Italian Alps

Fluri furnished some details of his ascent for Herr Tschudi's 'Schweizerführer;' and, I presume, it was on the same authority that in the new Grisons guide-tariff the mountain is described as 'schwierig,' and taxed at 30 francs a guide. No one had followed the two Engadiners until, in 1870, I climbed the peak in company with François Devouassoud. Our experiences, both as to the length and difficulty of the expedition, differed considerably from those of our predecessors, who probably did not hit off the best way. The following directions will, I think, be found useful by future climbers: – Turn off the road leading from Vulpera to Schloss Tarasp by a cart-track, mounting steeply at first, and then traversing meadows to the entrance of Val Zuort. At the corner take the higher of two paths, following a watercourse until it reaches the stream. Cross and ascend by an ill-marked track, which soon fails, and leaves you to find your own way through rhododendron bushes and over stony slopes beside the rocky barrier closing the glen. Climb the bank of snow above the barrier to the level of the Zuort Glacier. A large snow-filled cleft now opens among the rocks on the left, offering an unexpectedly easy means of surmounting the lower cliffs of Piz Pisoc. Ascend this gully for some distance, until, above a slight bend in its direction a recess is seen on the left, with a small bed of snow in it divided from the great snow-slope by a bank of shale.

This spot is the gate of the mountain. A short sharp scramble places one on the rocks above the small snow-bed, and there is no further difficulty in climbing straight up them towards the gap at the northern base of the final peak. A few yards only before reaching it, turn sharply to the right, and, by keeping below the ridge and choosing with some care the easiest spots at which to pass a succession of low cliffs, the summit will soon be gained. The blindness and intricacy of the route form the only difficulty. If the right course is hit off, there is no hard climbing on the mountain, but the general steepness and abominably loose nature of its stony slopes render mountaineering experience or a good guide essential.

Of the panorama as a whole I saw, and therefore can say, nothing. The near view has a strong character of its own. The cornfields and white villages of the Engadine enhance by contrast the savage effect of the wild limestone crags and gloomy glens which surround the peak on every side but the north. The drop from our feet on to the path which threads the defile of the Scarl Thal was absolutely terrific, and the precipices did not appear less tremendous when I looked up at them afterwards from their base.

The return to Tarasp may probably be varied without difficulty by turning to the left at the foot of the great gully, and crossing by the gap at the head of Val Zuort into a branch of the Scarl Thal. That valley well repays a visit. There will be found scenery the very reverse of the pastoral landscapes of the Prätigau. If the former is a country for cows, this is the very home for bears, and some of the 'ill-favoured rough things' do in fact still find shelter among the dense thickets of creeping pine which cover every patch of level ground. Not that there are many such patches. The first part of the Scarl Thal is a gorge of the most savage wildness; and if the lower walls are not so unbrokenly perpendicular as in some other Alpine defiles, there are probably few valleys where the peaks on either side stand at so short a distance apart. The face of Piz Pisoc in particular is built up as a whole at an angle of appalling steepness.24 The path through the gorge is called by courtesy a car-road, but it is barely possible, and not very safe, to drive along it.

From Tarasp to Zernetz is but a short morning's drive through the pleasantest portion of the Swiss Inn valley. The latter village, situated at the junction of the Ofen road with that leading to the Upper Engadine, is the best starting-point for the next stage in our journey.

The country immediately east of the Bernina is an unknown land. Its mountains are worse mapped and less accurately measured than those of many much more remote Alpine districts. To a certain extent it deserves the ordinary fate of mediocrities placed by the side of greatness. Val Livigno and the surrounding glens cannot rival the Bernina or the Orteler. Yet the foot-traveller taking this country on his way southwards discovers much to reward him. He meets with green bowls of pasture cut off from the outer world by miles of pathless defile, wild rock recesses crowded with chamois and famous for bears, dolomitic crags and snowy peaks streaming with glaciers, which, planted in the Pyrenees, would have had long ago an European reputation, further east in Tyrol at least a monograph apiece.

