The Engadine

by Spencer C. Musson

Two roads, one from the village and one from the baths, and numerous paths, direct and digressive, lead from St. Moritz to Camfer, standing on the uppermost of the three rocky steps that divide the Upper Engadine into as many lake-basins. The upper lake has been divided into three by detritus brought down from the Val Fex at Sils and from the Julier and Surlej at Silvaplana, the mid-lake at St Moritz has shrunk to a remnant of its former self, while the lower lake has entirely disappeared, tapped by the gorge that the Inn has cut from the Upper to the Lower Engadine.

The origin of such lakes has long been a problem. The most authoritative conclusion seems to be that in the slow tectonic wrinkling of the earth's crust bars have been raised across the course of a river, which has thus been dammed up into a lake and drowned its former bed. Of course, a crustal subsidence might have had the same effect, or the two movements may have been combined.

A mile and a half beyond Camfer is Silvaplana, seated on the green promontory by which the silt of the Ova del Vallun descending from the Julier Pass, seconded on the opposite side by streams from the Surlej, has cut the original lake in two. A picturesque wooden bridge spans the channel still left to the Inn between the deltas of its furious tributaries; in the background rises Piz Margna, a glacier filling the cleft in its broad head.

The sylvan shades commemorated in the name of Silvaplana have long given place to flowery meadows, which now cover the broad holm that the Ova del Vallun has thrust into the lake. High above the village the vehement stream is commandeered for the electrical supply of the valley. By the side of the works is a water-wheel, the earliest and the latest harnessing of water-power, a striking illustration of the return of industry to its oldest helpmate. It will be a curious instance of history repeating itself if manufactures again plant themselves by streams as in the days before water-wheels were superseded by steam. Population may one day be as congested in the beautiful highlands that are now the playground of the nations as in the great coal-basins. Happily the 'white coal,' as the Swiss call their water-power, deals more sympathetically with nature than the black. What a contrast to our factories and gasworks is this trim little building at Silvaplana, with its aqueduct of ruddy larch, and the fine cascade from the overflow of its reservoir. It is as though the grimy palm of Vulcan were replaced by the light finger of Apollo.

The raison d'être of Silvaplana was the Julier Pass. Before the construction of the railway, this was a frequent route for entering the Engadine, which makes a much more striking first impression here than from the Albula. After emerging from the grey desolation of the two upper reaches of the descent, a superb view of the Bernina peaks and the ice-fields is gradually disclosed. More and more the panorama is extended to the right, first by the Fex peaks and glaciers, and finally by the massive Margna. The one thing lacking is the Engadine; we seem to have arrived in a land of serried and far-spread mountains, in which there is no place for the valley of the Inn. So precipitous are its sides at this point that no suggestion is given of the broad lake-filled chasm intervening between the immediate foreground and the sombre rampart that rises to those glistening fields and summits. At length we are among the first outposts of the forest, gaunt pines and battered larch, scourged by centuries of storm; suddenly we see through the foliage the glint of water and of verdure; a moment after, and the lovely valley from Sils to St. Moritz, with lakes and forests, meadows and clustered homes, is stretched before us.

It is a pleasant walk from Silvaplana to the pass, a broad saddle of bog and pasture, flecked with snow, seamed with rivulets, and bright with abundant flora. The tarns on the left are stocked with trout in spite of being sealed with ice and buried in snow for half the year. A path from the dairy of the Julier Alp takes us in three hours to the summit of the Piz Julier, where, 'walled by wide air and roofed by boundless heaven,' we have an extensive and splendid view.

Another delightful walk from Silvaplana, as from most places in the Upper Engadine, is to the Fuorcla Surlej. This saddle between Piz Corvatsch and Munt Arias is equally accessible from Silvaplana, Sils, St. Moritz, and Pontresina; it thus affords a pleasant way of going from any place in the main valley to the Bernina side-valley.

The road up the valley from Silvaplana lies straitly between the left shore of the lake and the mountains that rise precipitously from it. Walkers will do well, after Camfer, to take the path that skirts the lakes on the right side of the valley, every step of which is beautiful. It leads now under shady trees, now over parklike or rock-strewn slopes; picks its way along precipitous hillsides, amid many-hued crags, set with steadfast-rooted pine and larch, festooned with red roses, inlaid with dwarf rhododendron, blue clematis, and countless lovely flowers; occasionally may be found masses of the rare and stately Alpine columbine. On the right are the ever-changing waters of the lakes, or the flat, emblossomed meadows that separate them.

Not quite three miles from Silvaplana the high-road passes the little hamlet of Sils Baselgia, so called from the ancient church, the basilica of the neighbourhood, that stands, 'a grief-worn memory of old years,' in a flat meadow by the tranquil Inn.