Part 21 (1/2)
To many who visit Tyrol the most interesting district of this delectable land is the Dolomite region, which forms by far the greater part of the South Tyrol Highlands and offers not only unique opportunities for climbers, but also much impressive and beautiful scenery.
It is only in comparatively recent years that the Dolomite of south-eastern Tyrol has become a popular holiday-ground of tourists and travellers. But a few decades ago it was--except to geologists, a few artists, mining experts, and the more enterprising climbers--a _terra incognita_, a region scarcely more known to the general travelling public than the centre of Africa. Even nowadays it is far less frequented by western European holiday-makers than it deserves to be.
Formerly there was some excuse for an ignorance and neglect which a lack of easy transit, good roads, and railways to near-by points might be held to condone. But at the present time so much has been done to throw open this fascinating mountain district to the traveller, rest-seeker, and artist that the excuse can no longer be urged.
Concerning the climate, scenery, people, and accommodation now offered to travellers, much can be said in praise. Indeed, regarding all of these, it would be difficult to say everything one might without running the risk of being accused of partiality or exaggeration.
In this portion of Tyrol (as, indeed, may be said also of others) one still meets with hospitality and courtesy at inns and rest-houses which are not chiefly based upon the expectation of personal aggrandis.e.m.e.nt or monetary reward, just as one still finds quietude wedded to splendid scenery and beautiful prospects not yet exploited.
In the Dolomite region, though its popularity is yearly increasing, one can yet happily meet with comfortable hotels, which are not overrun by the type of tourist for whom a good dinner is more than fresh air and scenery, and dress clothes and gorgeous costumes of an evening a _sine qua non_. In a word, we have found that the Dolomite region is free from many of the disadvantages of Switzerland--that most exploited of European countries, and the one in which nowadays perhaps the least quietude and rest is to be found--and provides a playground for the mere pedestrian as well as a most attractive region for the exercise of the climbing instinct.
It must be admitted, however, that in the less frequented pa.s.ses and valleys one has occasionally to ”rough” it in a mild kind of way, and that one needs to be a good and enduring walker to ”do” the region on foot. But although some of the inns in the lesser known valleys are yet somewhat primitive, the cooking is usually good, and the beds, though the linen may be coa.r.s.e, will be found almost without exception spotlessly clean.
It may be added that French is of little use in the Dolomites, except in the hotels at the most frequented tourist resorts, such as Toblach, Cortina, Karer See, Bozen, etc., Italian and German being generally spoken--the former almost everywhere in the region; the latter chiefly in the Gader Thal, Grodener Thal, and the district north of the Ampezzo Thal; although in scattered hamlets south of the latter, here and there one finds peasants speaking both.
The Dolomite region is most accessible from the Venetian frontier, Bozen, or Bruneck; and the true Dolomite district, which contains all that is most magnificent as regards scenery and attractiveness to the mountaineer and geological student, lies midway between the points we have mentioned, and covers the comparatively small area of some fifty miles by forty miles.
Even nowadays there remain many peaks in the Dolomites yet untrodden by the foot of, at least, modern man, as well as numberless delightful paths amid exquisite scenery, where flowers carpet the earth and tiny streams make their water-music. Along which by-ways, from sunrise to sunset, one can travel amid the great silence of the hills without meeting a single fellow-wayfarer. Many of the summits are upwards of 10,000 feet in height, and they who first climb their rocky walls, deeply fissured sides, and ice- and snow-clad peaks, will have accomplished tasks not inferior to those performed by the intrepid mountaineers of the past who have scaled the great heights of the Alps or the Himalayas.
