GAMSBODEN

Gamsboden

THERE is nothing to tell of our walk to the Formarin lake which lies under the precipitous red crags (a kind of marble called Adneter Kalk) of the Rothe Wand and thence to the summit of the grass-topped Formaletsch—nothing, save that the Alpine flowers, not so much the rhododendrons[20] as the yellow violets, were a source of considerable interest to my companion. I could have shown him the scarcer Edelraute (Artemisia mutellina) which grows on some rocks near the east foot of that hill, but preferred taking no risks and did not so much as mention the plant. Here, also, he was able to inspect a flourishing colony of marmots, a quadruped which, in spite of my assurances to the contrary, he had hitherto been disposed to regard as mythological or imaginary.

I chose the Formaletsch because it is from thence—from its southern base; but Mr. R. rightly insisted on going to the top—that, with the help of a good glass, a distant but clear view can be obtained of the scene of my father’s accident while chamois shooting. It occurred, when he was only thirty-six years old, at the Gamsboden heights, so-called from the frequency of chamois to be found there; the place is about a mile off as the crow flies, and on one of its pinnacles you may detect a wooden cross which is perennially renewed by chamois hunters in memory of him; it stands as near to the actual site as most people would care to go. He had just returned from an ascent of the Gross Litzner (or Gross Seehorn)—the second time this peak had ever been climbed (the first was in 1869), and the thing must have happened soon after 7 September, 1874, for that is the date of his last letter to his wife, in which he says: “I shall go shooting for a few days to Spuller and Formarin” (Gamsboden lies midway between these two lakes); “if I delay, I may not be able to traverse any longer the upper grounds, because snow falls there so often and so early.” Now hard by that wooden cross is a black precipice which scars the mountain from top to bottom; this is the spot; he fell while attempting to cross the scar, or else, while standing immediately above it on some soil which gave way under his weight; the former is probably the truth. I enquired, but have never heard of any one else essaying the same feat; for my own part, nothing would induce me to proceed more than a couple of yards on that particular surface. For even at our distance of a mile you may guess what it consists of: it is the foul sooty shale called Algäu-Schiefer, perfidious and friable stuff, not to be called rock at all save in the geological sense of the word.

Slopes covered by ice or snow have their dangers, so have those decked with the innocent-looking dry grass which, for reasons I cannot explain, is so abhorrent to me that I will make any detour to avoid them; all three of these can be tackled by firm feet and the help of an ax-head as grapnel or for step-cutting. Nothing is to be done, either with feet or with artificial appliances, on an even moderate incline of such Liassic shale, for it yields to pressure and slides down, and this is where a chamois has the advantage over us. A man may scramble about honest crags like a fly on a wall, as securely as any chamois though not so fast; on precipices of the crumbling Algäu-Schiefer the animal leaps, and leaps again before the stuff has gathered momentum, and what shall man do? Avoid them, until he has acquired the capacity of bouncing like a chamois; in other words, like an indiarubber ball.

Indeed, shifting material of every kind is objectionable and fraught with peculiar horrors. Up behind Bludenz you may see a row of limestone cliffs called Elser Schröfen, whose foot is defended by a “talus” of rubble which has slowly dropped down from the heights above; and a pretty thing it is, by the way, when you look closely at natural features like this talus, to observe with what flawless accuracy they have been constructed; how these fragments of detritus pass in due order through all gradations of size down the slanting surface, from minute particles like sand at the top to the mighty blocks that form their base. Once, long ago, I conceived the playful project of crossing this rubble-slope from end to end, just below the cliffs. I started on its inclined plane, but had not gone far before realizing the situation. The talus reposed, as it naturally would repose if left to accumulate undisturbed; that is, at the sharpest allowable angle against the cliffs, its upper barrier. It soon struck me as being rather a steep gradient, and not only steep but ominously alive—ready to gallop downhill on a hint from myself; the mere weight of my body could set the whole mass in movement and hurl me along in a rocky flood. While making this sweet reflection I found, with dismay, that it was already too late to turn back; the least additional pressure on one foot might start the mischief; once started, nothing would arrest that deluge; its beginning, without a doubt, was going to be my end.

I was in for a ticklish business. Rush down the slope diagonally and evoke the landslide but anticipate its arrival? Even that was courting disaster. I preferred to remain in the upper regions and there finished the long journey, with curious deliberation, on all fours, in order to distribute my weight; and then only by a miracle. It was one of those occasions on which one has ample leisure to look into the eye of death, and I now wish somebody could have taken a photograph of me—a colored one, by preference; one would like to possess a record of the exact tint of one’s complexion during half hours of this kind. Whoso, therefore, intends to traverse the same place would be well-advised to adopt my method of locomotion; the upright posture is not to be recommended. A pleasant farewell to all things! Never a button of you to be seen again; to be caught in a swirl, a deafening cataract of stones and, after snatching en passant a few grains of scientific comfort at the thought that your human interference had modified—if only temporarily—the angle of a talus, which is not everybody’s affair, to be buried alive at the bottom under an imposing heap of débris.[21] ...