Sir William Martin Conway

A PEAK is primarily a thing to be looked at. It was only after the aspect of peaks had smitten the imagination of men that the desire to climb them arose. The climbing impulse is subordinate to the eye's delight. A pass, on the other hand, is a thing to be climbed and looked from, but only in a minor degree to be looked at. It is an experience rather than a sight. Few passes indeed are striking objects in a view. The Col Dolent, the GÜssfeldtsattel, the Col du Lion, and a few more are imposing when you approach the foot of their final slopes, but it would be difficult to distinguish between such slopes and a similar mountain face. The fact that the slope leads to a notch or saddle in the sky-line does not give it dignity; that comes to it from its own character as a slope, and would be the same if it led to any other kind of sky-line. Passes, therefore, in and for themselves, are not conspicuously striking and beautiful elements in any great mountain panorama, and do not call for discussion by us from that point of view.

As experiences, however, they take another rank. I have long been prepared to maintain their general superiority to peaks in that respect. Passes generally lead through finer scenery than is commanded from the flank of a peak. A peak climbed rewards you with a panorama which no pass can offer; but, that excepted, the average pass is superior to the average peak for the scenery it reveals, and in the nature of things it must be. In climbing a peak, unless you are going up an arÊte, you normally have a steep slope rising straight in front of you. A few square yards of rocks or snow fill most of your vision as you look ahead. If you raise your eyes up the slope, you see it in its least impressive form, foreshortened into a mere belt. The real view is behind you, and you must turn round to behold it. That involves standing still and may mean delay. But in traversing a pass you normally ascend the bottom of a glacier valley, and the fine views are ahead and on both hands. The valley is not likely to be so narrow that you are not far enough away from its two sides, or at least one of them, to be able to behold the slope as a whole, from bottom to top, and not unduly foreshortened. Of course this general character of pass-routes is subject to infinite variation. The final slope is often steep, and the ascent of it will then be like the ascent of a mountain face; but, broadly speaking, it must be obvious that passes offer better chances for enjoying continuous fine scenery than peaks, and experience proves it.

Pass-traversing, to me, however, and doubtless to many others, seems to possess more elements of romance than peak-climbing; for this reason—to climb a peak is to make an expedition, but to cross a pass is to travel. In the one case you normally return to the spot whence you set out; in the other you go from the known to the unknown, from the visible to what is beyond. The peak, which is before you when you set out to climb it, is only explained, not revealed, as you ascend; but every pass is a revelation: it takes you over into another region. You leave one area behind and you enter another; you come down amongst new people and into fresh surroundings. You shut out all that was familiar yesterday and open up another world.

This is true of all passing over; it is of course especially true when you are making a new pass for the first time. Then you have to find the way down as well as the way up, and the interest is sustained to the last moment. It has been my good-fortune to have had opportunities of climbing many new peaks and crossing several new passes—one of them the longest mountain-glacier pass in the world. Beyond all question the passes have been more interesting and exciting than the peaks. When you reach the summit of your peak the excitement suddenly ends; on the top of a pass it only culminates. The long pass to which I have above referred took about a fortnight to reach from the highest habitations. We could see the saddle ahead all the time, and we slowly drew nearer to it. The wonder increased as to what we should find on the other side. Whither should we be led on? Where should we come out? What difficulties might bar our progress? Not till the very moment when we topped the ascent and stood upon the col could any of these questions begin to be answered. Nor could any of them be fully answered till the week of descent had been actually accomplished. But the first sight over, the first glimpse into the new world, that was worth toiling for—that, and the last long regretful look back down the valley up which we had come, whose details had fastened themselves durably upon our memories.

THE ROAD FROM VITZNAU TO GERSAU

The Obere Nase corner. Pilatus group in the distance.

