Pico della Mirandola

“ The only difficulty, if it can be called one, lies in hitting off the easiest point at which to pass a low cliff. Above this the way lies over steep slopes covered with loose rubbish. Three hours after leaving San Martino we stood on the crest close to the base of the Cima della Rosetta. The view to the west was very wide and beautiful. We looked over a 295 foreground composed of mountains pasture-clothed to their summits, beyond which the snows of the Orteler and Œtzthaler groups, the towers of the Brenta, and the sharp peak of the Presanella shone in the distance. ”

“ Thus, walking or riding, one seldom sees the immediate foreground, but a changing background of soft valleys, an endless patchwork of varied green rising to the mountains in the interior of the island, or sinking to the blue sea, beyond which the mountain Pico rears its graceful outline across the bay.
From the street below comes up a constant hum of loud voices, often rising so high that one runs to see the fight commence, and by the time one has crossed the room it has all subsided and everybody is walking off in good-humor. ”

“ The first step of the Pike is Las Canadas, whose glacis forms the Cumbre, or pumice-plains (6,500 feet) , the long dorsum, which shows far out at sea. Bending abruptly to the east, we began to breast the red pumice-bed leading to the Estancia de Abajo or de los Inglezes. 'El es Inglez porque subio al Pico' ('he is English, because he climbed the Pike') , say the people. This ramp, whose extreme angle is 26 degrees, bordered by thick bands of detached lava-rocks, is doubtless the foundation-matter of the Pike. ”

“ Edwin James and his four comrades stood and gazed upon the terribly wild and awful grandeur of this mighty mountain peak, they faced the same conditions that caused the intrepid Pike to turn his back upon the scene and withdraw: perpendicular cliffs whose walls no man can climb, enormous rocks and giant boulders impossible to remove or surmount, great chasms that cannot be crossed or bridged, deep, wild ravines that seem to be impenetrable. ”

“ At times he found himself at the bottom of a deep gorge, and again at the top of a steep bluff, and saw before him a black and apparently bottomless abyss. There was no moon, but the friendly stars would guide him. Pike's Peak, standing high against the sky, showed him where the east was, while the Greenhorn range rose rough and abrupt to the west. But when he had been upon his journey less than an hour, a gray cloud hung like a heavy fog on the hills and shut out all the light from the heavens and obscured the earth. ”

“ Onward swept beckoning cairns, leading across to where the Upper Trail to the Great Pasture dipped again into the woods, the path which drops with romantic abruptness down ledge after ledge, till it reaches at last the Great Pasture lying far below, tapestried with its blueberry bushes and grassy tufts. But the climber kept to the upland, twisting his way up and up, scrambling across the rock-faces as best he might. He could not now see the Giant for he was hidden for the moment behind the nearer height of Monte Rosa, but it was beyond and ever beckoning. ”

“ The Mountain-Lover began to think more and more concretely. He soon came to the Sweet Water Spring and knelt to drink of the tiny icy pool, protected by the loving care of other mountain-lovers. He went on his way to the left, still slowly winding around Monte Rosa, following the dim little path as it twisted around the out-jutting cliffs and through the woods till the maples and birches gave way as ever to the stunted and gnarled little spruces, leading with the usual suddenness out on the broad open rocks to the west. ”

“ At times the grade was so steep that we had to creep on our hands and knees to prevent sliding backward to Manitou. The so-called beautiful Lake Moraine looked disenchantingly black and icy, and the timber line, still far above us, seemed as elusive as a rainbow. We had to stop frequently to rest our knees and to breathe, for air up there was at a premium. Later on we built a fire of railroad ties and ate our lunch.
By four o'clock we overtook others striving to make the climb—men, women and small boys, whose chief aim in life evidently was to climb Pike's Peak. ”

“ The grandeur of the views, and the ruggedness of the objects, in traversing a gorge which penetrates so many miles into the recesses of the mountain, may be imagined. Enormous masses of overhanging rock seem to be suspended above almost by a miracle; old pine forests hang upon the rugged cliffs; the torrent rushing by is spanned by bridges of snow, while huge unmelted avalanches lie in its bed below, cascades tumble from a hundred heights, while peaks, some dark, some snowy, many thousand feet high almost close overhead, and seem to jut into the sky. ”

