Italian Alps

We fancied our pass must lie at the eastern foot of the Punta Trubinesca. The glacier was smooth and solid, and we had no difficulty in reaching the gap at its head. But the descent on the other side was far from eligible. We found ourselves at the top of an ice-slope at least 1,000 feet high, very steep, and swept by constant discharges of stones. We naturally resolved to look further along the ridge. Turning our backs on the still unconquered and formidable cliffs of the Trubinesca, we at once climbed the snow-slope on our right, and, crossing a rocky spur, gained the head of the glacier adjacent to the one by which we had ascended. Again we inspected the northern slopes, but with like result. The Bondasca Glacier still lay far – very far – below, at the base of a most repulsive gully, down which stones rattled constantly at a pace likely soon to put a stop to all trespassing on their private pathway. Unwilling to face such a cannonade, we again right-faced. It was fortunately possible, and that without much difficulty, to follow the crest of the chain by keeping a little below it on its southern side. In time we reached the spur dividing the second from yet another ice-stream, the largest and most easterly of those that descend towards the Porcellizza Alp. We saw with disgust that we had yet some distance to go, and that over very rough ground, involving a considerable descent, and the passage of a steep ridge, to reach the Passo di Ferro, the point where we had crossed the previous year.

Suddenly Peter Michel, who had unlinked himself, and was exploring above, shouted to us to follow, and in a few minutes we were all standing in a natural doorway in the ridge, some twenty feet deep by five in breadth. The ice of the Bondasca Glacier was here only 250 feet below us, and the cliff looked broken enough to be practicable, so, the guides being in favour of an immediate descent rather than a long and uncertain circuit, we decided we had reached our pass, and behaved accordingly – that is, made ourselves comfortable in niches and enjoyed the view and iced Asti, a beverage which can only be appreciated at over 10,000 feet. While we were reroping, Michel grew oracular, and to a question on the easiness of our route, replied in a formula we had learnt by experience to dread as much as Cleopatra the 'but yet' of the messenger from Antony – 'Es geht, – aber.'

The descent of a partially ice-coated cliff is one of the most ticklish parts of a climber's work. But so long as there is any good hold on rock, and the party can proceed directly downwards, there is no danger if the rope is properly used. When it becomes necessary to move diagonally across the face of the mountain the difficulty is much increased, and the rope is not so easily kept taut. Yet there are few places where with sufficient care a slip of any one man may not be checked before it becomes a fall.

In the present instance it was some time before we met with anything to justify Michel's reservation. But about half-way down the rib which had helped us came to an end, and the rocks grew smooth and mixed with ice. To have descended in a straight line would have brought us to the edge of a gaping crevasse; we tended, therefore, continually to the right, where the glacier rose higher against the cliff, and snow bridged the obstructive chasm. Here a long step down, there a longer straddle round was required, and our progress became of the slowest, as prudence often required a majority of the party to be stationary.

After passing one very obnoxious corner, which each pulled himself round, partly by an imperceptible grasp on an invisible handhold, but principally trusting to the support of the rope, we got on easier ground, and, by cutting a few steps, reached at last (in two hours from the pass) the snow-bridged moat. Once on the ice, François was aided by old experience, and steered us through the labyrinth of the Bondasca Glacier without either delay or difficulty.

After leaving the ice we followed the steep path which leads down amongst the creeping pines and underwood on the right side of the valley, to the lower level of Val Bondasca.

Another plunge, this time through chestnuts, brought us to the maize-fields and vine-trellised villages of Val Bregaglia. Neither at Promontogno nor Castasegna was any carriage to be obtained. In order to arrive at Chiavenna we were compelled, ice-axes in hand, to storm the roof of a diligence, where, intrenched among the luggage, we formed a garrison far too formidable for any guard or postillion to dislodge.

In the summer of 1866 I again found myself with my friend Tucker and François Devouassoud, in eastern Switzerland. The passes of Val Masino were accomplished, but its peaks still remained maiden and unassailed. Having added Fluri to our party, we started one afternoon from Pontresina for the old hospice on the top of the Maloya, then a humble inn, now a familiar house of call for the fashionable society of St. Moritz.