Yet I must repeat that in comparison with most of the ranges here spoken of these mountains are mediocre. Val Masino is pre-eminent for rugged grandeur. Val Maggia blends perfectly strength and grace. Pinzolo contrasts them. The Brenta group, with its horns and pinnacles shooting up above secluded dells, reminds us of fantastic romance, of goblin castles, and woodland fays.

Livigno has at most a quiet charm; the wilder recesses of its mountains are singular and savage rather than noble and majestic. The country suffers scenically from the defect of all the source-valleys of the Inn; its mountains have never been dug out to their foundations, their lower limbs, like those of some half-wrought statue, are still buried out of view.

The ranges between the Bernina and Buffalora roads on the east and west, the Engadine and Val Tellina on the north and south, are, roughly speaking, disposed in three parallel chains, separated by the troughs of Val Viola and Val Livigno. The northernmost of the three ridges is steep-sided and rugged, and the gorge broken through it by the Spöl inaccessible except by circuitous and uneven paths, which render it equal in length and fatigue to the neighbouring passes. The central chain, although the Alpine watershed, sending down on one side waters which ultimately join those of Elbruz in the Black Sea, on the other streams which feed the Adda and the Adriatic, is easy of passage. Hence Livigno has from early times been united to Bormio instead of to the Engadine, and since the surrender of Savoy to France remains the only piece of ground north of the Alps owned by Italy, with one insignificant though interesting exception.25 The southernmost of the three ridges, that which divides Val Viola from the lower lateral valleys of the Val Tellina, is the loftiest.

It bears on its northern slopes a considerable quantity of snow and ice, and in the Cima di Piazza (11,713 feet) rises into a snow-dome, which but for the immediate neighbourhood of the Orteler group would have before this attracted the attention of English climbers.

Such local traffic as there is through this secluded region follows well-marked lines. It passes along the Livigno valley and over the easy gaps at its head to the Bernina Haüser, or La Rosa; by the trench of the two Val Violas from La Rosa to Bormio; or from Zutz to Bormio, crossing the northern and central ridges by the Casana and the Passo di Foscagno. Those routes have been described in guide-books or by earlier writers.26 But, as is often the case amongst second-rate peaks and in districts where the main valleys are more or less commonplace, the byways open to a climber are far more interesting than the ordinary traveller is led to expect.

In 1866 I struck out a new way from Zernetz to the Val Tellina, which in three days' very easy walking showed us a great variety of scenery. In the absence outside the Swiss frontier of any trustworthy map, we were very much in the dark as to the best course. Our route therefore is capable of improvement, and I do not fear that anyone in want of a day or two's training will complain of having been persuaded to take this country on his way to the Lombard Alps.

A considerable mass of dolomite crops out in the range which separates the parallel troughs of the Upper Engadine and Val Livigno. The head of Val Cluoza, which opens close to Zernetz, is entirely surrounded by dolomite ridges. This valley, besides being recommended in German guide-books to 'passionate mountain-tourists and friends of characteristically wild Alp scenery,' has the attraction of being one of the few recesses of the Alps where bears are 'at home,' even if they will not always show themselves to visitors, and where chamois can still be seen in herds. When therefore in the summer of 1866 I carried out, in company with my friend Mr. Douglas Walker, an old plan of striking straight across the Livigno district, we naturally decided to pass through Val Cluoza, and make a way across the mountains at its head in the course of our first day's march. At Zernetz we put up, by Jenni's advice, at an inn kept by a certain Filli, well known in the Lower Engadine as a great bear-hunter. The rooms were decorated with highly-coloured sporting pictures, presented to our host by various German and Austrian archdukes whom he had initiated into the mystery of his craft. But the most striking ornament of the house was a specimen of the natives of the wild country we were bent on exploring, in the shape of a huge stuffed bear, six feet high, who, standing up on his hind legs in one corner of the salle-à-manger, threatened us with an hitherto undreamt-of Alpine danger on the morrow.

Our host the bear-slayer was of course consulted on our plans, into which he entered warmly, entertaining no doubt of their being practicable, although he assured us that no Zernetz hunter had ever taken the route we had planned. Being himself unwell, he procured us a strong youth, who knew the footpath up the lower part of Val Cluoza, to act as porter.

