The track mounted slightly towards the left, until it joined a broad terrace-path winding at a level along the hillside.
Here with the suddenness of enchantment the scene changed. The gloom was broken by a dart of sunshine, blue shone overhead, and in a moment the mists lifted on all sides, disclosing a view of the most dazzling beauty. We were on a green hillside opposite the mouth of Val di Genova, which was flanked on one side by the Presanella, the victim of yesterday's onslaught, on the other by the Carè Alto. These were the outposts of a vast amphitheatre of ice and snow, in the bend of which stood the Adamello.[59] Below us was a group of châlets at the head of a little glen, whose stream trickled down into the Sarca; beyond lay the whole Val Rendena, almost to Tione, a rich mass of verdure, dotted by frequent villages, and set off by the soft moulded mask of new-fallen snow which hid the hills down to the highest pine-forests.
Instead of following the stream we turned to the right and descended by a sledge-track to Baldino, a village twenty minutes below Pinzolo.
In after years I satisfied myself that the cliff we had turned back from was visible from the high-road at the upper end of the gorge of Le Sarche. The rocks seen from a distance did not look so formidable as they had from above. The pass, if it could be made, would be a very convenient one, leading directly from Campiglio to the Baths of Comano, and enabling a mountaineer to pass through the pinnacles of the Brenta Alta, and by means of a carriage reach Riva the same evening; and there still remained sufficient doubt about the ascent on the south-east side to render the problem interesting.
Ten years later I mustered some friends and François at the Baths of Comano. We enquired of the master of the house for a porter acquainted with the paths in Val d'Ambies. Such a valley, however, was unknown, at least by that name, to all the inmates of the establishment. This, considering the vague state of the mountain nomenclature in this district, was not wonderful. We were more surprised when the existence of any valley between Val d'Algone and the Molveno cart-track was denied with persistent positiveness. At last a guest completely crushed our importunate enquiries by producing a map on which the valley we spoke of was not to be found. The map, it should be mentioned, was one of the Island of Sardinia!
Upon this we gave up the struggle, and contented ourselves with hiring a peasant to carry provisions to one of the villages on the rolling upland above the Baths, where we should at least be able to point out the mouth of the glen we meant to explore.
In three-quarters of an hour we had reached Tavodo, built on a brow immediately over the torrent of Val d'Ambies. Behind us lay the beautiful basin of Stenico, threatened by an advancing storm, through the skirts of which the low sun flung Titianesque lances upon the glittering orchards. In front the towers of the Cima Tosa were framed between two bold buttresses, the ends of the bounding ridges of our valley.
We had to cross a torrent and reascend to the neighbouring hamlet of San Lorenzo in order to obtain quarters for the night. There was no regular inn in the place, but we found clean beds and cooking materials in the house over the village shop.
Our start next morning was unexpectedly delayed. We had agreed overnight with an elderly and loquacious inhabitant for the carriage of our provisions and a bag to the top of the pass for four gulden. Our porter's first act on appearing at six A.M. was to call for spirits; his second, to declare he must have five gulden to go not to the pass but to the highest 'malga.' His pretensions were increasing with his 'little glasses,' and in inverse ratio to his competency, when we cut the matter short by engaging another man.
We had got fairly off when the old Bacchanalian shuffled up in the rear and enlivened the first half-hour by an energetic declamation, in which the chief points seemed to be that he alone in the countryside knew every crag and cranny where we were going, that he was 'President of the Village' and a 'galantuomo,' and that, 'corpo di Bacco,' the least we could do was to pay his tavern score.