“ The mists are still whirling down, but as often lift again; the Pic de la Pique has disappeared under a berret of cloud, but other and greater peaks beyond it are still cloudless; so, as we push on up the last slope of rock and scramble upon the summit, we see that the panorama is not gone after all and that the climb will have its reward.
For the view is a wide one from the Pic d'Entécade. The summit, 7300 feet above the sea, is an island in a circle of valleys. The hospice basin has dwindled into insignificance. ”

“ The usual rough borderland between earth and ice scrambled over, we halted for breakfast on a smooth piece of ice conveniently furnished with stone stools and tables. Over our heads towered a range of pinnacles, one of which is known as Piz Cacciabella. In form and grouping they closely resemble, on a smaller scale, the Chamonix Aiguilles, as seen from the 'Plan.' Divided from them by a snowy bay, the source of the glacier, rose the splendid peak of the Punta Trubinesca. Only granite could show such a tremendous block, free from flaw or joint, and hopeless to the most fly-like climber. ”

“ It was very hot in the deep hollow that pierced the mountain range behind Santa Brigida on the Caribbean Sea. The black peaks cut against a glaring sky and the steep slopes of red soil and volcanic cinders on one side of the ravine were dazzlingly bright. The other was steeped in blue shadow that scarcely seemed to temper the heat, and the dark-skinned men who languidly packed the ballast among the ties of a narrow-gage railroad that wound up the hill panted as they swung their shovels. ”

“ No Eastern watering-place affords opportunity for so many desirable excursions, each distinct from the other in interest, each superb and of itself a sufficient inducement to come to Colorado. Just overhead towers the glorious old crest of Pike’s Peak, the beacon of ’59, and ever since the type of American mountains. He who does not ascend the Peak (if he is in fair health) can never get a good character from Manitou. ”

“ The path, now a good cart-track carried on a causeway between purple boulders and gnarled old chestnuts, passed by the way a brightly coloured chapel and two villages. Near the second, a cluster of poor huts hemmed in by enormous blocks of granite, a pretty jet of water shoots out of the western cliff, the valley bends, and the sunlit mountains behind Bignasco close the distance.
A short plain, ruined by a torrent which has recently carried away half a hamlet, is now passed. To such disasters Val Bavona is always exposed, and a law formerly forbad any one to live in it through the winter. ”

“ One thought of this law of the trail would have saved me. Rotten branches indeed! Why should I do in life among important crises what I should not dream of doing up on the mountain? Loose stones! Decayed wood! Dead branches! And unseeing eyes!"
He had come out beyond the Coffee Pot Camp and the calm stretch of the mountain was before him. He looked up musingly at broad reaches of cliff and bluff and precipice above the green, ribbon-like cleft through which the Paradise Valley way takes its shadowy length. ”

“ Before sunrise in the morning the snow-covered mountains were beautifully tinged with a delicate rose color. A noble spectacle awaited us as we moved forward. Six or eight miles on our right, Pike's Peak and his giant brethren rose out of the level prairie, as if springing from the bed of the ocean. From their summits down to the plain below they were involved in a mantle of clouds, in restless motion, as if urged by strong winds. For one instant some snowy peak, towering in awful solitude, would be disclosed to view. ”

“ The final peak of the Jungfrau is now before us, and apparently so near! But the mountaineer alone knows how delusive the impression of nearness often is in the Alps. To reach the slope which led up to the peak we must scale or round the barrier already spoken of. From the coping and the ledges of this beautiful wall hung long stalactites of ice, in some cases like inverted spears, with their sharp points free in air. In other cases, the icicles which descended from the overhanging top reached a projecting lower ledge, and stretched like a crystal railing from the one to the other. ”