The next morning broke grey and showery, and we delayed our start until nearly 7 A.M., when we filed off across the meadows behind the village. The Ofen road is left, and the Spöl crossed by a covered bridge, about half a mile from Zernetz. From this point a cart-track leads up, first amongst underwood, then through a pine-forest, to a brow overlooking the narrow wooded gorge by which the stream of Val Cluoza finds a way into the Spöl. The path through this ravine is a mere hunter's track, overgrown by creeping pines, and almost destroyed in places by torrents and earthslips. As it winds round the frequent gullies, at a great height above the foaming torrent, the views are very striking, whether the eye dips down into the ravine or rests on the opposite mountain side – a mass of broken crag and wood. Close to the stump of an old fir-tree, scored with numerous initials and dates, carved by the hunters of the neighbourhood, the first view of the inner valley is obtained. We saw before us a green glen covered by primeval forests, and destitute of any signs of human habitation. The rugged crags and scanty glacier of Piz Quatervals, the highest crest of this range, rose at its head.

A screen of fir-logs was here raised across the track; this, we were informed by our porter, was a hunter's lair, the situation of which was determined by some herb, esteemed a special delicacy by Bruin, growing close by, and often attracting him to the neighbourhood. About two hours' walking from Zernetz, the path returns to the level of the torrent, and recrosses to its left bank. After roaming on for half an hour through fir-woods, where the trees seemed to decay and fall unheeded, and the moss and lichens hung in long streamers from the boughs, we crossed a small stream flowing from the glacier of Piz Quatervals. Just beyond it we found a hunter's hut, a snug little den built of pine-logs, with the interstices stuffed with moss, and fitted inside with shelves and a bed. The clean solitary cabin, so unlike the usual populous and filthy châlet, the dense pine-woods, the bold bare peaks around, and, above all, the romantic flavour imparted to the whole by the possibility of bears, gave an unusual zest to our midday meal. From this point a mountaineer, not wishing to cross to Livigno, can ascend Piz Quatervals, and descend through Val Trupchum, one of the lateral valleys of the Engadine, to Scanfs or Zutz.27

Beyond the hut all definite path ceases. The character of the scenery remains the same as far as the bifurcation, where Val Cluoza splits into two utterly desolate glens, forcibly and appropriately named the Valley of Rocks and the Valley of the Devil. The latter probably offers the shortest way to Livigno; it seems also the wildest and most striking of the two valleys. After the mouth of the Val del Sasso has been passed, the Val del Diavel assumes a savage sublimity in accordance with its name. Huge dolomitic cliffs – not so fantastically broken as this rock often is, but stained with the strangest colours – close in on all sides. In the bottom of the glen vegetation entirely ceases, and the stream itself disappears, buried even in September under the snow avalanches, which, falling in spring from the impending crags, lie unmelted through the summer in these sunless depths. Their hard consolidated surface affords an agreeable path, and enables the explorer to avoid the rough boulders and advance rapidly towards the barrier of mingled rock and snow which closes the view. We had here an encounter with seventeen chamois, who were feeding above us, until, disturbed by our shouts, they scampered off among the wild crags which separated us from Val del Sasso. Only once, in the Graians, had I seen a larger herd; but a meeting with small families of three or four is to the climber a matter of daily occurrence. How far chamois are from being 'nearly extinct,' as newspaper-writers and tourists are apt to believe, may be judged from the following fact. An old man of the name of J. Kung, who died last year at Scanfs, was reported amongst his neighbours to have shot, besides eleven bears and nine great eagles, 1,500 chamois. The larger figure may not be strictly accurate, but its local acceptance bears sufficient witness to the abundance of game which could alone render it credible. The eleven bears I see no reason whatever to doubt. There is no lack of evidence of the presence of these animals, and many stories are current about their depredations. In the year of our visit the following anecdote went the round of the Swiss press: —

A boy living at an alp close to the Passo di Verva came upon a bear in the act of devouring one of his sheep. The young shepherd fell at once upon the animal with his staff, but the bear was quite ready for a round, and our David soon began to get the worst of it. When he ran away the bear came after him. Pressed hard the boy leaped one of the narrow clefts which the streams of this district often burrow through. The pursuer blundered into the chasm and was found dead at the bottom.

