Alpine area. You may sleep
near a vineyard one night and yet be on the snows next day. The great
glory of the Cottians is the fine pyramid of Monte Viso, which so many
climbers in the Swiss Alps know from afar off. It stands splendidly
alone and commands one of the most superb panoramas in the Alps, wide
ranging as Mont Blanc's, but seen as from the top of a tower instead of
a slowly curving dome with a large white foreground that hides the depth
beneath. From the Viso the sight plunges down and then flies away and
yet away over the Lombard plain to peaks so remote as practically to
defy identification by unaided skill of recognition.
We cannot linger in the west, for our space is limited and more than
half of it is spent. Flying eastward, then, we come next to the Italian
valleys of the Monte Rosa group, to which indeed they belong, though I
purposely omitted reference to them when writing of that, for in style
of scenery they are widely different and frequented by travellers of
another sort. Here are mountain centres indeed--Breuil, Gressoney,
Alagna, and so forth--whence great climbs may be made. It is not in
these centres, however, that the beauty of the valleys culminates, but
further down. There are in fact three zones in each valley: the upper,
which is purely Alpine though lacking the grandeur of the northern
slope; the middle, where on either hand are found peaks that just reach
the snow level and rise from luxuriantly afforested bases: and the
lower, which in summer time is too hot and fly-infested to be an
agreeable resort. The middle zone is the region of fine scenery, of
beautiful low passes, and of superb points of view, whence the whole
Pennine range to the north is gloriously beheld.
At the lower limit of this zone stands Varallo, in the Sesia valley,
a most beautiful resort for one jaded with the austere scenery of the
snow and ice world. Here art and nature together claim the traveller's
attention. The remarkable lifelike sculptures of the Sacro Monte and the
frescoes of Gaudenzio Ferrari well deserve their wide repute, whilst the
walk over the Col della Colma to the lake of Orta is one of the most
charming known to me the wide world over. Once I beheld from the crest
of the pass a cloudless sunrise on Monte Rosa, when the rosy glow of the
snows was not more beautiful than the rich and rare violets and purples
of the lower foreground hills.
[Illustration: 25. PALLANZA--EVENING. South end of Lago Maggiore.
Campanile of the Church of St. Leonardo, mountains of Saas in the
background.]
By this pass we may well enter the Italian Lake districts, whose fame
is known to all. He would be a niggard indeed who should refuse to
reckon as Alpine this gem of scenery. Many of us regard, and rightly, a
drop down into the land of the lakes as a necessary part of a full
Alpine holiday, the contrast between their luxuriance and high Alpine
asceticism serving best to display the charms of each. It is indeed the
distant prospects of the snowy range that give a finishing touch of
utter perfection to the scenery of the lakes, the finest view-point of
all for comprehension and perfect composition being, perhaps, the
terrace of Santa Catarina del Sasso. The climber, however, will not
really learn to know the lakes if he remains, as most do, idly on their
shores. Here, if anywhere, he should ascend. Down below, save for the
water, the scenery may be matched all round the Italian plain and in
many a valley, but up aloft on Monte Mottarone, Monte Nudo, Monte
Generoso, and hills of that size, you are in the presence of panoramas
nowhere else to be matched. The Rigi, the Niesen, and their fellows
offer corresponding but not equal prospects north of the main range; for
though lakes and snows and wide stretches of landscape are visible from
them, they lack vision of the Lombard plain and the magic opalescence of
the Italian atmosphere. The mountaineer who has no experience, or if
experienced, no joy in the grass-crowned foot-hills that flank the great
ranges is no true mountain-lover. For such persons this book is not
written. They have their own kinds of pleasure and reward, pleasures
which are not low and rewards well worth the winning, but they are not
those that I have sought after or can rightly estimate.
[Illustration: 26. THE MADONNA DEL SASSO, LOCARNO. A Pilgrimage Church,
picturesquely situated on a wooded rocky cliff high above the town and
Lago Maggiore.]
Some of the fair qualities of Italian lake scenery mingle with the
bolder forms of the mountains of Ticino, and something of the softness
of Maggiore's air tempers the fresh breezes falling from Ticino snows.
Here lies the peerless Val Maggia, whose orchard-bearing floor sweeps up
between mile after mile of noble cliffs. Here every village church and
almost every cottage seems to have been designed and planted for
picturesque effect. It is a valley of many gardens, trimly kept, of much
emigrant-won prosperity, a home of the vine and the fig-tree, also of
trout-streams and other bright-glancing waters. Comfortably habitable
and home-suggesting is it; a place to fall in love with, which every
visitor hopes to see again, and every native promises himself that he
will return to for the evening of his days. Such as it is, such also are
its neighbours. Its upper reaches are more splendid than I can suggest.
There is a grace in their many waterfalls, a majesty in their great
steps and verdant levels, a relative wealth in their vegetation, and a
charm about their villages, that must be seen to be understood. Even the
Maritimes can boast no more beautiful valley scenery.
The Bergamasque Alps are, I believe, not dissimilar in character, but I
know only the mere outskirts of them. What I have seen does not equal
Ticino. These carry us by a natural transition to the Adamello group,
which yields a remarkable long traverse over high-planted snows
commanding a stupendous depth and comprehensiveness of outlook, which
culminates in the extraordinary panorama visible from the highest point.
We are thus brought back again to the dominantly snowy groups, whereof a
number remain yet uncharacterised. First among these secondary masses
the Ortler and its fellows call for mention--a group far better known by
our German and Italian colleagues than by ourselves. The chief peaks,
though built on a smaller scale, have much of the apparent bulk and
grandeur of the greater masses of the Central Alps. Their ice-walls and
their glacier scenery in general are of the grand type. Like the great
peaks, too, they are withdrawn from southern luxury. When all is said,
however, they remain second-rate, nor can I recall any special note of
beauty by which this district is distinguished.
