Italian Alps

CHAPTER XII.

THE PASSES OF PRIMIERO

Some time since a nineteenth-century Arthur, an enemy of shams moral or mountainous and a President of the Alpine Club, wandering beyond his usual bounds, found himself suddenly in the presence of a bevy of formidable giants. Accustomed though he was to such encounters, the prodigious stature of these monsters, their impenetrable armour, and perhaps more than all the weird cruelty of their appearance, as with flame-tipped crests they stood up in a mighty line against the sunset, made such an impression on his mind that on his return, instead of calling on his Round Table – the Alpine Club – to overthrow the untamed brood, he solemnly warned them as they valued their lives to let it alone.

The warning was of course ineffectual. One of the youngest knights rushed to the spot, went straight at the very tallest and most repulsive of the giant family, and returned victorious after an encounter, brief it is true, but of the most deadly character. Their prestige thus rudely shaken, others of the giants fell tamely enough, and but two or three still remain, owing perhaps their prolonged escape as much to their remoteness as to their individual terrors.

So far as I am concerned I have no such thrilling tale to tell as that recorded by Mr. Whitwell in the 'Alpine Journal'62 of the ascent of the Cimon della Pala. On the only two occasions when I have come near the giants of Primiero circumstances have hindered me from doing much more than seek to detect the weak points in their harness; to abandon a somewhat strained metaphor, to make passes. For although I have been successful in reaching the second in height of these summits, this was, as it proved, little of a mountaineering feat compared to the passage of the gap beside it.

Passes have, however, for the general tourist more practical if less poetical interest than peaks. I shall not scruple therefore to devote some pages to the tracks which lead either round or across this singular group.

The mountain-knot which raises its wellnigh perpendicular masses behind Primiero may be compared to a horseshoe from which protrude spikes of irregular length. The easiest paths, the only ones practicable for beasts of burden, wind round the base of the protuberances; the higher passes, fit for shepherds or foot-travellers, penetrate the recesses between the lofty spurs and cross the horseshoe itself. The former are not the least fascinating.

For this country owes its wonderful beauty in great part to the constantly recurring contrast between the tall bare cliffs of the great rock islands and the soft forms of the green hills which like a sea roll their verdurous waves between them. Round the peaks of Primiero lies a region of wide-spreading downs, scarcely divided from each other by low grassy ridges; of forest-clad vales where the rich soil nurtures a dense undergrowth of ferns and moisture-loving plants. The huge crests of the Sass Maor or the Cimon della Pala never look so wonderful as when, seen from among the rhododendrons and between the dark spires of pine, their 'rosy heights come out above the lawns.'

It may perhaps be thought that I might well have passed over as described by former travellers the two main lines of traffic by which the people of the country communicate with their neighbours of Val Fassa and Agordo. But the account given of these passes by Messrs. Gilbert and Churchill seems to me to have been damped by the bad weather which those energetic explorers met with in this neighbourhood; and the pages of subsequent travellers have added but little to their report. Moreover, the times marching on, even at Primiero, have made many changes and smoothed away many obstacles, and thus rendered more or less obsolete the tales of even a few years ago.

The greatest of these changes is the new carriage-road which has lately been constructed from Primiero to Predazzo, in Val Fassa. From Primiero to the top of the pass it is finished in 'the well-known style' of an Austrian military highway; the descent through the forest to Paneveggio is not as yet equally solidly constructed,63 but the whole road is perfectly safe and easy for spring-carriages.

The inns along the way (there are now three in the space of an eight hours' drive) have shared the fortunes of the road. At San Martino di Castrozza an hotel to contain twenty bedrooms has just been built, and will be opened next summer. The situation, 5,000 feet above the sea, amidst luxuriant meadows but at the very base of the greatest peaks of the country, is, so far as I know, unequalled amongst the dolomites. A new inn of more modest capacity has been erected on the very crest of the Pass. Paneveggio, once the rudest of peasants' houses of call, now furnishes ample if homely fare, and boasts at least one comfortable bedroom.

