It took us two days to regain the railway at Ponte Leggia, and for those two days our sole provisions consisted of rather less than a pound of porridge and a little tea and sugar; a fault in organisation to which we frankly confessed at the little station restaurant at Ponte Leggia by purchasing several square meals rolled into one. On April 4 we arrived at Calacuccia. Max joined us on the 5th, and the following days were spent in exploring the Cinto group to the north-west of Calacuccia and in selecting a suitable site for a camp. Eventually our choice fell upon the Viro Valley which, in an island rich in the beauty of rugged mountain scenery and wild vegetation, is one of the grandest and most charming.
On April 10 we left the little Hôtel des Voyageurs, where we had received much kindness at the hands of the proprietress, Madame Veuve Lupi. A mule and his driver were entrusted with kit and provisions—a heavy load. The mule was lazy and needed much and continual urging. The Corsicans seldom strike their animals. If a grumbling “Huh! Huh!” has not the desired effect, the driver spits on the mule’s hindquarters—and a trot is almost invariably the result. As a rule, a whip is worse than useless; it only produces a wild fit of panicky bucking. The day was hot and sultry. The mule-driver had soon emptied his wine-flask and, as he disdained to allay his thirst with the crystal-clear water of the many mountain streams we passed, his supply of saliva eventually failed. The pace of the mule fell off accordingly.
At Albertacce, a hamlet near the entrance of the Viro Valley, we halted to pay our respects to the priest, who was also head man of the place, and make arrangements about our mail. Before we had taken our leave, the rumour had spread that we were skilled physicians, and we had to resign ourselves to treating nearly half the inhabitants for all manner of ills, imaginary and real. Sodium bicarbonate, bismuth subnitrate, calomel or quinine were administered in homœopathic doses. A week later, homeward-bound, we returned through Albertacce and had thrust upon us the homage and thanks of the entire population. The prescribed treatment had, in every single case, effected a complete cure—another example of how a reputation may be made.
Half an hour below the selected camping site, patches of snow were met with. The first extensive snow patch proved too much for both mule and driver. The Corsicans have a real terror of walking in snow; they fear that at any moment they may sink in and be suffocated. So we had to dismiss our burden bearers and make shift to carry our loads into camp ourselves. In the heart of the forest, on a little snow-free plot of ground hard by the left bank of the river, we pitched the tent. To the south-west rose the great precipices of Paglia Orba, the grandest summit in the great chain of mountains which in the form of a gigantic horseshoe shuts in the valley of the River Viro.
On the following day at 8 a.m. we left camp, crossed the foaming waters of the torrent—not without getting more or less drenched in the process—and spent the next two hours in steadily plodding up the snow slopes to the Col de Foggiale,[1] a depression on the ridge south of Paglia Orba. The work at first was distinctly hard, for the surface crust of frozen snow was not always sufficiently strong to bear one’s weight. As the lower mountain slopes in Corsica are usually covered with a dense undergrowth or maquis, breaking the snow crust meant plunging right through into a thick tangle of vegetation, extrication from which was possible often only after a struggle. Higher up, fortunately, the snow became firmer and we seldom broke through. The approach to the col was defended by a huge overhanging cornice of snow through which we had to tunnel a way with the axe. The charm of the view from the col lay in the contrast between the whiteness of snow-covered mountain and the deep blue of sea. Capo Tafonato (7,700 feet), however, a mountain whose praises we had often read, presented a disappointing appearance. Judging from the map, we had expected to see it standing boldly up in front of us on the far side of a fairly wide valley. It stood, however, a low rock ridge possessing no daring outlines and partially hidden behind Paglia Orba. Nevertheless, two features commanded our respect; no snow was lying on the peak, a sign that the wall opposite us was very steep; and we could see right through a tremendous hole or natural tunnel which pierced the mountain from one side to the other, indicating that the unseen side was also steep and that the summit ridge must be proportionately narrow. After a short rest, we traversed over frozen snow slopes round the base of Paglia Orba to the gap between it and Capo Tafonato. Here we had a short discussion as to the route to be followed, finally deciding to take the right hand or north ridge straight up from the gap and to traverse the whole mountain from north to south. We roped and were soon at work climbing the very steep and firm rocks. Following a spiral staircase of easy chimneys and ledges round the northern, the higher of the two summits, we reached the top after an hour’s brisk climbing. After a brief halt to gaze down over the tremendous precipices of the west face towards the sea, we re-arranged the rope and set off to make an attack on the gap of formidable appearance that separated us from the southern summit. This looked just like a much magnified blunt needle point. To our surprise we were able to descend into the gap without encountering any serious difficulty, and followed the extremely narrow, but on the whole easy, ridge to the southern summit which was crowned by a diminutive cairn. Now followed a descent into another gap over very rotten rocks and an imposing, but easy, gendarme.[2] All the while we could not help admiring the steepness and depth of the walls on the western side of the mountain. Soon after passing the gendarme, we came to a great overhanging buttress in the ridge, at the top of which a hanging coil of rope indicated that the last climbers to descend here had made use of the doubled rope. The coil was thin and bleached with exposure, so we cut it off and stowed it in our rucksacks as a trophy, to be returned, if possible, to its late owners. We fixed a new coil, passed our rope through it and slid down some fifty feet on to an uncomfortably sloping ledge. Here we found driven into a crack in the rock a large, rusty iron nail to which some coils of strong, silken cord were attached. Threading the rope through these, we again slid down about sixty feet to a broad snow ledge on the east face. After hauling down the rope, we followed the continuation of this ledge in a northerly direction and gained the floor of the immense tunnel that pierces Cape Tafonato from east to west. A series of ledges and chimneys brought us safely back to the gap where the climb had begun, the whole traverse having taken nearly five hours.
The southern summit of Capo Tafonato.
“... like a much magnified blunt needle point.”
Facing page 28.