Italian Alps

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Freshfield Douglas William. Italian Alps

NOTE

PREFACE

CHAPTER I. VAL MAGGIA

CHAPTER II. VAL VERZASCA AND VAL CANOBBINA

CHAPTER III. WEST OF THE BERNINA

CHAPTER IV. THE PEAKS AND PASSES OF VAL MASINO (continued)

CHAPTER V. EAST OF THE BERNINA

CHAPTER VI. THE BERGAMASQUE MOUNTAINS

CHAPTER VII. VAL CAMONICA AND THE GIUDICARIA

CHAPTER VIII. THE PRESANELLA AND VAL DI GENOVA

CHAPTER IX. THE ADAMELLO AND CARÈ ALTO

CHAPTER X. PINZOLO AND CAMPIGLIO

CHAPTER XI. THE BRENTA GROUP.57

CHAPTER XII. THE PASSES OF PRIMIERO

CHAPTER XIII. THE PELMO AND VAL DI ZOLDO

CHAPTER XIV. MEN AND MOUNTAINS

APPENDICES

APPENDIX A. NOTES FOR TRAVELLERS

CHAPTERS I., II. VAL MAGGIA – VAL VERZASCA – VAL CANOBBINA

CHAPTERS III., IV. THE PEAKS AND PASSES OF VAL MASINO

CHAPTER V. TARASP AND THE LIVIGNO DISTRICT

CHAPTER VI. BERGAMASQUE VALLEYS

CHAPTERS VII., VIII., IX., X., XI. ADAMELLO AND BRENTA GROUPS

CHAPTER XII. THE PRIMIERO DISTRICT

CHAPTER XIII. VAL DI ZOLDO

APPENDIX B. PICTURES AND ANTIQUITIES OF THE BERGAMASQUE VALLEYS

APPENDIX C. ROUTES FROM SANTA CATARINA TO VAL DI SOLE

APPENDIX D. THE CHURCHES OF VAL RENDENA

APPENDIX E. THE NOMENCLATURE OF THE BRENTA GROUP

APPENDIX F. TYROL v. TIROL

Отрывок из книги

I owe a double apology for the publication of this volume; in the first place to the public, secondly to my friends.

'Mountaineering' has been by this time fully described by very competent writers. No new book is likely to have any chance of rivalling the popularity of the first series of 'Peaks, Passes, and Glaciers,' or of the dramatic story of the Matterhorn, as told and illustrated by Mr. E. Whymper. There is no longer the least novelty in the small feats of gymnastics annually performed, or supposed to be performed, by members of the Alpine Club. Few readers, I think, outside that body of enthusiasts, are eager to hear anything more of guides and glaciers, arêtes and séracs, cols, couloirs and crevasses. Such subjects recur more often than I could wish in the following pages. But in attempting to give any adequate picture of a mountain region it is impossible to leave out the snow mountains. My object has been to keep them as far as possible in their proper place in the landscape. I could not, like some tourists, ignore everything above the snow-level, but I have not, I trust, written as if the world began only at that point and everything beneath it was also beneath notice.

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The finest entrance to Val Maggia is through Val Bavona. The traveller descending from the cold heights and bleak pasturages of the Gries finds a warm welcome from the storm in the little inn opened some years ago on the very edge of the cliff over which the Tosa rushes in the most imposing cataract of the central Alps.6 An afternoon is well spent in resting on the rocks beside the tearing, foaming flood, and watching the endless variety of the forms taken by the broken waves in their wild downward rush. Waterfalls are too seldom studied at leisure. Such a view is far more impressive than the hurried glance ordinarily taken from some point whence the cascade is seen in face, and all detail is sacrificed to a general effect, which often fails to be either imposing or picturesque.

The host of the inn will with pleasure undertake to place you next morning in from three to four hours on the top of the Basodine. The ascent is simple, and not at all tedious; a steep path up a moist flower-sprinkled cliff, rolling alps commanding views of the red mountains of the Gries, then steep banks of frozen snow, and a short exciting scramble up the highest rocks.

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