Val Fassa ends, and the country under the spell of the Primiero peaks begins, where the new road, having toiled up a green hillside to the little chapel and hamlet of La Madonna della Neve, bends at a level round the base of a flat-topped block of rock and pines which lies across the valley and cuts off the 'Forest of Paneveggio' from the outer world.

Those who have seen mountain forests in their virgin splendour amongst ranges moistened by more abundant rains and heated by stronger suns must ever after feel that, beautiful, nay incomparable, as the Alps are in many respects, in this one they distinctly fail. Even setting aside the ravages of man, Alpine forests can hardly have equalled in richness and variety those of the more southern ranges, such as the Himalayas, and Caucasus, which seem the paradise of the vegetation of the temperate zone. But the axe, in the hands of Swiss and Italian peasants, has been used with equal stupidity and effect. The barrier interposed by nature between the valley and the impending avalanches has been destroyed, the foliage which caught and distributed the rain-storms has been hacked away. For the sake of an immediate gain, the ignorant villagers have left their homes open to the rushing snows of spring; their saturated hillsides and meadows to be torn up by the autumn rains.

The 'Forest of Paneveggio' is interesting as an almost solitary specimen of a district where sensible forest laws have been for some time in force, and where in consequence the pine-woods are, for general luxuriance and for the size attained by single trees, amongst the finest in the Alps. The trees are periodically thinned, and wherever a patch has been cleared young pines are at once planted, and the space enclosed so as to protect the tender tops against cattle. Let us hope that the exertions of many intelligent men both in Switzerland and Italy may induce the peasantry in other districts to follow the wise example set by these southern Tyrolese.

The hospice of Paneveggio stands on a sloping meadow on the right bank of the Travignolo. It is a plain massive building, one of those raised in bygone years as resting-places and refuges for the people of the country on the long roads through the wildernesses separating their scattered hamlets. Across the stream rise the steep, green sides of Monte Castellazzo. Guiribello, a model 'casera' or mountain-farm, the property of an Austrian archduke, lies high on one of its upper shelves. On either side of this promontory flow the sources of the Travignolo, one gathering itself in a wide basin under the passes to San Martino and the Laghi di Colbricon, the other flowing out of a deep dell at the immediate base of the Pala and Vezzana, both peaks of 11,000 feet, and, next to the Marmolata, the highest summits of the dolomite country.

The high-road, soon crossing the latter stream, winds in long, shady zigzags through the forest, and then reaches broad, sweet-scented pastures lying on the shoulder of Monte Castellazzo, and overhung by the thin wedge of the Cimon della Pala.

The Costonzella Pass is a mere grassy bank, from which a gradual descent over open alps leads to San Martino. The great peaks are almost too near for picturesque effect, unless when clouds partially veil them, filling the place of foreground. Then the spectacle of the top of the Cimon breaking through a mist might be enough to frighten a nervous traveller, who may naturally expect it the next moment to topple over on his head.

Pedestrians who are not afraid of distance, especially those going towards Primiero, will do well to abandon the high-road. From the hospice of Paneveggio a track mounts along the main branch of the Travignolo, and passing in succession before the precipices of the Fuocobono, the Vezzana, and the Pala, and leaving on the left the glacier which descends between the two latter peaks, crosses the back of Monte Castellazzo near the foot of the Pala, and rejoins the high-road. Lovers of Alpine tarns should cross it at right angles and take a track which, starting from the highest chalet on the northern side of the carriage-pass, leads over the broken slopes of Monte Cavallazzo to the Laghi di Colbricon, two blue lakes framed by green fir-clad mounds, over which peer the crests not only of the great Pala but of the more distant Rosengarten and Marmolata. The upper lake lies on the lowest pass between the headwaters of the Cismone and the Travignolo. The descent towards San Martino is at first steep; the mule-track lies some distance to the right, but a footpath a few yards to the left of the lake leads down at once into a picturesque glen. At the foot of the second descent is a 'casera' standing on a green lawn. Seen from this point the great turret-crowned wall is like a vivid but impossible dream of mountain splendour. The sweeping outlines of dark forest form a foreground out of which its rigid flame-coloured ramparts rise like some phantom castle against the Italian blue.