What the travelling explorer in previously untraversed places feels so keenly is, after all, only a slightly stronger form of the emotion that every pass affords to every climber who traverses it for the first time. He awaits the arrival at the summit for the moment of supreme revelation. He has the same slow development of desire to see over; the same sudden burst of illumination at the top; the same regretful look back; the same pleasurable anticipation of novel experiences awaiting him on the descent. He too leaves one world and comes into another; leaves if it be but the home of a night in exchange for untried quarters. It is this similarity between ordinary Alpine climbing and new exploration that gives to the former one of its greatest charms. The fact that a thing is new to us suffices. It is almost, perhaps quite, as good to behold for the first time what we have heard speech of, as to behold what no one has ever beheld before. We shall find friends to converse and share memories with about the one; we are liable to be considered bores if we talk too much about the other. The explorer writes his book and then dwells with his memories alone, but the Alpine traveller lays up a store of experiences and reminiscences, the pleasure of which he can share with a goodly number of friends, old and young.

Passes, like peaks, admit of classification. The first and most beautiful is the long snow pass, the kind of pass which is reached by ascending one long glacier, and from which the descent leads down another long glacier, so that the point of departure is as widely separated as possible from the point of arrival, and the divergence of scenery between the two extremities most pronounced. These may be called the great snow highways.

The longest snow highway-pass, and to my thinking one of the finest in the Alps, leads right through the heart of the Bernese Oberland from the LÖtschen valley at one end to the Grimsel at the other. It is really not one pass but a succession of three, for three ridges have to be crossed—which, however, only increases its interest. It leads through snow scenery of superlative pomp and extent, and reveals that scenery in the most fascinating manner, continually opening out and presently again closing up the wildest vistas, and always providing new interests and fresh culminations. Bietschhorn, Aletschhorn, Jungfrau, Finsteraarhorn, not to mention other less important peaks, in turn dominate the view, and one glacier after another opens out a vision of remote blue valleys and lower ranges. I am aware that this long traverse does not oppose to the climber the smallest real difficulty from end to end, and that it is what is commonly described as "a mere snow pound." It calls for endurance and that is all. Unless the climber counts scenery first among the attractions of the way, he will be well advised to select some other expedition. He who does so count it will agree with me that this is par excellence "the" pass of the Central Alps. It lacks only one element of charm: it brings the traveller down into the same kind of scenery as that from which he started. A similar remark may be made on the Strahleck, which is likewise a glorious snow highway. Both passes, it may be observed, are eminently suited for ski experts to traverse in winter, under suitable conditions of weather and equipment.

To find the long snow pass in its most romantic form one must look for it in a region where a great mountain range divides districts of strongly contrasted scenic character. There can be no doubt whither we should turn. The great range that gazes southward over Italy and northward into Switzerland perfectly fulfils the conditions. This culminates along the watershed south of Zermatt, which place is therefore indicated as the starting-point at one end. Of the long snow passes leading southward from Zermatt, the Lysjoch undoubtedly takes first place for magnificence of scenery throughout the whole length of its route. Gymnastic climbers may ask, Why not the Sesiajoch? On the north its route coincides with that of the Lysjoch, but on the south they diverge, and the easier route lies through finer if less catastrophic scenery. The Sesiajoch plunges down a great wall, and the view does not vary for a long time. The Lysjoch leads down one of the loveliest glacier valleys in Europe and affords endless variety. There is really no comparison between the two.

We may therefore select the Lysjoch as type of the noblest kind of Alpine pass. Consider what wealth of interest it supplies to those who traverse it from Zermatt at one end to Gressoney at the other; for to enjoy a pass properly it should be followed from village to village throughout its full length, and not merely from hut to hut. The modern method of zigzagging across the crest of a chain without descending far below the snow-line, taking one pass one day and another the next, is, I am aware, not without fascinations, to which who has not succumbed? but it is not the best way to enjoy scenery, for it lacks the enforcing emphasis which the exchange of levels yields.