[Sidenote: THEORIES OF ORIGIN]
Ever since geologists have speculated and argued concerning the origin and nature of natural phenomena, there has been a conflict of opinion amongst Tyrolese, German, and French geologists in particular concerning the Dolomites. But although speculations have been many, and various plausible theories have from time to time been advanced, it may, we think, safely be said that none have been absolutely proved or universally accepted. Baron Richthofen is perhaps the ablest exponent of what is commonly known as the Coral Reef theory of origin, and this has of late years been largely accepted by leading geologists of different nationalities.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ALPENWIESE, ON THE SEISER ALP]
Baron Richthofen bases his theory chiefly upon the following points: ”(A) The isolated nature of the mountains themselves, and the fact that their sides are frequently so steep and clear-cut as to preclude any suggestion that they have been so made by the ordinary processes of attrition, and that in general form they resemble atolls. (B) That in their substance there are often found fossils and deposits of a strictly marine character very closely resembling those found in coral reefs; in addition to which the configuration shown by many of the peaks is almost exactly similar to that found in the coral reefs of to-day, with precipitous and almost perfectly vertical sides, where they would have been (if the coral-reef theory is the correct one) constantly scoured by the tide, and with much less precipitous sides on the inner or lee side. (C) The fact that there is no trace discernible of any volcanic origin. (D) They also, in their general shape and lines, enclose s.p.a.ces in a similar way to that which coral reefs invariably enclose.” There are many other points of resemblance advanced in Mr. G. C. Churchill's exhaustive ”Physical Description of the Dolomite District,” into which it is, however, unnecessary here to enter more deeply.
Of the Schlern, the magnificent peak which rises from so wild and picturesque a wooded ravine to a height of 8402 feet, Baron Richthofen makes the positive a.s.sertion that it is a coral reef, and that its entire formation is owing, like that of the ”Atolls” of the Pacific and Indian Oceans, to animal activity and deposit.
The Dolomites, which may be said to stretch between the Eisack, Etsch, and Puster-Thal towards the south-east, and extend over the Tyrol border into the Venetian district, derive their name from the well-known geologist, Dolomieu, who lived in the eighteenth century, and during the latter part of it travelled extensively in Tyrol, and was the first to call the attention of scientists and others to the peculiar structural formation of the southern mountain ranges. It may be briefly here said that their material is largely limestone, but is distinguished from the other chalky Alps by a special admixture of magnesia. The fact that long ages ago the sea must have covered this region, and did so for a period of long continuance, is proved by the circ.u.mstance that, when climbing, one often finds on the very summits of the highest peaks fossilized sea-sh.e.l.ls. Many authorities are inclined to the belief that some at least of the Dolomites have been a.s.sisted in their growth, if not actually formed, by volcanic agencies, and this theory is borne out by the fact that craters are traceable in some of them even to-day. But whatever may be the true origin of these magnificent peaks, there can be no doubt regarding their unique formation.
It may be urged by some that the Dolomites do not possess the severe and apparently unapproachable majesty of the snow-clad Middle Alps, with their mighty glaciers and fields of perpetual snow; but as regards their beauty of colour, the wildness of their romantic scenery, closely connected with the most lovely and panoramic of landscapes, they are unequalled, just as the climate of the district in which they stand is delightful and invigorating.
In this comparatively small area one has a variety of scenery unsurpa.s.sed by any, so far as we know, on the Continent of Europe.
Within the confines of the Dolomite region one has the wide range of lofty mountains and terrific cliffs, in places reminding the traveller of the canons of the Rocky Mountains, with pinnacles, battlements, and towers, rearing themselves on every hand like ruined and t.i.tanic fortresses, yet with their wildness softened in a measure by their beauty of colour when gilded by the sunrise or bathed in roseate hue of sunset light. Between the lofty peaks which rise skyward into the very vault of heaven, as it seems to the wayfarer at their feet, stretch lovely, winding Alpine valleys, often well-wooded and with turf of a most delightful greenness strewn with myriads of Alpine blossoms. Through valleys sweet with the odours of pinewoods and flowers run rus.h.i.+ng torrents or more quietly flowing streams, which often have their origin in tiny, dark-blue Alpine lakes set amid environing pine forests, in whose tranquil waters are reflected the towering rocks and secluded woods which surround them.