The Cima del Largo, the highest peak in the range between Val Bregaglia and Val Masino, was our aim for the morrow. I spare the reader the long and somewhat tedious march over familiar ground to the head of the Forno Glacier. We had started under a cloudless sky, but before we reached the foot of the Largo no 'Cima' was to be seen, only snow-slopes stretching up into the mists. Fortunately we already knew how to attack our peak. From the N. or E. the Cima del Largo presents itself as a bold round tower rising sheerly above the wall on which it stands. As far as its northern base there could, we believed, be little difficulty. Our expectations were fulfilled: steep snow-banks and easy rocks lifted us to the rim of the snowy basin of the Forno. The ridge which divides it from the Albigna Glacier is a narrow comb of granite; we moved along it in the chink between the rocks and snow. A wall of ice suddenly loomed before us through the mist. We had reached the foot of the tower, and the trial of strength was about to begin. The ice was very hard and the slope very steep, and steps seemed to take a long time. At last a patch of rock was gained. We now followed a ridge, sometimes rock, sometimes ice; steps had still to be cut, and we progressed but slowly. Suddenly our leader said, 'C'est assez,' reversed his axe, and stepped out freely for a few paces. We were on the snow-dome which forms the summit of the Cima del Largo.

View there was none; we could see we were on the top, and that was all. But even in the worst of weather the newness of his plaything offers some consolation to the childlike simplicity of the true climber. Comforting ourselves, like Touchstone, with the reflection that the Largo, if, under the circumstances, but 'a poor virgin, an ill-favoured thing,' was at least 'our own,' we adjourned to a sheltered niche in the rocks a few feet below the summit. The atmosphere was tolerably warm and windless, and in our bivouac under the overhanging eaves of the great rocks we were sheltered from the soft, thickly-falling veil of snow which cut us off from the lower world.

If our surroundings might have seemed cheerless, our feelings were by no means so. I never assisted at a more festive meal than that which celebrated the birth of our stoneman.

Fluri was determined to do his best to compensate for the want of view; he was in his highest spirits, pleased with the mountain, the food, the wine-bag, the 'herrschaft,' and last, but not least, with himself. Now Fluri, whether in good or bad spirits, used in any case to be careful to let you know his mental condition. On this occasion he exploded in a series of small but elaborate jokes. First he got into a hole and played marmot. Then he scrambled after a solitary ranunculus (which, strange to say, was blooming at this great height), and pretended not to be able to get back again, wriggling his body absurdly over the easiest rock in the neighbourhood. Nearly an hour must have thus passed, and yet no break in the mist offered to reward us for revisiting the summit. So about 1 P.M. we set out to return. The descent of the ice-wall called for considerable care, as it was necessary to be prepared for a slip, although such an accident might not be very likely to happen. François, who was leading, had to clear out the fresh-fallen snow from our old steps, which were quite effaced. Here Fluri, who in his early period, before he had learnt snowcraft from English mountaineers and foreign guides, showed a morbid dislike to the commonest and most necessary precautions, raised himself greatly in our esteem. Though screaming and howling every variety of jödel the whole time, I never saw him once without the rope taut and his axe firmly anchored in the ice. The rest of the descent was easy enough, and it does not take long to get down snow-slopes. From the foot of the peak we had a long and heavy walk back to the inn on the Maloya. The snow on the glacier was soft and ridgy, and the path beyond sloppy and slippery, and the light snow-flakes changed into heavy rain when we got down again into the lower world. At Maloya we found the car ordered from Silvaplana to meet us. Our day's journey was yet far from its end. There was much still before us that would be wearisome to relate, and was still more wearisome to endure.

How the postmaster at Silvaplana tried to impose on us, how we relaced our sodden boots and tramped through the rain to St. Moritz, how there Badrutt gave us a car which carried us moist and sleepy to Zutz, this is not the place to tell. Enough that we arrived at Zutz in a state of depression which even the scene of revelry by night offered by the 'Schweizerbund,' where we found Swiss warriors absorbed in the task of conducting village maidens through the solemn revolutions of a national variation of the waltz, failed to cheer. It was the last of our trials that no inducement would persuade a Swiss maiden to make our beds.

