Those who have seen mountain forests in their virgin splendour amongst ranges moistened by more abundant rains and heated by stronger suns must ever after feel that, beautiful, nay incomparable, as the Alps are in many respects, in this one they distinctly fail. Even setting aside the ravages of man, Alpine forests can hardly have equalled in richness and variety those of the more southern ranges, such as the Himalayas, and Caucasus, which seem the paradise of the vegetation of the temperate zone. But the axe, in the hands of Swiss and Italian peasants, has been used with equal stupidity and effect. The barrier interposed by nature between the valley and the impending avalanches has been destroyed, the foliage which caught and distributed the rain-storms has been hacked away. For the sake of an immediate gain, the ignorant villagers have left their homes open to the rushing snows of spring; their saturated hillsides and meadows to be torn up by the autumn rains.
The 'Forest of Paneveggio' is interesting as an almost solitary specimen of a district where sensible forest laws have been for some time in force, and where in consequence the pine-woods are, for general luxuriance and for the size attained by single trees, amongst the finest in the Alps. The trees are periodically thinned, and wherever a patch has been cleared young pines are at once planted, and the space enclosed so as to protect the tender tops against cattle. Let us hope that the exertions of many intelligent men both in Switzerland and Italy may induce the peasantry in other districts to follow the wise example set by these southern Tyrolese.
The hospice of Paneveggio stands on a sloping meadow on the right bank of the Travignolo. It is a plain massive building, one of those raised in bygone years as resting-places and refuges for the people of the country on the long roads through the wildernesses separating their scattered hamlets. Across the stream rise the steep, green sides of Monte Castellazzo. Guiribello, a model 'casera' or mountain-farm, the property of an Austrian archduke, lies high on one of its upper shelves. On either side of this promontory flow the sources of the Travignolo, one gathering itself in a wide basin under the passes to San Martino and the Laghi di Colbricon, the other flowing out of a deep dell at the immediate base of the Pala and Vezzana, both peaks of 11,000 feet, and, next to the Marmolata, the highest summits of the dolomite country.
The high-road, soon crossing the latter stream, winds in long, shady zigzags through the forest, and then reaches broad, sweet-scented pastures lying on the shoulder of Monte Castellazzo, and overhung by the thin wedge of the Cimon della Pala.
The Costonzella Pass is a mere grassy bank, from which a gradual descent over open alps leads to San Martino. The great peaks are almost too near for picturesque effect, unless when clouds partially veil them, filling the place of foreground. Then the spectacle of the top of the Cimon breaking through a mist might be enough to frighten a nervous traveller, who may naturally expect it the next moment to topple over on his head.
Pedestrians who are not afraid of distance, especially those going towards Primiero, will do well to abandon the high-road. From the hospice of Paneveggio a track mounts along the main branch of the Travignolo, and passing in succession before the precipices of the Fuocobono, the Vezzana, and the Pala, and leaving on the left the glacier which descends between the two latter peaks, crosses the back of Monte Castellazzo near the foot of the Pala, and rejoins the high-road. Lovers of Alpine tarns should cross it at right angles and take a track which, starting from the highest chalet on the northern side of the carriage-pass, leads over the broken slopes of Monte Cavallazzo to the Laghi di Colbricon, two blue lakes framed by green fir-clad mounds, over which peer the crests not only of the great Pala but of the more distant Rosengarten and Marmolata. The upper lake lies on the lowest pass between the headwaters of the Cismone and the Travignolo. The descent towards San Martino is at first steep; the mule-track lies some distance to the right, but a footpath a few yards to the left of the lake leads down at once into a picturesque glen. At the foot of the second descent is a 'casera' standing on a green lawn. Seen from this point the great turret-crowned wall is like a vivid but impossible dream of mountain splendour. The sweeping outlines of dark forest form a foreground out of which its rigid flame-coloured ramparts rise like some phantom castle against the Italian blue.
A short walk over hay meadows leads to San Martino di Castrozza, a chapel standing near a substantial building formerly used as a hospice and frontier station, but lately converted into an Alpine 'pension.' It stands on a level meadow near the point where the stream, hitherto tranquil, makes a sudden plunge southwards. Immediately behind the house rises the giant row of Primiero peaks. From the Pala to the Cima Cimedo the whole line is in sight from top to bottom, and the only fault of the view, if it can be called one, is that we are too near the mountains. At Campiglio we long to approach the peaks; here we draw back on to the opposite hillsides, where we may break their outline and see but one or two at a time between the nearer brows.
But a more delightful halting-place I cannot imagine, whether for climbers or idlers. At hand are many easy and shady strolls, and two or three hours places you on the top of the great wall free to climb its crests and explore all the mysteries of the weird tableland which lies behind it. To the south the Sass Maor and Palle di San Martino raise their unconquered, but probably conquerable, peaks. The former at any rate may best be attacked from this side. The road to Primiero sinks in a long descent, terraced along the right-hand hills, and commanding superb and constantly shifting views of the opposite chain.
The path from Agordo, still the most frequented, though no longer since the construction of the carriage-road to Predazzo the easiest, approach to Primiero, has often had injustice done to it in many ways. It has been described on the one hand as shorter than it really is, on the other as a difficult and rugged track; and little justice has been done in any quarter to its great and varied beauty.
Average walkers must allow for the pass seven hours of very 'actual walking,' excluding all those 'petites haltes' which Toppfer justly counted amongst the happiest moments of life, the five or ten minutes' rest in the shade to admire a view or drink a cup of cold water. But for the whole way there is a good mule-path, although, as on almost all mule-paths, there are pieces which no one with the free use of his limbs would by preference ride down. One of the most tiresome of these rough places is the steep hill under the castle of La Pietra. But this the foot-traveller may easily avoid, and at the same time gain some superb views. On leaving La Fiera he will have to cross the river, and pass through the village of Transacqua, one of the cluster which form Primiero, then to climb a very steep little track up the hill immediately behind until he reaches a terrace-path running nearly at a level along the mountain-side. From the first corner one looks back for the last time on the lake-like valley, with its islands of villages and waves of Indian corn. The path then bends along a shelf of meadows, with the whole chain of the dolomites in full view opposite. Further the shelf broadens to a crescent-like plain dotted with châlets lying immediately above the castle of La Pietra, and looking over Count Welsberg's park and away into the heart of Val Pravitale and Val di Canale. Hence a short descent leads back into the regular road above the stoniest part of the ascent, and about halfway between the castle and the pass.