A short walk over hay meadows leads to San Martino di Castrozza, a chapel standing near a substantial building formerly used as a hospice and frontier station, but lately converted into an Alpine 'pension.' It stands on a level meadow near the point where the stream, hitherto tranquil, makes a sudden plunge southwards. Immediately behind the house rises the giant row of Primiero peaks. From the Pala to the Cima Cimedo the whole line is in sight from top to bottom, and the only fault of the view, if it can be called one, is that we are too near the mountains. At Campiglio we long to approach the peaks; here we draw back on to the opposite hillsides, where we may break their outline and see but one or two at a time between the nearer brows.

But a more delightful halting-place I cannot imagine, whether for climbers or idlers. At hand are many easy and shady strolls, and two or three hours places you on the top of the great wall free to climb its crests and explore all the mysteries of the weird tableland which lies behind it. To the south the Sass Maor and Palle di San Martino raise their unconquered, but probably conquerable, peaks. The former at any rate may best be attacked from this side. The road to Primiero sinks in a long descent, terraced along the right-hand hills, and commanding superb and constantly shifting views of the opposite chain.

The path from Agordo, still the most frequented, though no longer since the construction of the carriage-road to Predazzo the easiest, approach to Primiero, has often had injustice done to it in many ways. It has been described on the one hand as shorter than it really is, on the other as a difficult and rugged track; and little justice has been done in any quarter to its great and varied beauty.

Average walkers must allow for the pass seven hours of very 'actual walking,' excluding all those 'petites haltes' which Toppfer justly counted amongst the happiest moments of life, the five or ten minutes' rest in the shade to admire a view or drink a cup of cold water. But for the whole way there is a good mule-path, although, as on almost all mule-paths, there are pieces which no one with the free use of his limbs would by preference ride down. One of the most tiresome of these rough places is the steep hill under the castle of La Pietra. But this the foot-traveller may easily avoid, and at the same time gain some superb views. On leaving La Fiera he will have to cross the river, and pass through the village of Transacqua, one of the cluster which form Primiero, then to climb a very steep little track up the hill immediately behind until he reaches a terrace-path running nearly at a level along the mountain-side. From the first corner one looks back for the last time on the lake-like valley, with its islands of villages and waves of Indian corn. The path then bends along a shelf of meadows, with the whole chain of the dolomites in full view opposite. Further the shelf broadens to a crescent-like plain dotted with châlets lying immediately above the castle of La Pietra, and looking over Count Welsberg's park and away into the heart of Val Pravitale and Val di Canale. Hence a short descent leads back into the regular road above the stoniest part of the ascent, and about halfway between the castle and the pass.

A little inn, supplying drinkable wine, stands on the further side of the ridge. For the next two hours the path leads through scenery of a large and noble aspect. Deep below lies a valley, narrowing to a savage gorge before it releases its stream to flow out into the sunny meadows of Val di Mel. Above its head a broad-shouldered isolated mountain, known by the simple name of Il Piz, towers high into the air.

The first village in Venetia, conspicuous by a large new church, offers itself for a midday halt. A grassy slope leads thence to the crests of the wooded ridges which divide the glens sloping towards Agordo. Numerous paths wander about their tops, and unless the first left-hand track is taken it is easy to miss the way amongst them. This leads down into Val Sarzana, a long but pleasant glen, supporting several villages, and opening nearly opposite the little town of Agordo.

So much for those of the main tracks, of which I can speak from experience. The road down the valley to Feltre is still incomplete; other paths can be learnt of from the 'Alpine Guide.' I must turn to the higher passages across the great horseshoe, which, if not absolutely unknown, were in any case known only to a few goatherds and hunters before the expeditions here described.

