Above Klosters the path is level for some distance, and leads through thick woods rich in ferns and flowers. After passing the mouth of the Vereina Thal the forest grew thinner and we reached the châlets of the Sardasca Alp, standing at the true head of the valley on a level meadow where several streams poured down to form the Landquart. A steep hillside was now climbed by sharp zigzags; then, a stream and track leading to an easy pass into the Fermont Thal having been left, the path wound along the hillside until it met the water flowing from the great Silvretta Glacier.
A short distance higher a pole was conspicuously fixed on a large boulder, and a few yards further back we found the hut in a sheltered hollow scarcely 300 yards from the end of the glacier. It was sufficiently large and proof against wind and rain, as we had afterwards good reason to know; but the furniture was scanty and in bad repair. Two benches and a hay-bed were all we found, and there was no stove.
However, this did not matter much for the night. But before we went to sleep the wind had begun to howl, and next morning when we opened the door a great, white gust rushed in, and all without was a seething mist alive with snow-flakes.
Unless we decided to return, there was nothing for it but to make our provisions hold out by submitting to an orthodox 'Vendredi Maigre,' and to amuse ourselves as best we could by toasting cheese and carving wood. Fortunately an inkbottle was discovered which materially alleviated our position. I have heard under similar circumstances of a chess-board being constructed by means of a lead pencil, and the game played with pieces of black bread and cheese appropriately carved; but two are required for this diversion.
About midday we made a hopeless and rather feeble 'sortie,' which the snow-storm speedily repulsed. Two peasants who had brought up wood for the hut paid us a visit in the course of the day, and a stray cow-boy dropped in later for an afternoon call.
To our great delight Saturday, though still cloudy, promised better weather, and we left our prison at 5 A.M. and soon reached the broad ridge of rocks separating the Silvretta and Verstankla Glaciers. It was not our intention to cross the Silvretta Pass, but to find a shorter way to the Engadine through the gap at the head of the Verstankla Glacier, and to descend by the Tiatscha ice-fall[22] into Val Lavinuoz—a course which we did not believe to have been previously taken.
Substitute the Cimes Blanches for the Silvretta Pass, the short cut from Zermatt to Breuil near the Matterhorn for the pass we aimed at, and the Val d' Aosta for the Lower Engadine, and anyone who knows the Zermatt district will understand the relation of the two routes. Only of course the lateral glens of the Lower Engadine are much shorter than the side valleys of Val d' Aosta.
The Verstankla Glacier lies lower than the Silvretta, and to avoid a descent we kept on the spur between them to the point where it was buried by an ice-cascade overflowing from the larger to the smaller flood. We crossed the fall diagonally, and found ourselves in an upper basin of snow, and close to a narrow gap between the splendid crags of the Schwarzhorn and the far lower Gletscherkammhorn. This was our Pass, the Verstankla Thor, already christened but not crossed by Swiss climbers. The view was limited, but wonderfully snowy; on every side stretched broad, white glaciers and dark snow-powdered rocks, and on the south Piz Linard stood up, a bold, isolated pyramid against the blue sky.
We soon reached the spot where the glacier first plunges towards Val Lavinuoz in an ice-fall which in 1865 had turned back Herr Weilenmann, one of the best climbers in the Swiss Club. It made an attempt, at least, to frighten us. We had not reached the open crevasses when François, who was leading, suddenly disappeared like a sprite in a pantomime. There was no great shock given to the rope, but a considerable one to the feelings of the Klosters guide. François had lighted on a ledge, and after popping up his head for a moment to reassure us, withdrew it again down the trapdoor to look for the pipe which had been knocked out of his mouth by the fall. The treasure recovered, our leader was helped out of his hole and we went on. An incident like this, trivial as it is in fact and in telling, is so only because the rope is used, and properly used; had we been unattached, or walking too near one another, the consequences might easily have been very different. If any Alpine novice wishes to learn how to have and to describe moments of 'intensivsten Schrecken' he may turn to Herr Weilenmann's 'Aus der Firnenwelt,' and read how, on almost the same spot, the Swiss climber, walking with the rope in his hand instead of round his waist, nearly lost his life.
We found a fairly easy way through some fine snow-castles and ice-labyrinths to the rocks on the eastern side of the fall. The cliffs close to the glacier are precipitous, but a commodious ledge leads round to some beds of avalanche snow, down which it is easy to glissade. The lower glacier is smooth, and below its end we had a very pleasant walk down Val Lavinuoz, with views of the noble mass of Piz Linard immediately overhead. The glen soon opened, at Lavin, on the high-road of the Lower Engadine, which we reached in 4½ hours' walking from the hut—so that our short cut is not liable to the charge, usually brought against Alpine short cuts, of being considerably longer than the ordinary road.