Jenni, in getting out his telescope to inspect the herd, had laid down his umbrella, an implement of enormous size and splendid colouring. The Gamp was somehow forgotten, and, unless it has been discovered by some fortunate hunter, probably remains to this day as a monument of our passage. Down the rocky barrier already referred to the stream from a glacier on the nameless summit marked 3,127 mètres on Dufour's map pours in a waterfall. Mounting beside it we found ourselves on the level of an elevated table-land, surrounded by rugged peaks, and resembling, but on a much smaller scale, the interior of the horseshoe of Primiero. At its further extremity was the low ridge in which our pass lay. Advancing over beds of shale and snow, we soon came to the foot of a small glacier, which we crossed, making for the lowest portion of the ridge on the north-west of a tooth of rock which jutted out conspicuously from its centre. A steep bank of snow had to be climbed; this surmounted, our work was done, and we were looking away to the west over the wild ranges which enclose Val Livigno. Deep below us lay the head of Val Viera, ending in an amphitheatre of rock. The descent into it was evidently steep. We found a way at first down shale gullies; then came cliffs, much broken and presenting no serious difficulty, although anyone who missed the right spot to take them might easily get into trouble. Once beside the stream, we followed it closely through the remains of avalanches. Val Viera soon bent abruptly amidst the wildest rock scenery we had lately seen. Quaint red and grey pinnacles of every variety of form rose above; pale, lemon-coloured cliffs, stained by weather and spotted by the dark mouths of caves, shut in the view, while, looking backward, the ridges from which we had descended towered precipitously overhead. We were constantly arrested by the fantastic and perpetually shifting character of the landscape.

At a second bend in the valley, where it turns back sharply to the east, the path makes some ascent; but we encountered no difficulty, and found some amusement in following the stream through a miniature gorge, jumping from bank to bank as occasion required. When the crags retired a little, the path rejoined us, and we met first some cows, then an old woman gathering sticks, who was either dumb or rendered speechless by fright at our sudden appearance. Travellers at Livigno at all are few and far between; and as no human being had probably ever entered the valley by our route, the old crone might well see in us a party of gnomes descending from their rock castles on some errand of mischief.

When the picturesque ravine came suddenly to an end, we emerged without any descent on to the broad meadows of Val Livigno, and, turning a corner, saw the whole of its upper and inhabited portion before us.

The landscape had a distinctive and unusual character. The wide expanse of the valley, its pervading greenness, the scanty fringe of forest, clothing only the lowest hillsides, the glimpses of snow close at hand suggested Norway rather than Italy. Yet nature, if no lavish, seems a kindly friend to the peasantry of Livigno. No rude torrent tears up their elastic turf, no avalanche-track scars the smooth hillsides, no overshadowing mountain raises its bulk between the Diogeneses of the valley and their sunshine. Behind the walls of dolomite which shut them out from the nineteenth century, they spend in their remote tub a quiet and patriarchal existence, of which the news that a mad dog has been seen in a neighbouring valley is the greatest excitement. The total population of the valley is said only to amount to 600 souls. The figure seems small considering the number of houses which dot the broad meadows. But the difficulty is explained when we find that each Livigno farmer shifts his residence two or three times a year according as the crops call for his attention. Half-an-hour's stroll over the softest and smoothest of turf, on which all the croquet clubs in England might find room to practise, brought us to the 'osteria' near the central of the three churches, and just beyond the stream issuing from Val Federia.

Even in its inn Livigno is conservative; that is, averse through habit to all improvements not forced on it from without. The external pressure appears here to be small; at any rate, the cottage which receives strangers is the same now as it was twelve years ago. No daring innovator, fired by the success of the next valley, has tapped a mineral spring or borrowed money to build a guest-house. Nor have the inhabitants as yet succeeded in grasping even the existence of the mountaineering spirit, much less the profits to be gained from it. When we announced our intention of crossing to Val Viola by the head of Val Tressenda, the boy who had engaged to carry our provisions at once demurred to having any part in so perilous an undertaking. He was heartily supported by the patriarchs of the valley, who had gathered to watch our preparations, and now quavered forth a chorus of which 'vedretta' and 'impossibile' formed the refrain. At its conclusion the youth's father stepped forward, and in a solo recitative, illustrated by appropriate gestures, forbad his son to peril his precious life, no matter what the 'signori' might offer for his services. The difficulty was only arranged by our giving a solemn pledge that the boy should not be in any way tempted to enter on the horrible 'vedretta.' On this understanding the parent consented to dismiss him with his blessing and a huge baker's basket in which to stow away our small stock of eatables.

