Piz Lischanna is easy of ascent, and nourishes a glacier oddly described in 'Bradshaw' as 'the finest of the higher glaciers of Switzerland.' It is in fact a broad ice-lake which rests sluggishly on its uplifted limestone platform, and, finding sufficient difficulty to maintain existence where it is, has not energy enough to make a push for the valley. A slight increase of temperature—say to the climate of Primiero—would melt its masses and lay bare the rocky bed.
Piz Pisoc, the highest of the group, enjoyed for long a local reputation for inaccessibility, until, in 1865, Fluri took the trouble to come down from Pontresina, and, untroubled with any impediment in the way of 'herrschaft,' but with for companion a young native of Schuls, who has since left the country, planted a flag on the summit. This is not the only first ascent that has been made by Pontresina men on their own account: two of them repeated the unusual proceeding afterwards on Piz d' Aela near Bergun. One ought to be glad, I suppose, to see such evidence of a genuine love of sport in a class sometimes represented as the unwilling victims of foreign gold. But to the Alpine clubman such conduct looks a little like the gamekeeper turning poacher, and selecting moreover the moment when his employer's game is nearly exhausted to go out by himself and shoot off the few remaining pheasants. And the mountaineer recollects further as an aggravation of the offence that maiden peaks cannot like pheasants be bred in the farmyard or sent down by the morning express from town. Fortunately for the Engadiners they are not subject to the jurisdiction of a bench of climbing county magistrates. From their own countrymen they have nothing to fear. Swiss 'Klubists' do not seem to find the point or interest of a 'first' ascent seriously diminished by the fact that their guides have made it beforehand; and as the guides of Pontresina have never got on particularly well with our countrymen they are quite right, perhaps, even from a professional point of view, in their practice.
Fluri furnished some details of his ascent for Herr Tschudi's 'Schweizerführer;' and, I presume, it was on the same authority that in the new Grisons guide-tariff the mountain is described as 'schwierig,' and taxed at 30 francs a guide. No one had followed the two Engadiners until, in 1870, I climbed the peak in company with François Devouassoud. Our experiences, both as to the length and difficulty of the expedition, differed considerably from those of our predecessors, who probably did not hit off the best way. The following directions will, I think, be found useful by future climbers:—Turn off the road leading from Vulpera to Schloss Tarasp by a cart-track, mounting steeply at first, and then traversing meadows to the entrance of Val Zuort. At the corner take the higher of two paths, following a watercourse until it reaches the stream. Cross and ascend by an ill-marked track, which soon fails, and leaves you to find your own way through rhododendron bushes and over stony slopes beside the rocky barrier closing the glen. Climb the bank of snow above the barrier to the level of the Zuort Glacier. A large snow-filled cleft now opens among the rocks on the left, offering an unexpectedly easy means of surmounting the lower cliffs of Piz Pisoc. Ascend this gully for some distance, until, above a slight bend in its direction a recess is seen on the left, with a small bed of snow in it divided from the great snow-slope by a bank of shale.
This spot is the gate of the mountain. A short sharp scramble places one on the rocks above the small snow-bed, and there is no further difficulty in climbing straight up them towards the gap at the northern base of the final peak. A few yards only before reaching it, turn sharply to the right, and, by keeping below the ridge and choosing with some care the easiest spots at which to pass a succession of low cliffs, the summit will soon be gained. The blindness and intricacy of the route form the only difficulty. If the right course is hit off, there is no hard climbing on the mountain, but the general steepness and abominably loose nature of its stony slopes render mountaineering experience or a good guide essential.
Of the panorama as a whole I saw, and therefore can say, nothing. The near view has a strong character of its own. The cornfields and white villages of the Engadine enhance by contrast the savage effect of the wild limestone crags and gloomy glens which surround the peak on every side but the north. The drop from our feet on to the path which threads the defile of the Scarl Thal was absolutely terrific, and the precipices did not appear less tremendous when I looked up at them afterwards from their base.
The return to Tarasp may probably be varied without difficulty by turning to the left at the foot of the great gully, and crossing by the gap at the head of Val Zuort into a branch of the Scarl Thal. That valley well repays a visit. There will be found scenery the very reverse of the pastoral landscapes of the Prätigau. If the former is a country for cows, this is the very home for bears, and some of the 'ill-favoured rough things' do in fact still find shelter among the dense thickets of creeping pine which cover every patch of level ground. Not that there are many such patches. The first part of the Scarl Thal is a gorge of the most savage wildness; and if the lower walls are not so unbrokenly perpendicular as in some other Alpine defiles, there are probably few valleys where the peaks on either side stand at so short a distance apart. The face of Piz Pisoc in particular is built up as a whole at an angle of appalling steepness.[24] The path through the gorge is called by courtesy a car-road, but it is barely possible, and not very safe, to drive along it.
From Tarasp to Zernetz is but a short morning's drive through the pleasantest portion of the Swiss Inn valley. The latter village, situated at the junction of the Ofen road with that leading to the Upper Engadine, is the best starting-point for the next stage in our journey.
The country immediately east of the Bernina is an unknown land. Its mountains are worse mapped and less accurately measured than those of many much more remote Alpine districts. To a certain extent it deserves the ordinary fate of mediocrities placed by the side of greatness. Val Livigno and the surrounding glens cannot rival the Bernina or the Orteler. Yet the foot-traveller taking this country on his way southwards discovers much to reward him. He meets with green bowls of pasture cut off from the outer world by miles of pathless defile, wild rock recesses crowded with chamois and famous for bears, dolomitic crags and snowy peaks streaming with glaciers, which, planted in the Pyrenees, would have had long ago an European reputation, further east in Tyrol at least a monograph apiece.
Yet I must repeat that in comparison with most of the ranges here spoken of these mountains are mediocre. Val Masino is pre-eminent for rugged grandeur. Val Maggia blends perfectly strength and grace. Pinzolo contrasts them. The Brenta group, with its horns and pinnacles shooting up above secluded dells, reminds us of fantastic romance, of goblin castles, and woodland fays.
Livigno has at most a quiet charm; the wilder recesses of its mountains are singular and savage rather than noble and majestic. The country suffers scenically from the defect of all the source-valleys of the Inn; its mountains have never been dug out to their foundations, their lower limbs, like those of some half-wrought statue, are still buried out of view.