“ Soon three or four were found in company under the sunny side of a heat-reflecting rock, until as we drew near Cavergno the whole slope became a vineyard, and the path an overarched alley between a double row of tall granite pillars, from which the ripe clusters hung down into our faces in too tempting luxuriance.
A straight line drawn from Faido, on the St. Gothard road, to Bignasco nearly passes through Piz Campo Tencca, the three-domed snow-crest which dominates the eastern range, and, like its loftier rival, the Basodine, peers down on that charming halting-place. ”

“ When one stands alone in such a scene—far removed from all familiar associations—it is almost impossible to describe in any language that would not be deemed extravagant, the sensation by which he is overpowered. From the summit of the Puig, the magnificence of the prospect will repay a good walker for the trouble of the ascent. Raised high above a region of mountain peaks, black stupendous gorges, and a wild chaos of riven rocks, shot up from the bowels of the globe in some primeval convulsion, soars the massive summit. ”

“ On once more, lily pads, huge boulders, and clusters of flowstone along the walls greet the visitor as he heads for Mirror Lake, a small, crystal-clear pool that is well named. On beyond is the Bottomless Pit, a dark hole with mysterious implications that received its name from the first explorers who thought the title would intrigue all who saw it. From the trail the light of a spotlight has trouble in penetrating the depths of the pit, adding to its ghostliness. ”

“ He stopped at last at a little lair that he dearly loved, well around the peak of Monte Rosa as one rounded the northwestern shoulder; from this point the little-used trail across the ravine to the Marlborough ridge takes its beginning, dipping down into a sharp declivity and rising to the edge of the first little ravine beyond. Further on and above it, a big white stone on the lip of the next ravine, was a clear landmark. The climber dropped into his lair—one of the thousand little spots at the base of a sloping rock with just the right slant for the back ”

“ As we gazed across the island and along the great Alpine chain, the virgin snowy peaks of the Minarets, quite close at hand, attracted our attention. They were first-class peaks, over ten thousand feet high. Why not attempt their ascent now that we were so high up [176] and had time to spare? While we were eating our breakfast and considering this problem, clouds formed in a stratum of cool air below us, and a marvellous transformation scene was unfolded before our wondering gaze. Northwards the mountains became islands in a sea of fleecy cloud. ”

“ On the mountain-side one finds—of all things—a newspaper office, where a souvenir daily paper is issued with all the news of that new world above the clouds, Pike's Peak. The ascent is very steep in places. The verdure of the foothills vanishes, the trees cease to invade this upper air, and only the dwarfed aspen shivers in the breeze as it clings to some barren rock. New vistas open. The world of day and daylight duties is left behind. Gaunt, spectral rocks in uncanny shapes haunt the way. The air grows chill; car windows are closed, and warm wraps [Pg 58] are at a premium. ”

“ In winter, when the lake is frozen over, the people bring their hay from the farther Lake of Cadagno in sledges across the Lake Ritom. Here, again, winter must be worth seeing, but on a rough snowy day Piora must be an awful place. There are a few stunted pines near the hotel, but the hillsides are for the most part bare and green. Piora in fact is a fine breezy open upland valley of singular beauty, and with a sweet atmosphere of cow about it; it is rich in rhododendrons, and all manner of Alpine flowers, just a trifle bleak, but as bracing as the Engadine itself. ”

“ On the top of the pass a strong wind was blowing, ruffling the sullenly grey surface of the tarns, and whistling through the tussocks. Near the cairn built [258] there we went to the edge of the great wall of granite which falls sheer to the valley below. Far down lay the Mintaro Lake and hut, mere specks in the misty distance. The mountains in front of us loomed up through the mist, that, lifting a little, gave us a glimpse of the spun silver of a waterfall or the rugged grandeur of a granite peak. ”

“ Manitou lies under the shadow of the great Range. The rocks seem ready to fall and crush the little village, and the pine forests cast their gloom into the valley. From the many surrounding peaks, Pike's Peak raises its giant head towering above the others, and the little black speck just distinguishable on the summit if the clouds are not down, is the signal station, whence three times daily weather reports are telegraphed to all parts of the States, and the storms forwarded across the Atlantic to us. ”