Italian Alps

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,43 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 glaciers44 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.

Hence Nature has here a great opportunity for a display 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 goldAnd touch'd with shade of bronzèd obélisques,Glared a blood red through all its thousand courts,Arches and domes and fiery galleries.

CHAPTER IX.

THE ADAMELLO AND CARÈ ALTO

Close to the sun in lonely landsRing'd with the azure world he stands. – Tennyson.A TYROLESE PORTER – THE BEDOLE ALP – THE ADAMELLO – VAL MILLER – VAL DI MALGA – VAL DI BORZAGO – THE CARÈ ALTO – A HIGH-LEVEL ROUTE – PASSO DI MANDRON – VAL D'AVIO

A year after the ascent of the Presanella I again found myself at the head of Val di Genova, one of a formidable party of seven, including two Swiss guides and a Tyrolese porter. Gutmann was something of a character. A native of Berchtesgaden, in the Bavarian Tyrol, he had been picked up there a year before by Mr. Tuckett, and carried on through the northern valleys of the Venetian Alps. He had then proved an amusing and good-tempered companion, and was in consequence engaged a second time to take the place of the chance peasant whom one picks up to carry a knapsack – an individual whose obstinate prejudice against ropes, and glaciers, and snow-work generally, is, or used to be, a source of difficulty in out-of-the-way parts of the Alps.

Gutmann was a well-grown, fine-looking young man of twenty-five, and became well his national costume, which he always wore. In his short coat and knee-breeches, with his half-bare legs and tall green hat and feather, he might have stepped at once on to any operatic stage. From his watch-chain hung a bundle of silver-mounted charms; true hunter's trophies – teeth of chamois and marmot, and claws of the 'lammergeier.' He was a great dandy, and amongst the other unexpected articles which tumbled out of the large blue bag slung across his back was a brush for his whiskers and a shaving-glass. Naturally the effect on his complexion of the first snow-day quite horrified our Adonis. On the next occasion he came down in the morning with his face completely plastered over with a mixture of soot and tallow, when his appearance, if no longer 'a thing of beauty,' became a 'joy for ever' to the guides, whose talent for small jokes found abundant scope for exercise at the porter's expense.

But in the evening and after a good wash in a wayside fountain, Gutmann had his revenge. Then he was to be seen in the Gaststube, the centre of an admiring crowd, fresh and blooming enough to win the heart of the coyest Phillis – a kind of conquest on which I fear he set far greater store than on the victories over snowy maidens won during the day. The tales of his prowess which at such moments he was heard to recount gave us frequent amusement. For though below the snow-line an active walker, above it Gutmann became a changed man. Once on ice, the quips and cranks with which he usually overflowed gave place to the most dismal of groans. He walked daintily, like a cat afraid of wetting its feet, at slippery corners detained us twice as long as anybody else, and when the top was gained habitually lay down at once and fell asleep.

At home our companion was by profession a poacher – a precarious means of livelihood in a district where the mountains are strictly preserved for Bavarian royalty, and the keepers fire on any man seen carrying a gun. A month before he joined us his brother had had a piece of one of his calves shot away, and he had himself been slightly wounded on more than one occasion. During the past winter he had found for a few months a less hazardous employment in cutting wood near one of the Bavarian lakes, but had gone back in spring to the old and irresistible pursuit, from which he was only called away by our summons. He did not, however, return to it – at any rate for long; before the next summer he had emigrated to America, probably with the money gained in our service, a larger sum than he had ever before had at his disposal.

The position of the Bedole Alp as it is seen in descending from the Presanella has been described in the last chapter. Beyond the final bend in Val di Genova lies a level plain enclosed by sheer granite cliffs. I know few spots so completely secluded from the outer world. Dreaming away the afternoon hours on a pine-clad knoll among the outskirts of the Venezia forest, which stretches45 for a mile to the foot of the great glaciers, a wanderer easily fancies himself in one of the lost valleys of legend where the people live in a bygone age, where pastoral life is a reality, and the nineteenth century a yet undreamt dream.

The herdsmen were hospitably inclined, but the accommodation they had to offer was of the roughest. By means of a ladder we scaled our bedroom, a platform of hay so narrow that the slightest roll would have ended in a tumble on to the heap of pails twelve feet below. The time has scarcely yet come for a small mountain-inn on this spot to be rendered profitable, but it would be a step in the right direction and a great boon to travellers if the Trentine Alpine Club would incite or assist the herdsmen to build a 'spare' châlet and furnish it with beds and cooking materials. Romantic in its situation, the Bedole Alp is also the true centre of the district. From it active travellers might ascend in the day the Adamello, Presanella, or Carè Alto, or cross by glacier passes into Val di Fum or Val Saviore, to Edolo by the Val di Malga, to Ponte di Legno, or to the Val di Sole.

