Climbing The Ortler.

The Stelvio Road And One Of The Ortler Glaciers.

The Stelvio Road, Seen From The Ortler.

All carriage traffic ceases here at the beginning of October. Those who attempt to cross it after that on foot know that they do so at the peril of their lives. Yet every year the Stelvio claims its victims. For every autumn, thousands of Italian laborers, who have spent the summer in Switzerland or Austria, return by one of the great passes. Some of them start too late, and are overtaken by a tempest on the winding route. What such a storm can be at these great elevations, even in October, the reader of the author's Swiss experience on the St. Bernard may possibly recall. Moreover, these poor Italians are all thinly clad, with usually nothing on their shoulders but a sack containing bread, a flask of wine, and the small savings they are carrying to their families. Hence, if an Alpine blizzard bursts upon them, they are liable to perish quickly. The snow at such a height does not descend in large flakes, leisurely, as in the valleys. It is a whirlwind of sharp particles of ice, which cut the skin and penetrate the clothing like a frozen sand. The hair, beard, eyes, and ears are filled with it. The very eyelashes are turned to miniature icicles. Bewildered by the blinding sleet, the wretched victims can no longer see the road, still less the gulf that yawns beneath it; and, after staggering on for a few paces, freezing, benumbed, and beaten into breath-lessness by the resistless wind, they sink at last with a despairing moan into the whirling snow, which in a moment wraps them in a shroud. Happily, in such cases, torpor quickly lulls them to a sleep from which they pass unconsciously to death. Next spring, when the returning sun melts the great mounds of ice away, their bodies will be found, unnamed, unclaimed, and un-remembered - poor, fallen soldiers in humanity's hard battle for existence.

Stelvio Serpentines.

The Trafoi Valley And The Ortler.

Occasionally, on this route, the patient horses have to rest; sometimes for a few moments only, as at the point of observation known as the "White Knot," where, on a bluff directly opposite the Ortler, an obelisk has been erected to the honor of Joseph Pichler, the first to reach its icy crest in 1804. A longer halt of about two hours must be made at Franzenshöhe, where tourists arriving from the Tyrolese side find a good meal awaiting them at the mountain inn. Then comes the last ascent of about two thousand feet, accomplished by six miles of winding curves. Yet these repeated zigzags are not in the least monotonous; for with each loop of the ascending road we gain a broader vista, until the climax is attained when we at last emerge upon the crest, and find ourselves on the triangular apex of three countries, - the Empire of Austria, the Kingdom of Italy, and the Commonwealth of Switzerland.

A Cradle Of The Storms: Thurweisergipfel Near The Stelvio.