To these beautifully situated spots, which are peopled by happy and friendly disposed peasants, come year by year an increasing number of travellers from other countries of Europe and from America, flocking into all the more frequented parts intent upon enjoying the beautiful scenery over which hangs, during the summer months, a vault of deep-blue sky, looking all the bluer by contrast with the snow-clad Dolomite peaks, whose grandeur and fascinating beauty are not easily forgotten by those who have once gazed upon them.
[Sidenote: TOURING FACILITIES]
One of the great advantages of touring in the Dolomites to pedestrians, and cyclists more especially--although cycling provides plenty of ”collar-work”--is the wonderful network of roads which cross the country in all directions. The surface of these roads is generally excellent, although several of them reach alt.i.tudes of between five and six thousand feet above the sea. The gradients have been well seen to, the road ascending by winding curves up the hillsides mostly by such easy stages as enable them to be traversed either on foot, in a carriage, motor-car, or even on a bicycle without much difficulty or fatigue. In this manner one reaches the open, sunny plateaux and ridges which serve to divide the separate groups of mountains one from the other, where the traveller can almost always find accommodation in good modern hotels or in well-arranged and modernized inns.
It is in the possession of these numerous well-managed and excellently appointed hotels and inns that the Dolomite region excels; and they are of such variety as regards size and the kind and cost of accommodation which can be obtained at them, that almost all tastes and purses can be suited. This has been more especially the case during the last decade, in which new routes have been opened up, and further and adequate hotel accommodation provided. Huge buildings, affording every possible comfort and modern convenience, patronized by the wealthy visitor, hotels on a less grand scale, suited to the requirements of the well-to-do middle cla.s.ses, and yet more modest, though not less well-managed and comfortable, establishments, where for an almost incredibly small sum pedestrians and tourists of more restricted means can obtain excellent food, are all to be found in the Dolomite region. In the larger hotels at the more noted resorts, of course, one finds much the same ”life” as that prevailing at such places as Ischl, Semmering, Pontresina, St. Moritz, and Lucerne, where bands play during dinner, ladies wear elaborate Parisian toilettes, men dress for dinner, and climbing is, for most of the visitors, quite a secondary consideration to that of enjoying ”smart” society. In the smaller places one finds greater simplicity and, to our thinking, greater charm, with more of the life of the people in evidence and less of the exotic.
But the Dolomites themselves present many attractions to the climber, and yet provide numerous ascents which can be undertaken by the comparatively untrained and inexperienced. This is largely owing to the fact that they consist chiefly of isolated groups of mountains of great height, but which, owing to their isolation, are not approached by long and toilsome journeys ere the actual climbing itself commences, such as is often the case with the greater peaks of the Central Alps. Numbers of the higher ones, reaching to upwards of 9000 feet in height, may be ascended without any great fatigue by well-made paths, thus providing for the tourists who are not expert climbers plenty of exercise with just those elements of adventure and inspiration which prove the greatest charms to all climbers, and the reward at the end which comes to those who penetrate the higher regions of a purer atmosphere, and a larger outlook upon the glorious beauties of mountainous districts.
There are, of course, many other Dolomite summits which can only be ascended, and should only be attempted, by practised and hardy climbers, for whom great heights and the risks attending their ascent possess no terrors. It is generally conceded that the district provides both for the inexperienced and most experienced climbers some of the most interesting mountain ascents in Europe. In the Dolomite region, especially of recent times, climbing has made extraordinary progress. Summits, the ascent of which a few years ago was looked upon as a great achievement by even good climbers, are now scaled by numbers of people every year; and each year brings additions to the conquered peaks, some of which were a decade ago looked upon as absolutely unclimbable, and likely to remain so.
The Dolomites are, indeed, gradually becoming as well known to climbers and would-be climbers of even the countries of Western Europe as are the Swiss Alps, and annually a larger number of lovers of Alpine scenery take their holidays in this region; and of late years the district has been visited by many even in winter time. In summer, although much accommodation has already been provided for tourists, it is, up to the present, decidedly insufficient for all the visitors who flock to this region during the months of July, August, and September.