A perfect morning relieved our spirits from the otherwise depressing influence of climbing a rough track in the dark.

The head of Val di Genova is almost too perfect a 'cul de sac' for the mountaineer who wants to get higher. Some way up or by the side of the icefall of the Lobbia Glacier is yet to be found, but is probably possible. The upper regions of the Mandron Glacier, the Adamello, and all the passes to Val Camonica are, except in one place, completely cut off by the continuous cliffs which hem in the valley.

To reach the upper pasturages and the hut of Mandron, sometimes very needlessly used as night-quarters by foreign climbers, it is necessary to turn northwards and hit on a rough track which finds a way up the crags near a slender waterfall. A herdsman with a lantern guided us up the steepest part of the ascent, and was then sent back, leaving us and our Swiss guides to find our own way, a task to which we were all pretty well accustomed.

We now turned again sharply southwards, making for the side of the Mandron Glacier. A considerable extent of ground had to be traversed, rough and boulder-strewn, yet bright with flowers. Amongst them was a profusion of 'Edelweiss,' a plant which may doubtless be found in dangerous positions, but is quite as often plucked where cows might crop it. But ground safe for cows is not always safe for amateur botanists in high-heeled and nailless boots.

We climbed steadily the slopes of snow on the (true) left bank of the ice. From the top of the last we looked over a smooth expanse of gloriously bright snow-field, bounded on the west by a range of peaks, and on the east by a long white crest, terminating in the rock peak of La Lobbia, first ascended by Von Sonklar. The Presanella, on this side massive and less graceful than from the north, closed the backward view. The still frost-bound surface was crisp and crackling under our feet, and we made quick progress, passing the gap on our right through which eight years afterwards I crossed into Val d'Avio. A shapely snow-peak at the head of the glacier was at first sight assumed to be our mountain, but a reference to the map saved us from repeating Payer's mistake, and convinced us that this was the Corno Bianco, and that the Adamello must be further round to the right. Accordingly after reaching the slightly higher plain whence the ice falls also into the upper branches of Val Saviore, we rounded the snow-peak, and ascended slopes in its rear which brought us up to the highest reservoir of all, a snow-basin sloping downwards from the foot of a conical peak, a steeper but scarcely loftier Cima di Jazi, the Adamello itself. On gaining the ridge at its eastern base we looked down precipices on to the head of Val d'Avio and its lake. The side of the peak above us was steep, but thanks to some rocks and the splendid condition of the snow it took but twenty minutes to gain the summit, a snow-crest some fifty yards long rising at either extremity, the north-eastern point being the highest.

From its position as an outlier of the great chain, we had expected much from the Adamello, and now we were not disappointed. The morning had held good to its promise and brought forth one of those golden midsummer days which, as some think, are best spent on the tops of mountains.

Far away in the east we could trace the line of our wanderings from their very commencement. There were the dolomite peaks of Primiero, a little further the Marmolata, Pelmo, and the pyramidal Antelao; then the eye had only to leap the broad gap of the Pusterthal to run over the Tauern from the Ankogel (above Gastein) to the Brenner. The Glockner was as well defined as from Heiligen Blut, only that its snows were tinted an exquisite rose colour, as if they had made prisoner of a sunset. The Orteler and Bernina, from which we were nearly equidistant, made a fine show of snow and ice; still closer at hand we surveyed the great snow-fields of our own group, overlooked by our two rivals, the Presanella and Carè Alto. To the south lay a labyrinth of granite peaks and ridges, separating the many glens which ran up from Val Camonica. This great valley was visible for miles, and the eye rested with pleasure on its fields of Indian corn and chestnut woods, until led on by the white thread of road to the blue waters of Lago d'Iseo basking amidst bright green hills. When tired of this prospect we could take a bird's-eye view of the Val Tellina, a long deep trench of cultivation, heat, and fertility, closed at its lower end by the mountains round the head of Lago di Como. These were crowned by a coronet of snowy peaks, which, so clear was the air, almost seemed part of them, but were in reality the Pennine giants encircling Zermatt. Most notable of all was the splendid pyramid of the Matterhorn, seen in its sharpest aspect, towering immediately over the Weissthor. In another direction far away across the shoulders of lower hills the wide waters of Lago di Garda glowed like burnished metal beneath the cloudless sunshine, while further still the mounds of Solferino were faintly seen through a haze of heat.