On the morning of May 30, 1864, a strange arrival disturbed the quiet of the little mountain town of Agordo, and collected what might pass for a crowd on the piazza, which in England we should call a green. Soon after nine A.M. the strangers who were the cause of this unusual stir issued from the inn door in an armed procession – four Englishmen headed by a Swiss and a Savoyard, the two latter girt with rope. Each individual brandished a formidable axe. The native mind was by no means satisfied with the explanations offered by the strangers, and (as our guides afterwards told us) rushed to the conclusion that we were a party of diggers wandering over the mountains to seek spots favourable for mines, and that our strange-looking implements must be for breaking rocks in search of gold. At the village of Taibon, some half-an-hour above Agordo, a path crosses the river and turns into a side-glen – the Valle di San Lucano. After-experience has confirmed our first impressions of this valley. It is one of the most imposing spots in this romantic region. The level bottom is dotted with pines and watered by one of those sparkling streams too rare in the Western Alps, which, content with their own station in life, do not seek notoriety by doing harm to their neighbours. On one hand the Palle di San Lucano rises in stupendous cliffs, in many places smooth and perpendicular as a newly-built wall, and capped by three massive towers. On the other is Monte Agnaro, a more broken and slightly less precipitous dolomite, its rugged face furrowed by numerous clefts filled at this early season by beds of snow, the remains of spring avalanches. At the châlets of Col, an hour's walk from the high-road, the glen split into two branches, the one short and steep running up to the Forcella Gesurette, a grassy gap leading to Gares, the other a deep trench (sometimes called the Val d'Angoraz) penetrating deeply into the corner of the Primiero horseshoe and ending in a wild precipice-closed amphitheatre. A herdsman assured us that by following a path on the western slopes of Val d'Angoraz we might find a passage across the mountains, occasionally used by shepherds, but, as he added, over snow and superlatively 'cattivo.' The savage and uninviting character of the cliffs at the extreme head of the valley made us quite ready to follow his advice.

Our first start that morning had been from Belluno, and it was now approaching noon. Just torn from the languid luxury of Venetian gondolas and under the scorching influence of a midday sun we crept upwards but slowly, and the only eagerness displayed amongst us was in finding from time to time some plausible excuse for a halt.

Underwood slowly gave place to pines, and these in turn yielded to Alpine rhododendrons, amongst which our path came to an end. Several hours, however, had passed before we gained the limit of vegetation, and sat down on the rocks to consider our line of march over the snow-slopes which still separated us from the wished-for ridge. The wild cliffs of the Sasso di Campo, here and there nursing infant glaciers in their rough recesses, rose opposite. On the north stretched a wide elevated pasture, lying on the back of the Palle di San Lucano and the slopes of the Cima di Pape.

Once on the snow all our fatigue vanished before the delicious air, and our spirits shared the exhilaration. It was fortunate they did so, for the scouts of the party, who had pressed on to the apparent pass, found on the further side wide-spreading snow-fields, barred at a great distance by a rocky ridge. After studying the military map of Venetia (in which, as we afterwards found, all this region is laid down in the vaguest and most misleading manner), we determined to retrace our steps and make for a higher gap in the ridge on our right. This was a mistake, for had we gone straight on we should have found ourselves, with hardly any further ascent, on the edge of Val di Canale,64 near the spot we afterwards reached by a most circuitous route.

On gaining this second depression we saw more slopes between us and the ridge which now seemed to be the watershed. The third pass in its turn proved only a gap in one of the numerous low spurs running across the great tableland which lies at the back of the rim of peaks seen from the valley of the Cismone.

We were now in the very heart of this huge stony wilderness. In every direction stretched an undulating expanse of whitish-grey rock, brittle in substance and pockmarked by weather. Strange snow-filled pits here and there broke the monotony of the weird waste, which, but for these and its greater unevenness, resembled a rocky shore between low and high water-mark. But the impression of barrenness and desolation far exceeded what such a comparison will suggest; snow instead of water filled the crannies, and the life of sea-weeds and sea-creatures was altogether wanting in this middle realm of utter nakedness. There was too much sunshine for the glacier, too much frost for the flowers which began to find root scarcely 500 feet lower wherever the sun shone on a patch of disintegrated rock. Here there was nothing even for a chamois to nibble.