It is of the essence of such a pass as the Lysjoch that it leads you from the foot of a great glacier, up through its whole length to its head, and then from the head of another glacier down to its foot. It thus traces a definite and natural succession of the features of a glacier. It is like following the course of a river from mouth to source, or passing through the progress of the seasons of a year. From step to step there is a succession of related features, each being another stage of the one before and of the one next to follow. Thus there is a growth of interest. What you behold is not a mere succession of unrelated vistas. Each foreground in turn implies all that has been passed and all that is yet to come on the upward way. True, convenience generally dictates that you shall not actually enter upon a glacier at its extreme foot, and mount right up it to its head. There is probably better going for part of the way along the bank. But the glacier is commonly close at hand and in full view most of the time, so that you become familiar with it at all points of its course. To ascend it is to advance through stages of increasing glory and purity. First you have its shabby moraine-strewn extremity; then its cleaner surface and open white crevasses. Higher up they turn continually bluer and the ice grows still whiter. The glacier widens; the slopes that border it become less grassy. You are leaving the habitable, profitable world behind, and approaching the clean undevelopable lands, which man may visit but where he must not dwell. The naked crags stand forth on either hand, furrowed with snow couloirs, and clothed with white raiment. Now you come to the snow-covered surface of the glacier itself. Blue-looking pools of water may be seen here and there. The snow becomes purer as you advance. There are no more dust-patches or groups of rocks interrupting the clean surface. Higher up, the glacier breaks into bolder forms as it pours down over steeper and more rugged slopes. The sÉracs tower aloft, fantastic in form and unstable in position. Great crevasses marvellously coloured in their depths yawn all about. You wind your way amongst them, creeping over snow-bridges and under impending walls and pinnacles of ice, all decked with sparkling icicles. Finally, you emerge on to some gentler-sloping, wide-expanding field of spotless snow, that only a gentle undulation diversifies with the most delicately displayed modelling. All around are steep slopes of snow or ice, cliffs of newly-riven rock, avalanche tracks and heaps of ruin. The details of the high peaks can be distinguished, their overhanging cornices, their furrowed sides. Ahead, and not so far away, is now the pass—a broad opening between great heaped-up domes of snow, perhaps with crests of rock cutting through. The slope grows easier. At last the ground is level, and a distant view opens before you as behind. You are on the top.

The ascent has been marked, as a morning's work should be, by steady growth of interest. The descent, though it merely reverses the order of events and succession of interests, is not a simple inversion of the experiences of the ascent. It would be if you descended backwards, facing the pass, but such is not the human method of going. You now face downwards, and have before you the blue valley, the distant lower ranges, and perhaps some fragment of the broad lowlands in view, whereas in going up you look at the heights. The valleys promise rest and refreshment to your growing fatigue. The way becomes less laborious as you descend. You leave the snow behind gladly. The first flowers welcome you. And now as you quit the ice and traverse the high meadows the steady increase of fertility is delightful to observe. You enter the tree-level through a fringe of skimpy and wind-beaten scouts. The timber becomes finer as you advance. After all, this fertile earth is the place for man. Down you go into a new valley, the torrent hurrying and tumbling beside you. You come to a poor village and then to one more thriving. Fruit-trees begin to find place, and then chestnuts. How delightful it is to come down to the chestnut-level! It is then no far cry to the figs and the Italian lakes, and all the luxury of north Italian nature—its rich atmosphere, its colour, its suave forms, and picturesque surprises.

AMSTEG IN THE REUSSTHAL

On the St. Gotthard Railway. Entrance to the Windgelle Tunnel above the last house on right of picture.

To cross thus and through such stages from the austere Swiss valleys to Italian frolic and ease, is to enjoy one of the greatest pleasures. You can do it by going over a peak, but clearly peaks are not natural passage-ways. They do not suggest themselves for traverse, whereas passes do. The whole idea of a peak is a provocation to the climber to get to the top. A pass invites him to come over; it calls from valley to valley. Who would ever think of going to a col and then returning in his tracks to the starting-point unless misfortune compelled him? The suggestion is absurd. Passes are the natural gateways of the hills—at first the easiest and lowest gaps; next the best gaps that could be found from valley to valley; lastly, any notch between two peaks, even if they are twin-culminating summits of a single mountain. Indeed, provided the point of crossing is a notch, so that, when you stand in it, you see a peak rising on either hand of you, you have the feeling that you are going over a pass—that the wall Nature has erected in your way has been overcome; and that feeling is the thing.