In the same summer we visited for the third time the Bagni del Masino. We were forced by weather to enter the valley by its proper gate instead of by one of the irregular but more tempting modes of access open to mountaineers.

For the first hour the car-road between the Val Tellina and the Baths runs through a steep and narrow defile. It is not until the village of Cattaeggio, picturesquely imbedded amongst rocks and foliage, and the mouth of Val Sasso Bisolo have been passed, that the valley opens, and the jagged range near the Passo di Ferro comes into sight. Before reaching San Martino the stupendous boulder, known to the peasants as the Sasso di Remeno, is encountered. On near approach it quite maintains its reputation as the largest fallen block in the Alps. Beside the monster lie several more boulders of extraordinary size. On the top of one of them is a kitchen garden approached by a ladder. The snows melt sooner on such an exposed plot, and the goats cannot get at the vegetables.

The object of our return to so recently visited a region was to complete in peaks the work we had already carried out in passes. The problem which on the whole we looked to with most interest was now immediately before us. Mr. Ball had pronounced the Punta Trubinesca, the highest peak west of the Cima del Largo, and the prince of the rocky summits overlooking Val Bondasca, absolutely inaccessible from this side. But from what we had seen the previous year we were inclined to believe that the prophet had for once spoken hastily. The rocks on the southern face of the peak (both south and west faces overlook the Porcellizza Alp) had then seemed to us difficult certainly, but not impossible.

We arrived in good time at the Baths, and soon went to bed, determined to be prepared for the very early start which should give us a fair chance of success in our venture. My disgust may be imagined, therefore, when I awoke next morning to see the sun already shining brightly in at my window, and my watch conspicuously pointing to 6 A.M. What had become of François? Had our guide for the first time in his life fallen a victim to the potent wines of the Val Tellina, or, more unlikely still, deliberately arranged to shirk the formidable Trubinesca?

I hurried at once to seek the defaulter, who was found in a deep slumber, which he justified by the statement that it had rained at 3 A.M. It is difficult to remedy a bad beginning, and our old friend the nocturnal waiter was now of course in his first sleep. Breakfast was not over until past seven, at which unseemly hour we set out with comparatively slender hopes of success. For three hours we followed our old tracks of the Passo di Bondo. As we mounted the green hillsides above the Porcellizza Alp a new plan was suggested – to try the western instead of the southern face of the Trubinesca. This we had never examined, because it was the side seen and pronounced against by Mr. Ball from the Pizzo Porcellizzo.

A smooth cliff some 200 feet high ran round the entire base of the peak, and there was no breach visible. But there was still one spot which we could not clearly see, the head of the glacier we were about to tread. As we mounted the easy banks of ice the secret of the mountain was suddenly revealed. A snow-gully of very moderate slope led up to the ridge between our peak and the Cima di Tschingel. In half-an-hour more the cliff was outflanked, and we were on the crest of the chain looking down an awful precipice into Val Bondasca.

The final ridge alone remained. It rose beside us in a broad slab of granite. But a convenient crack destroyed the difficulty suggested by a first glance. We were now at the foot of the turret so clearly seen from St. Moritz; we turned it by its southern side, and then with our hands in our pockets walked quietly up a broad terrace of mingled rock and snow. The neighbouring peaks had already sunk below us – a smooth shining surface shone between them. One of us exclaimed 'Voilà Como.' François replied, 'Voici le sommet.' It was just midday. Four hours and a half had disposed of the terrible Trubinesca, and added one more to the very lengthy list of Alpine impostors.

The distant panorama was marred by clouds; in its main features it must be a repetition of the lovely western view gained from every high summit of the Bernina group. It is the near prospect, however, which distinguishes the Punta Trubinesca. It can show two sights not to be seen, perhaps, from any other snowy peak, a large portion of Lago di Como, that coyest of Alpine lakes, and what is still more remarkable, the whole course, I may say literally every inch, of both sides of an Alpine carriage-road – Italy and Switzerland in the same glance.