The Oetzthal, Stubaithal, and Zillerthal groups, which follow one
another to the eastward, are, I think, in better case; though they have
lost in charm by the rapid shrinkage of their glaciers since I first
knew them almost thirty years ago. The average height of the peaks is
small when the large area of glacier they support is considered.
Formerly the glaciers were much larger. Several that I knew have utterly
vanished, and the largest are greatly reduced. The snow-fields, however,
still retain their wide expanse. In consequence of the smallness of the
peaks, a greater number of them exist in a given area than elsewhere in
the snowy Alpine regions. This makes the foregrounds in the summit views
more complex. As the scale does not obtrude itself, the eye magnifies
it, and the result is an imposing effect. A similar effect of complexity
struck me in Spitsbergen, where the peaks are very much smaller still,
and group themselves so closely together that they seem to form a spiny
tangle at once puzzling to the topographer and pleasing to the lover of
mountain varieties. Owing to the smallness of scale of the Stubai peaks,
for instance, you can climb two or three of them in a single day from a
high-planted hut, and thus behold in the afternoon a peak you climbed in
the morning. Such wandering about at high levels is a new and agreeable
experience to mountaineers accustomed to the long scrambles that the
greater ranges afford.
The Hohe Tauern, which splits into the two groups, dominated
respectively by the Gross Glockner and Gross Venediger, scarcely calls
for other remark, from a scenic point of view, than what was said about
the Ortler. The panoramas from the two chief peaks are unusually fine, a
quality which they share with three or four of the main elevations of
the three groups just referred to. The glacier scenery of the northern
slope of the Venediger and the southern of the Glockner group is the
finest in Tirol, whilst the Glockner itself is built on great lines, has
the qualities of a true giant, and affords some climbing of a high
order. If the reader, however, will consent to descend from these
superior considerations to others of a more practical character, his
attention may be called to the fact that, in this many-hutted district,
facilities are afforded to a climber which he will not often find
equalled elsewhere except in one or two minor Tirolese groups. So
numerous and large are the huts, and so well provided with all the
necessaries for life and reasonable comfort, that it is almost
superfluous to carry food, or for a party of moderately experienced
climbers to require the services of a guide. There are huts where you
can breakfast, lunch, dine, and sleep at convenient intervals. If this
tends to destroy the charm of solitude, which is one of the greatest
that the regions of snow usually afford, it enables even the average
climber to wander more freely than he can elsewhere, and less burdened
with baggage or the often unsympathetic companionship of a guide. The
gain more than compensates most men for the loss, and makes this
district specially deserving of the guideless amateur's attention.
Of regions further east and south I cannot write, knowing only from
personal acquaintance the mountains near the Semmering pass, and the
hills between them and Vienna. Here the forest scenery is the great
charm. The forest-clad hills and deep hidden lakes of the Salzkammergut,
North Tirol, and the Bavarian uplands must at least be mentioned. They
belong to what we English may describe as the Scotland of the Alps. No
lover of mountains will deny the potent charm of forests, especially in
hilly country richly watered. Their sombre gloom matches many a human
mood.
Not all scenery is alike grateful to every one, or to any one at all
times. It behoves a traveller to know his own mood and to choose a
resort that matches it. If he wants solitude, he should not select
Zermatt or Chamonix. If he abounds in energy, he should not look to
lakes and mild climates for its satisfaction. If he loves variety, he
should not plant himself in the midst of a mainly snow-clad region. One
district will suit him best in one year, another in another. That will
not delight him equally in maturity which enlists the strongest
enthusiasm of his youth. But the variety that is in the Alps at large is
infinite. There will always be discoverable the right thing for each who
cares to search it out.
The habit of constantly returning to the same spot may almost be
regarded as a vice to be avoided.
"To give space for wandering is it
That the world was made so wide."
Assuredly the wanderer has most rewards. The more he knows of other
regions, the more is the significance increased of the view which he at
any moment beholds, and so much the more capable does his eye become of
recognising all sorts and varieties of beauty. But this is only true of
one who travels with observant eyes and receptive understanding. It is
possible to travel far and wide without ever really seeing anything.
Such travel is the merest waste of energy. To travel should be to learn;
but travelling is only learning when the traveller makes learning his
purpose.
Discrimination is the quality that distinguishes intelligence from
brutal greed. It differentiates the _gourmet_ from the _gourmand_. It
divides the mountain-lover from the common peak peak-hunter. It is the
quality that continues growing longest, whose exercise is never
wearisome, whose reward is always increasing. To be able to discriminate
between the qualities of different Alpine regions and to appreciate all
their varied merits is to know the Alps. All that it has been possible
to do in the present chapter is to indicate in briefest terms some of
the characteristic charms of the principal regions, known incompletely
to the present writer, and by him but feebly grasped. He ventures to
hope that even this sketch, slight and falteringly drawn as it is, may
yet serve to suggest to some readers a whole world of delights, which,
if they choose, they may immediately enter into and possess.
By all means visit the famous centres. A true instinct has marked them
out and made them widely known as specially calculated to awaken the
imagination of the town-dwelling modern world. But do not regard them as
the whole Alps; do not start with the assurance that there alone is
Alpine beauty to be found in highest perfection. For you, perhaps, the
highest Alpine beauty resides in less well advertised localities. Let
each seek out for himself that which he can most keenly enjoy. It will
be his possession and not another's. Let him take it to his soul. But
let him also remember that there are other capacities, which he does not
possess or has not yet developed, and that for them also the mountains
great and small possess powers of satisfaction as rich and manifold as
any he has himself experienced.
[Illustration: 27. LOCARNO AT SUNSET, AND NORTH END OF LAGO MAGGIORE]