Little Rivers [47]
never heard so many as
in the meadows about Cortina. There was always a sweet spray of
music sprinkling down out of the sky, where the singers poised
unseen. It was like walking through a shower of melody.
From the Alp Pocol, which is simply a fair, lofty pasture, we had
our first full view of Nuvolau, rising bare and strong, like a huge
bastion, from the dark fir-woods. Through these our way led onward
now for seven miles, with but a slight ascent. Then turning off to
the left we began to climb sharply through the forest. There we
found abundance of the lovely Alpenrosen, which do not bloom on the
lower ground. Their colour is a deep, glowing pink, and when a
Tyrolese girl gives you one of these flowers to stick in the band
of your hat, you may know that you have found favour in her eyes.
Through the wood the cuckoo was calling--the bird which reverses
the law of good children, and insists on being heard, but not seen.
When the forest was at an end we found ourselves at the foot of an
alp which sloped steeply up to the Five Towers of Averau. The
effect of these enormous masses of rock, standing out in lonely
grandeur, like the ruins of some forsaken habitation of giants, was
tremendous. Seen from far below in the valley their form was
picturesque and striking; but as we sat beside the clear, cold
spring which gushes out at the foot of the largest tower, the
Titanic rocks seemed to hang in the air above us as if they would
overawe us into a sense of their majesty. We felt it to the full;
yet none the less, but rather the more, could we feel at the same
time the delicate and ethereal beauty of the fringed gentianella
and the pale Alpine lilies scattered on the short turf beside us.
We had now been on foot about three hours and a half. The half
hour that remained was the hardest. Up over loose, broken stones
that rolled beneath our feet, up over great slopes of rough rock,
up across little fields of snow where we paused to celebrate the
Fourth of July with a brief snowball fight, up along a narrowing
ridge with a precipice on either hand, and so at last to the
summit, 8600 feet above the sea.
It is not a great height, but it is a noble situation. For Nuvolau
is fortunately placed in the very centre of the Dolomites, and so
commands a finer view than many a higher mountain. Indeed, it is
not from the highest peaks, according to my experience, that one
gets the grandest prospects, but rather from those of middle
height, which are so isolated as to give a wide circle of vision,
and from which one can see both the valleys and the summits. Monte
Rosa itself gives a less imposing view than the Gorner Grat.
It is possible, in this world, to climb too high for pleasure.
But what a panorama Nuvolau gave us on that clear, radiant summer
morning--a perfect circle of splendid sight! On one side we looked
down upon the Five Towers; on the other, a thousand feet below, the
Alps, dotted with the huts of the herdsmen, sloped down into the
deep-cut vale of Agordo. Opposite to us was the enormous mass of
Tofana, a pile of gray and pink and saffron rock. When we turned
the other way, we faced a group of mountains as ragged as the
crests of a line of fir-trees, and behind them loomed the solemn
head of Pelmo. Across the broad vale of the Boite, Antelao stood
beside Sorapis, like a campanile beside a cathedral, and Cristallo
towered above the green pass of the Three Crosses. Through that
opening we could see the bristling peaks of the Sextenthal.
Sweeping around in a wider circle from that point, we saw, beyond
the Durrenstein, the snow-covered pile of the Gross-Glockner; the
crimson bastions of the Rothwand appeared to the north, behind
Tofana; then the white slopes that hang far away above the
Zillerthal; and, nearer, the Geislerspitze, like five fingers
thrust into the air; behind that, the distant Oetzthaler Mountain,
in the meadows about Cortina. There was always a sweet spray of
music sprinkling down out of the sky, where the singers poised
unseen. It was like walking through a shower of melody.
From the Alp Pocol, which is simply a fair, lofty pasture, we had
our first full view of Nuvolau, rising bare and strong, like a huge
bastion, from the dark fir-woods. Through these our way led onward
now for seven miles, with but a slight ascent. Then turning off to
the left we began to climb sharply through the forest. There we
found abundance of the lovely Alpenrosen, which do not bloom on the
lower ground. Their colour is a deep, glowing pink, and when a
Tyrolese girl gives you one of these flowers to stick in the band
of your hat, you may know that you have found favour in her eyes.
Through the wood the cuckoo was calling--the bird which reverses
the law of good children, and insists on being heard, but not seen.
When the forest was at an end we found ourselves at the foot of an
alp which sloped steeply up to the Five Towers of Averau. The
effect of these enormous masses of rock, standing out in lonely
grandeur, like the ruins of some forsaken habitation of giants, was
tremendous. Seen from far below in the valley their form was
picturesque and striking; but as we sat beside the clear, cold
spring which gushes out at the foot of the largest tower, the
Titanic rocks seemed to hang in the air above us as if they would
overawe us into a sense of their majesty. We felt it to the full;
yet none the less, but rather the more, could we feel at the same
time the delicate and ethereal beauty of the fringed gentianella
and the pale Alpine lilies scattered on the short turf beside us.
We had now been on foot about three hours and a half. The half
hour that remained was the hardest. Up over loose, broken stones
that rolled beneath our feet, up over great slopes of rough rock,
up across little fields of snow where we paused to celebrate the
Fourth of July with a brief snowball fight, up along a narrowing
ridge with a precipice on either hand, and so at last to the
summit, 8600 feet above the sea.
It is not a great height, but it is a noble situation. For Nuvolau
is fortunately placed in the very centre of the Dolomites, and so
commands a finer view than many a higher mountain. Indeed, it is
not from the highest peaks, according to my experience, that one
gets the grandest prospects, but rather from those of middle
height, which are so isolated as to give a wide circle of vision,
and from which one can see both the valleys and the summits. Monte
Rosa itself gives a less imposing view than the Gorner Grat.
It is possible, in this world, to climb too high for pleasure.
But what a panorama Nuvolau gave us on that clear, radiant summer
morning--a perfect circle of splendid sight! On one side we looked
down upon the Five Towers; on the other, a thousand feet below, the
Alps, dotted with the huts of the herdsmen, sloped down into the
deep-cut vale of Agordo. Opposite to us was the enormous mass of
Tofana, a pile of gray and pink and saffron rock. When we turned
the other way, we faced a group of mountains as ragged as the
crests of a line of fir-trees, and behind them loomed the solemn
head of Pelmo. Across the broad vale of the Boite, Antelao stood
beside Sorapis, like a campanile beside a cathedral, and Cristallo
towered above the green pass of the Three Crosses. Through that
opening we could see the bristling peaks of the Sextenthal.
Sweeping around in a wider circle from that point, we saw, beyond
the Durrenstein, the snow-covered pile of the Gross-Glockner; the
crimson bastions of the Rothwand appeared to the north, behind
Tofana; then the white slopes that hang far away above the
Zillerthal; and, nearer, the Geislerspitze, like five fingers
thrust into the air; behind that, the distant Oetzthaler Mountain,