At our very feet lay the forests and villages of Val Bregaglia, Italian chestnuts and white campaniles; amongst them we caught sight of the thin streak of the high-road, which we followed as it climbed corkscrew-fashion above the woods and waterfalls and up to the bleak wind-swept down of the Maloya. Then our eyes accompanied it past the pine-fringed lakes of Sils and Silvaplana, and up again to the bracing heights of St. Moritz, every house in which was distinguishable through the glasses. Lost sight of for a few miles beneath the dip to Samaden, the road reappeared together with a companion thread, the river Inn, and both finally vanished from our view somewhere between Zutz and Zernetz.

The Baths were regained without adventure. And thus this maiden peak, although capable of deceiving the most experienced judges, yielded without a struggle to the first assault. Its reputation has survived its fall, and I saw it lately catalogued in some foreign publication as 'non ancora scalato.'

The very fact, however, which makes my story short and dull, the surprising easiness of the peak, gives it the greater interest for the ordinary traveller. If some of the native hunters will be at the trouble of making themselves familiar with the route, there is no reason whatever why the ascent should not become a frequent excursion from the Baths. The walk is even within the powers of many ladies, and they might ride to within at most three hours of the top. Any one who can appreciate quality as well as quantity in a panorama will be well repaid; those who do not should confine themselves to Piz Languard.

Our descent had been delayed by the state of my friend's knee, which had been suffering from an old sprain, and now refused plainly to do duty for some days to come. It was vexatious enough, for on the next night we were to have slept out for the Disgrazia. But necessity knows nothing of plans, and he resigned himself to return as he had come to Sondrio, while I resolved to make a push for the same place over the mountains, and if possible to climb the Disgrazia by the way.

Soon after midnight François and I set out under a cloudy sky, which gave no sure token as to the day to follow. The now well-known path up Val di Mello was quickly traversed. As we reached La Rasica thin rain began to fall, and François, prophesying evil, suggested a return to San Martino. But the first gleams of day showed the thinness of the clouds, and our faces were again set against the steep hillside which leads to the upper pasturages. Before these were reached the blue face of heaven was everywhere breaking through the mist-veil, and a fine day was assured. Our spirits, hitherto gloomy, rose rapidly. The Passo di Mello was soon left below on the left, and we pressed rapidly up the steep glacier which fills the corner under the Pico della Speranza.19 The last bank up to the spur dividing us from Val Sasso Bisolo was steep enough to need step-cutting; but we succeeded in avoiding altogether the difficulty described by Mr. Kennedy.20 We walked across an ordinary snow-slope on to the crest of the Disgrazia at a point somewhat to the south of the lowest gap between the loftier mountain and the Pico della Speranza. My hopes now ran high. The rocks were singularly easy until we came to a broad ice-trough. Steps were cut across this; then we climbed up a steeper rock-rib and over a tooth. Beyond this we came to a second and wider sheet of hard black ice falling away steeply towards the Sasso Bisolo Glacier. François at once set to work cutting steps; when thirty-two had been cut, and three-quarters of an hour had elapsed, we were less than halfway across the ice. All this time a very strong wind was blowing over the ridge; still the steps were good, and the position an ordinary one to mountaineers. It did not even occur to me to feel doubt as to our final success until François turned round for the first time and remarked on the violence of the wind. A few steps further a second observation showed me that my guide entertained doubts in his own mind as to the prudence of persevering in our attempt.

I replied, however, that I was quite happy, and that the steps were excellent. A few more were cut, and then came a third suggestion of retreat. For once in my life I acted on principle, and I have regretted it ever since. François' doubts were not to be wondered at when the moral strain of his unusual position is considered, alone with a 'monsieur' on a cathedral roof of ice. My old friend has a great deal too much imagination to be merely animally brave, and like all the best guides feels acutely the responsibility of his situation. He knew that if I made a false step he might not be able to hold me. This was a good reason for our retreat. He could not feel, as I did, that I had not the slightest disposition to slip; for indeed his work was so good that no one accustomed to ice-steps could possibly have fallen out of the foothold provided.

We decided, therefore, with a sharp pang to give up the peak, which was about half-an-hour distant, and looked ten minutes.