On the south the tableland was bounded by a line of snowy eminences, on the west by a fantastic cockscomb of lofty crags, perhaps part of the spur of the Palle di San Martino. But the wide horizon to the north and east bore witness to the height on which we stood. Nothing impeded our view over the central dolomite region, and beyond it we recognised against the horizon the pale snowy line of the distant Tauern.

But the beautiful evening shadows already creeping over the view gave us cause for as much uneasiness as delight. We had started late from Agordo; time had flown by and it was within an hour of sunset, while we were yet far on the wrong side of the Pass. Not a moment was to be lost if we wished to sleep in the valley of Primiero. We wandered incessantly on over shoulders, down gullies, across wide basins of soft snow, until about sunset we stood at last on the edge of steep rocks falling away into a southern valley, the far-sought Val di Canale. A succession of snow-filled gullies rendered the descent easy, and enabled us to slide swiftly downwards for some 2,000 feet. When we reached the bottom of the glen daylight had already left us, and the young moon, which threw romantic lights upon the huge pinnacles of the Sasso di Campo and Sasso Ortiga, disdained the humbler office of serving as a lantern to our path.

It was now so dark that we had to keep close together to avoid losing ourselves. After reaching a brow we too hastily began to swing ourselves down steep slopes by the tough branches of the creeping pines. There was a cliff at the bottom, and it was necessary to remount. Anyone who knows the difference between working upwards and downwards through such a thicket, even when fresh and by daylight, will sympathise with our despair. Yet despite slips, tumbles into holes, slaps in the face from swinging branches, we scrambled somehow up again. At the next attempt we got down with less difficulty.

In time we came to the bed of a torrent, here dry, as the water preferred a subterranean course; for half-an-hour more we stumbled along amongst the white boulders, every minute adding to our bruises. Then we fancied we had found a path, and got into thick woods on the left side of the glen. Soon the track, if it was one, was lost sight of, and we wandered off into deeper darkness than ever. At last we were brought to a dead halt. A steep step broke the valley, and cliffs, from the base of which the river sent up far distant murmurs, barred our progress. Whilst we were all engaged in beating about for any traces of a path, a shout was raised. We eagerly enquired the cause. 'I have got a native here, but I can't make him understand,' was the reply. We rushed to our friend's assistance, and found his native to be our German guide, whom in the darkness he had taken for a shepherd, and was now cross-examining in his best Italian.

After this disappointment we resigned ourselves to the prospect of a night in the forest. A fire was soon lighted in the nearest sheltered hollow, and sufficient fir-branches cut down to form a bed. We should have been happy had any water been at hand, but two oranges divided between four were but poor relief to parched throats. As it was, we were disposed to reflect that the same moonlight which lit our sky was falling softly on the Piazza di San Marco, and to look back with fond regret on the ices and lemonade of Florian's. After a long absence François reappeared with the indiarubber bag, which usually held our wine, full of water. Then our cravings were satisfied, and we soon gave up watching the stars sparkling between the pine-branches and fell fast asleep.

Daylight, as usual, revealed an easy escape from the perplexities of the night, and we speedily found ourselves in the exquisite meadows surrounding Count Welsberg's shooting-box, and an hour later filed down the high street of La Fiera.

In 1864 'Alpinisti Inglesi' were unheard-of novelties at Primiero, and our procession filled every doorway with large wondering eyes, and roused conjectures wilder even than those of the Agordans. Some words of French spoken to François were caught by eager listeners, and it was currently reported in the little town that we were a party of French officers engaged in a surreptitious survey of the mountains. For the simple mountaineers could not believe that Napoleon's word would not yet be kept, and at least an effort made to complete the work of 1859 and free Italy from the Alps to the Adriatic.