As it turned out, we were not tempted to break our promise, for grass and stone slopes lasted up to the gap we meant to cross. Four hours after leaving the village we had planted our ice-axes in the snow-crest of Monte Zembrasca, one of the highest summits of the range dividing Val Livigno from Val Viola. From this mountain, despite its moderate height – it is several hundred feet lower than Piz Languard – we enjoyed a view more picturesque if less panoramic than the prospect from that now famous belvedere. The peaks on the opposite side of Val Viola surprised us by their fine forms and glaciers. The Cima di Piazza stood up boldly as their leader, a noble mountain which almost persuaded us to change our plans and rush off at once to its assault. West of the green gap of the Passo di Verva rose a cluster of peaks about the head of the Dosdè Glacier, and further distant we recognised the sharp heads of the Teo and Sena, the former crowned by a stoneman of my own building. The whole mass of the Orteler group, from the long zigzags of the Stelvio road to the Gavia, was in sight. In the centre the black, stumpy point of Monte Confinale was conspicuously thrown out against the white snows of the Forno Glacier. Below us lay the two Val Violas separated by broad, rolling pasturages.

The Swiss valley, or Val Viola Poschiavina, had just been the scene of the one active exploit by virtue of which the Swiss forces could claim to have taken part in the campaign of 1866. I tell the story as it was told me.

Irregular troops were fighting on the Stelvio, and there seemed a prospect of the Italians, if worsted, flying for refuge towards Poschiavo. To prevent any violation of Swiss neutrality a considerable force was stationed in the Engadine. Its head-quarters were at Samaden. The large dining-room of the Engadiner Hof was just completed, and it occurred to the inhabitants to celebrate the event by a banquet to their brave officers. But scarcely had everyone sat down when a scout entered with the, at the moment, particularly unpleasant news that a Garibaldian force was advancing from Bormio. There was no help for the officers: they had to saddle and away, taking with them their men, at the greatest speed country carts could carry them.

La Rosa was fortunately reached before the invaders, but the force had scarcely been carefully disposed so as to command the path, when the enemy was caught sight of in the distance. Soon the glitter of steel and the glow of red shirts could be distinguished through the field-glasses: then for a few minutes the advancing band was hidden behind a knoll. When it emerged again there was wrath among the officers and mirth among the men. The supposed bayonets were short scythes, the Garibaldians a party of Italian hay-cutters coming over on their annual visit to the Engadine.

We spent the night near the head of the Val Viola Bormina, in the principal châlet of the Dosdè Alp, a building of unusual size, and boasting a staircase with an upper storey. The 'padrone' of the establishment, a well-to-do native of Bormio, who lived for pleasure on his alp during the summer months, volunteered to accompany us in our attempt to find a direct passage over the Dosdè Glacier into Val Grosina, a neglected but, in size at least, important side-glen of the Val Tellina.

Favoured by a cold morning and hard snow, we reached in little more than two hours the crest close to a little rock-turret conspicuous from our night-quarters. At our feet lay Val Vermolera, one of the heads of Val Grosina, a cheerful expanse of bright green woods and pastures dotted with countless châlets.

Here we left the 'padrone,' greatly satisfied at having acquired a knowledge of what lay behind the horizon of his daily life. Ambition pushed us up to the nearest snow-top on our right, where we were disappointed to find ourselves overlooked by a loftier summit to the west, probably the Corno di Lago Spalmo of the Lombard map. It was separated from us by a deep gap, offering a fine pass to the head of Val Vermolera, which, on the south side, would lead over a glacier unmarked in any map. The summit we had climbed is nameless, and I shall not venture to anticipate the carefully-weighed decision of the painstaking German, who will some day set himself to map and name the peaks, passes, and glaciers of this remote corner.28