Despite my defeat, I cannot pretend that the Disgrazia is in any way a difficult mountain for any properly constituted party of mountaineers. I have not as yet revenged myself on the peak, but François some years afterwards took two of my friends to the top, and has given me his report. The slope, which we found hard black ice, was then snow, and was very soon disposed of. Twenty minutes more of rough scrambling brought them to the lower tooth reached by Herr Syber-Gysi. The gap between this and the highest peak cost another ten minutes of stiff, but not in the least dangerous, rock climbing. They started from the lower châlets in Val Sasso Bisolo and took six hours in the ascent. I was eight hours (halts included) from the Baths to where I stopped. It is clear, therefore, that active walkers are under no necessity to sleep out for this mountain, but may do it in the day between two comfortable beds. The reputation of difficulty which the Disgrazia has certainly acquired is due partly to its splendid appearance from the Bernina group, still more to the interested exertions of the Pontresina guides, who have not been ashamed to charge the peak in their tariff at 170 francs; 70, as they explain, for the four days' journey, 100 for the dangers of the climb. Now that Italians from Sondrio and hunters of Val Malenco have found their way up together, it is scarcely likely that any traveller in his senses will seek the services of the gentlemen of the Engadine.

The superb view spread out before us might well have diverted our minds even under a more serious disappointment. It was one of the days, frequent in the Alps after unsettled weather, when the air has a brilliancy and transparency so extraordinary that an Englishman rather fancies himself in another planet than within a day or two's journey of his own misty island. It is difficult to believe that you, who now breathe under an enormous arch of sky rising from pillars four hundred miles apart, are the same being whose vision was bounded but last week by a smoke-canopy resting on the chimney-pots of the other side of the square, and who, in home walks, was rather proud of distinguishing a landmark twenty miles off.

Two vertical miles below lay the broad Val Tellina with its towns and fields, nearer was the bare trench of Val Sasso Bisolo; between the two a broad-backed ridge, covered with green pasturage, seemed to offer a delightful path for anyone descending towards Morbegno.

The higher crest cut off only an insignificant portion of the Bergamasque hills. Beyond the nearer ranges, beyond the tossing hill waves of Como and the wide plain, the long level line of the Apennine melted into the glowing sky. The Disgrazia shares the advantage of all the outstanding Italian Alps, of being well within the great semicircle formed by the chain, instead of like the summits of the Bernese Oberland on its outer ring. From Dauphiné to the Bernina every peak was in sight, the whole array of the central Alps raised their silver spears through the inconceivably pure air.

From the foot of the ridge we turned to the left down the broad Sasso Bisolo Glacier, descending caverned slopes the concealed treachery of which was, in truth, far more dangerous than the open terrors of the upper crest. Two climbers may safely attack many peaks, but it is undoubtedly wrong for so small a party to venture on any snow-covered glacier. By wrong in matters of mountain-climbing I mean anything which excludes the element of skill in that noble sport, and tends to convert it into mere gambling with hidden forms of death such as the ice-pit or the avalanche. Immediately under the face of the peak we struck the base of the high rocky spur which runs out from it to the south-west. A steep scramble (twenty minutes) brought us to a gap, where we rested awhile to admire the exquisite view of the Zermatt range.21 On the further side we slid down a hard snow-bed which had very nearly succeeded in developing itself into a glacier, and found ourselves in a desolate hollow, the stream of which forces a way out into Val Torreggio, one of the lower branches of Val Malenco.

The descent lies at first through a narrow funnel between richly-coloured cliffs. The granite has now come to an end, and sharp edges of slate and serpentine crop up against it. A green and level upland valley soon opens before the eyes, watered by an abundance of sparkling fountains which spring up beneath every stone. Here a path gradually asserts itself and leads to a group of châlets. The descent into the depths of Val Malenco is long, but pleasant. Although the high peaks of the Bernina are concealed by lower spurs, the way abounds in charming vignettes of wood and water and warm hillsides.

At Torre we had to wait some time for the carriage sent up to meet us from Sondrio. As we sat by the wayside the village priest joined us. When he learnt that we had come straight over the mountains from the 'Bagni' his astonishment knew no bounds, and he seemed to doubt whether we were not something more or less than natural and wingless human beings.