On the top of the buttress we rejoined our provision-sack, and enjoyed a long halt in full view of the Antelao, now towering above the clouds, a gigantic vapour-wreathed pyramid. From this point it is, as we found the next day, but a two hours' walk or ride amongst bilberry-bushes and forests to San Vito on the Ampezzo road. To return to San Nicolò was, however, our present object, and our hunter promised a new and easy path. We rushed rapidly down a very steep funnel to the great patch of avalanche-snow which lies against the base of the cliffs in the centre of the Campo di Rutorto. In the sort of cave left between the crag and snow a jet of water, spouting like a fountain of Moses from the arid rocks, served to fill our cups. A little footpath mounts gently the rhododendron-covered slope beyond, and winds as near as it can creep to the huge mountain. The cliffs above are broken, and in this part there was formerly a possibility of scrambling through them. Our guide declared that owing to a fall of rock the passage had now become extremely difficult; and his statement gains some confirmation from the fact that two of my friends who attempted (with a San Vito man) an escalade from this direction, were forced to retreat, one of them with a broken head. While climbing in advance he dislodged with one hand a boulder from a shelf above him, which made its first bound on his skull, fortunately without loosening the firm grasp of his other arm or inflicting any permanent injury. Unstable boulders are the great source of danger in this part of the Alps, and even old climbers require to be constantly reminded that on dolomite rocks they must test before they trust every handhold.
At the south-eastern angle of the Pelmo the cliff rises sheer for some distance and then a wedge of stone suddenly juts out, overhanging its base to an extent which I fear to estimate in figures, and can only describe as incredible. The under part has fallen and lies on the path, but a huge block still hangs threateningly overhead, an appropriate gargoyle for so Titanic an edifice.
The brow beneath it commanded a wide and splendid prospect. To the north rose the red crags of the Sorapis and the more symmetrical outlines of the Antelao. Turning eastwards, green pasturages and gable-formed ridges filled the foreground. The blunt-headed crags of the Sasso di Bosco Nero occupied the middle distance. Beyond the gorge of the Piave we looked across to the least-known portion of the dolomites, the blue mountains, crested with dark teeth and horns, which encompass remote Cimolais.
A sturdy little goatherd, the first human being we had seen since leaving Brusadaz, here came up to greet us. The boy did not depend on his voice alone to summon his flock. Round his shoulders was slung a trumpet, one blast from which sent flying a peal of wild echoes not to be disregarded even by the deafest and most obstinate of goats.
The terrace path continued to skirt the base of the Pelmo, until it reached a platform of pasturage, the Campo sô Pelmo, lying due south of the mountain. From this pasturage a second way may be found to the upper slopes of the Pelmo. It is curious that this line of attack should have been adopted by the Cortina guides in preference to that by the angle of the mountain facing San Vito, so far the nearest and most natural route from Val d'Ampezzo.
The difference in difficulty is probably in favour of the southern ascent, but it can scarcely be sufficient to account for good rock-climbers making a circuit of several miles. Yet Santo Siorpaes in 1872 led Mr. Tuckett round the mountain.
The only English ascent by the southern route was made by Mr. and Mrs. Packe in 1870. They camped out for the night at the southern foot of the mountain. I am glad to be able to quote Mr. Packe's description of the climb, both because his impressions confirm my own, and for the sake of any ladies who may be thereby encouraged to venture on the Pelmo.
'From our camp a gentle ascent of twenty minutes over undulating ground brought us to a grassy mamélon, forming an outlying buttress of the mountain. Here we left the heavier portion of our provisions, and at once commenced to climb north-east up a very steep rocky gully which separates the detached shoulder described by Mr. Freshfield as "the antediluvian cub crouching beside its parent." In this part of the ascent, partly over snow, partly over rocks, though the rope was sometimes brought into use, there was nothing very formidable. When at the foot of the ridge which unites the cub to its parent, we turned to the right, traversing transversely a steep talus of schist, with a precipice below, but at some mètres' distance. After passing this we reached a corner, where the rock came down vertically from above, falling in the same way below; and here the difficulty commenced. For about an hour we were passing along a ledge, which wound round the recesses of the mountain, in one place entirely riven away by a rent in the face of the rock, across which we had to step, while the stones we dislodged fell with a sheer descent to a depth which the eye dared not fathom, but which might have been some six hundred mètres beneath our feet.
'It is this system of ledges on the face of a perpendicular cliff, which, moreover, is crumbling in its nature, that forms the difficulty of the Pelmo; and these cannot be escaped, though they may be varied, approach it from whatever side you will; but, that ours was not the same ledge as that by which Mr. Freshfield mounted is, I think, at once evident from the reasons I have alleged, that our left hand was always to the mountain in ascending, and that there was no place where we were compelled to crawl.
'On emerging from this ledge the precipice on our left hand broke back, and I take it here we had reached the same spot as that attained by Mr. Freshfield from the opposite side. At any rate, from this spot, his description would exactly apply to our route till we reached the summit, which was still about a thousand mètres above us. All serious difficulty was at an end. Our course lay over steep rocks, laced with streams descending from the glacier,[69] and the only vegetation which attracted my notice was here and there the bright yellow flowers of the Alpine poppy. Above these rocks comes the glacier basin, which we crossed, like Mr. Freshfield avoiding the lower ridges on the left, and keeping to the right close to the highest crags of the Pelmo, which we at last reached after a rough and laborious escalade.