The broad portals of the great mountain highways offer, as I have said, and obviously must offer, scenery of the grandest and most logically consistent type along all the way; but there are passes of other kinds richly endowed with power to please. I would choose next, as a delightful type, the most opposed in character to the broad snow col,—I refer to those range-traversing routes which lead over steep mountain-walls. Such on a great scale for the Alps are the Col du Lion, the Domjoch, and the Col de Miage. I think, however, that the classical pass of this kind is the Triftjoch. It will at all events perfectly serve as an example of the rest. Seeing that, by definition, the final slope of all such passes is a steep wall, that wall, dropping from the watershed, must be at the end of some deep glacial recess. Herein lies the distinguishing feature of the way. The lower part of the route will resemble the lower part of any other pass, but ultimately somewhere in the nÉvÉ region the traveller is led into a deeply embayed cirque.

The snow-field may and often does lie almost level at the foot of the wall, perhaps above some final ice-fall which it has been difficult to surmount. These high nÉvÉ basins that look so lake-like and restful in the heart of the hills are always lovely. Imposing precipices rise around them, and in fact feed them with showers of avalanches on active days. But in fine summer weather the avalanches have all fallen. The surrounding walls are like a defensive fortress, towering so high and steeply, and excluding the world and all its vicissitudes and violences. It is only a seeming, for nowhere, in fact, do storms eddy and surge with more violence than in these theatres of the mountains. But seeming is the very substance of beauty, and all the fine-weather aspect of these places is suggestive of peace. The further you advance the more completely are you enclosed. Sometimes a bend in the hollow may actually so shut you in, that no glimpse of the lower regions is to be seen in any direction. Such isolation is delightful for a while. Besides yourselves there is no other trace to be found of the existence of the human race, or of its ever having existed; you might be on the surface of the moon and discover nothing more indifferent to mankind and their motions. A few hours of sunshine will blot out every sign of your passing. This entire cleanness and invulnerability is specially delightful to men who have grown up in crowded cities, where, save sometimes in the sky, the very reverse is the case, and nothing is visible that does not imply the handiwork of man.

The final climb is like all wall-climbing, and commands no view unless you can turn round; but so much the more does the last step tell, the step that lifts your eyes above the crest and suddenly displays to you the great vista on the other side. In peak-climbing, the views to right and left rapidly develop and approach as you near the top; it is only in the ascent of these wall-ended passes that the view is kept back to the last, and then suddenly revealed. In the case of the Triftjoch, as you climb to it from Zermatt, the result is even more than usually impressive; for what bursts upon your vision, right opposite to you, on the far side of a splendid and vast circle of snow-field, is the whole pyramid of the Dent Blanche, from base to summit, with its finest side turned towards you. For the view thus to burst upon the traveller with overwhelming suddenness, the steepness of the wall of ascent must be continued to the very top. If it rounds off for the last few feet, as sometimes happens, the effect is spoiled. The Triftjoch view is one of the best arranged, because the gap you pass through is so narrow, and the distance is beheld as it were in a frame of rocks, which form a foreground. Most saddles of the kind are wider. Then the view lacks foreground and is no better than part of a mountain-top panorama. The narrow gaps are the ones to look for. They can be found all over the Alps, but not usually along the crest of the main ranges.

There is, however, a great charm attached to many passes across minor ridges. They enable an expedition to be made, out and back, from a single centre, with variety of scenery all the way—up one side valley and down another. The side valleys often deserve more attention than they get. A climber's natural tendency is to go for the big expeditions—the highest mountains and the greatest passes. It is worth observing that the greater the scale on which mountains are built, the more widely are the main features separated. Minor peaks and lower ridges have their different members nearer together. Juxtaposition often produces admirable results, and may educate the eye to look for effects on a great scale which have once been observed in little. After all, variety is the great thing,—variety and the emphasis that contrast gives to beauty of different kinds. It is so easy to grow accustomed, so easy to become dull to an effect that is constantly before the eyes. How tired of ourselves, and one of another, we should become, if we were not always growing older! In the mountains, if we would have our sense of their beauty ever fresh, our appreciation of it ever keener and keener, we should alter our point of view: exchanging great for small, arid magnificence for fertile attractiveness, snow for rock, peak for pass, alp for valley. We should beware of specialisation. Why climb only aiguilles? Why scramble up nothing but rock-faces? There may be breadth or narrowness even in our play. We are likely to manifest in life as a whole the qualities that we show in sport. Why not make play react on life?

A highway-pass penetrates a range by help of a corridor, a wall-pass leads right over a cliff. These are the two most definitely marked types of col. We might feel ourselves compelled to assign most cols to one type or the other, if we allowed our freedom to be restrained by the bondage of scientific definition. There is, however, a kind of pass which I prefer to capture for a group by itself, though no descriptive name for it occurs to me,—I mean passes like the Weissthor or the Col du GÉant, which are approached by regular snow highways on one side, and fall very rapidly on the other. They and their like are always popular, and there are many of them. Their chief general characteristic is the contrast that must strike every one between the ascent and the descent, on one side and on the other, and between the views in opposite directions from the col. This side, you look down a glacier valley with a broad white foreground limited by a mountain avenue, along which some great glacier flows, winding away. That side, a cliff plunges from your feet, and such foreground as there may be consists of the nearest mountains before you. Thus the near view fixes your attention in one direction, the remote distance in the other. One is essentially a view among mountains, the other an outlook over the wide earth. One impresses by its wildness, the other by its extent. You keep facing about, and, each time you turn, the contrast of scenery enforces the charm of either outlook.

Obviously the right way to enjoy such a pass to most advantage is to ascend by the gentler slope and to go down the cliff. It is not the easiest way for the climber, who is likely to prefer to mount the cliff and descend the slope. The technically and Æsthetically best are here at variance. In ascending by the highway side the fine view is always before you, but if you go up the cliff nothing faces you but a few acres of snow and rock. On the contrary, when you descend the cliff, the uninteresting outlook is at your back and the fine view in front all the way.

The crest of some passes of this sort, notably of the Weissthor, is a point of vantage for enfilading a great mountain face. Usually one looks up or down such faces, or, being actually upon them, can only look a short distance to right or left. But from the crest of a suitable pass you may see the great curtain of ice and rocks edgewise, and the view has an impressiveness of its own. Those who have seen Niagara, or any wide waterfall of considerable height, will remember how fine it is to stand and look along the edge of it. Fronting it, you obtain a sense of its width; below it, you feel its force and volume; but in profile its grace is its leading quality. So is it with a wide mountain-wall. It is not enough to see it from below, or from over against. It must also be looked along. Then its surface modelling, its outsets and insets, its ribs and gullies, the meandering as well as the slope of its front become apparent. Few great walls of this kind do not grandly curve round. They are most impressive when that curvature is apparent. Once thus beheld, a wall takes on a new meaning when seen again from some more common standpoint. It no longer looks flat. Its bays and buttresses become perceptible to the trained eye, which is thus better enabled to appreciate the complexities of form and the true architecture of any other mountain-wall afterwards encountered.

There remains but one more type of pass that appeals for special mention before our space is exhausted. It is the Couloir Pass, a col led up to by a narrow snow-or ice-filled gully. The Col du Mont Dolent and the Col du Lion are the grandest examples of the type, which however is not an uncommon one. For me these passes always possess singular charm. They are really a subdivision of the wall-pass group, but they arouse emotions altogether their own. Once in the couloir you are completely isolated, almost as though perched in the air. A wall of rocks close at hand shuts you in on either side. The steep slope rises in front. Behind, you look straight away to some far distance with nothing to interrupt the vision. So indeed you do from the face of a wall or cliff, but the effect is greatly enhanced by your enclosure on either hand. The contrast between those near rocks to left and right and the absolute openness behind makes the steep drop of the slope appear much steeper than it is. Perhaps you may be compelled to remain for hours in the narrow gully. So much the more striking becomes the view revealed at the top and the sudden sense of being in the open. It has been implied that the couloir has to be ascended, for such is usually the choice, and sometimes the only wise choice; but it is far more delightful to descend one, with the view in front all the way and the valley bottom slowly approaching. Never is the depth beneath better appreciated than under such circumstances.

I have thus far been referring to passes from the climber's point of view, as leading from one mountain centre to another. Truly, however, the whole of a pass is the route through a mountain region from plain to plain. Few mountaineers nowadays ever cross a range in that way except by train, and yet it is one of the most delightful experiences. Motor-cars will enable us to enjoy such traverses by road, when the Swiss have learnt the wisdom of granting free passage across the Alps to any kind of vehicle. It is only when a range of mountains is approached from the plain that its mass and geographical value as a dividing wall can be felt. Arriving by train among mountains is a very different thing, for you can see nothing from a train unless you are the engine-driver—all revealing views being necessarily ahead. Afoot there is usually some definite point, immediately perceptible, where you first come in contact with the slope. You enter the mouth of a valley; the hills reach forth their arms to embrace you, and you consciously enter a new world. Beside you is now a riotous river on the one hand and a steepening slope on the other. It is not long before you know that you have begun to ascend. The flatness of the valley's mouth presently changes into a gentle slope. At first the fertility of the plain accompanies you into the hills, but the fields grow smaller, the villages may be cramped for space and forced to adapt themselves to difficult ground, attaining a new picturesqueness in the process. Thus for long miles, hour after hour, and, in large mountain regions, day after day, the character of the scenery slowly changes. The mountains grow bigger; vegetation varies with level and aspect; Nature grows more austere, and therewith more magnificent. You traverse some vast defile, like the gorge of Gondo perhaps, where road and river find passage beneath opposite cliffs, water-worn and of imposing height. You enter secluded basins, where the valley widens to close again; you pass round the margin of lakes that hold the hill-tops, as it were, in their depths. And always the flanking heights grow greater, and their tops, when visible, further and further away. Side valleys radiate, leading around romantic corners to invisible fastnesses. The slope of the main valley steepens again. You reach the foot of the forest region, the snouts of glaciers begin to appear, and high aloft the snows look down upon you. Now you traverse the last village and approach the foot of the glacier that fills your valley's head. You mount beside it through the tree-belt and out on to the grassy alp, then up that to the region of broken rocks and stones, and so to the margin of the snow. It is only the last stage of your traverse which now arrives, but that last stage is the beginning and end of the mere climber's pass. To you it means much more—it is the crest of the great range that you have been so long penetrating to these its uttermost recesses. The final wall is before you, the great white wall that looked so ethereal, so cloud-like, when first beheld from afar. You toil up it, stand on the crest, and look abroad over the world of mountains. Then down to the stones, to the grass, to the trees, the high village, and the valley road. So onward again by the roaring torrent, down the ever more fertile, more luxuriant valley, till you come to the low hills and the wide flat stretches that at last lead you out on to the plain once more.

A long traverse of that kind is a real pass, a whole pass; nothing else is more than a fragment—a choice fragment it may be, but still a part and not the whole. The old mountaineers, such as John Ball, used to take their passes in this complete form. So did the old coach-travellers like John Ruskin in his early days. Now mountaineers scorn to waste time on so lengthy an experience and to remain for so long at low levels. It is not their way. They have continual business aloft. They leave to motorists that kind of expedition. What good-fortune, then, that motor-cars should have been invented in time to provide such possible delights for climbers when their days of activity are done.