Sunday Aug. 12
Honey dear: -
Well, we're here - and the trouble is, nobody knows when we can escape! The bus was too full and we couldn't get on, but the Lord provided an American woman who says she'll hold our reservation at the Hotel even if we're late. "They say" another car is coming, but it seems dubious at the moment - also there are rain clouds gathering - also it's cold and there seems no place but the front porch, airy at 9,000 feet +. But, be it said, the Stelvio Pass is all one ever imagined it. And we got up here about 10:30 - it's now 5:00 and it has been a perfectly gorgeous day. We've seen everything! It is amazing to see the war fortifications - trenches & dug-outs and all that! And up here. There are some ruined structures, and many soldiers about, with one path we were not allowed to travel. I think the last trees are at least a mile down, a larch and a dwarf pine we passed on the way up from Trafoi.
That's an amazing road - zig-zags no end, awfully steep. We came up 4000 feet in about 8 miles. That's not unlike the Mt. Washington carriage road, but instead of long, open slopes, there are these countless zig-zags up an awfully steep valley. The view is first up to the glaciers, then back down the valley to the handsome Weiss-kugel. There we turn and come up & up the pass, with the top of the Ortler showing - just like its pictures, a real snow mountain. (My handwriting suffers from the cold!) And there are glaciers and glaciers with boys coasting and ski-ing in a most wonderful way down them - making zig-zag turns while in swift flight - you never saw the like!
Later. I was so cold I had to stop at that point - and soon it began to rain, and still no car came. We went inside and Alice got out her winter coat - I'd had my new Innsbruck cape on top of my thick coat for some time! Well, the car came, but it was raining hard and they didn't like to take the bus down for four of us, so somehow they got a little bright red car, and in we piled! No remarks as to tickets, and we were glad to be without the big suitcases. The road down is more exciting as a road than the one up, worse hairpins, and legions of them at all angles. There is also a trick of disappearing into a precipice, turning a right angle and coming out, only to dash into another rabbit-hole, all this while in the midst of a vertical wall! Cataracts pour down and such stunning walls of a chasm I most never beheld. But the rain came in, some if it hail, and we sped down at about 35 miles an hour, so a few details escaped me! Presently we came out from under the cloud into a sweet sunset light and dropped down on Bormio, where a nice p.o. boy (these buses are p.o. things) adjusted our affairs. The prices for these buses, which are excellent, with cocking [?] good chauffeurs who do hairpins with amazing precision, are very moderate. We had the little red car bring us privately 25 miles down to Tirano where our accommodations were reserved. We came at a flying pace, good road, little traffic, fairly high power, fine sunset light. And from no noticeable vegetation we came in less than two hours to almost southern luxuriance.
That vegetation! Almost unnoticeable, but quantities of things! The place at first looks like desolation - and it is so on the slopes annually bared and covered by the heavy ice (I guess) - they're just debris of rocks, exciting in themselves. But all else has those crevice plants, oh such thousands of anemones! White to red, maybe six inches high, charming and tiny saxifrages, a low daisy, a little blue veronica, a fascinating grass, a sedum, a primula (smaller than our bluets), a lovely little gentian, and more - It was exciting to find them. Where there is more grass there are others, but that darned guard drove me off that slope!
And the mountains. Legions of them. The great Ortler is a king, white crowned, and several of the range are very fine, while other ranges, some reddish orange, some grey with such vast talus slopes, oh, such variety! We had a wonderful day. The slopes were not bad, some of them, so we walked quite a bit in different directions. We got above one small glacier on which the young army men were cavorting on skis and on legs. You should see them gambol over the glacial streams, leaps like a chamois, I'm sure. I expected to see a chamois and an edelweiss any minute, but neither appeared.
We've had dinner - have a fine room and now to bed, for we advance upon Switzerland tomorrow. At the moment it seems to me nothing can be more exciting than "Stilfser Joch" - but of course I'm of open mind! I'm putting in a card or two. [no longer with the letter] And I do wish you could go over that thing. As far as I know I had no altitude effect at all. 9,000 feet ought to knock out some. I saw two folks (there must have been 200 +/- around - I counted 30 cars parked at one time) with blue lips, and either I imagined it or it's so that the permanents, maids, porter &c, have a slightly less clear red color than the valley crowd. Barcroft's Andes natives at around 14,000 are plum color, and everybody who stays there shows that adjustment. The stay at Stelvio is too short for most to notice anything - we surely didn't. But as for sun-burn, there's a good deal! The light was so intense, the sun hot, and a nice cool breeze. Oh, 'twas a great day.
I'll add some more tomorrow.
Aug. 14 - Gletsch. Yesterday was a day and a half - or even two. But we thought we'd rather go hard one day and then stay two nights here than travel everyday. So we rose at an hour when the natives were hardly stirring but the management of the Grand Hotel was up and about, even the manager himself in carpet slippers! We had the best room in the house - and honor was shown us. Even so, the rate was by no means bad - I forget what exactly. 'Twas the 6:10 trolley we got - or so it looked, for the famous Bernina railway is electrified and only one car and a trailer set forth - with a few working men, an English speaking conductor and us! 'Twas a lovely morning, and a charming ascent up thro' chestnuts and other deciduous trees, to the exquisite Lake Poschiavo (sp?) where the white and green slopes were mirrored in hues changed by the blue of the water, a little Italian town (in appearance, though over the border) gave a pink roof or two in the water, to vary the colors. Then we climbed through the conifers, and made extraordinary loops along the mountain side over a torrent - always with wider views. The Bernina snows came nearer and the treeless pass - really all a wonderful ascent. That was one of the places we should have been glad to stop! The descent to Pontresina was not so far - and we had crossed from the valley of the Po (one of its tributaries, the Adda, is at Tirano) to our old friend the Inn - which goes to the Danube and the Black Sea.
From Pontresina a thing that seemed like a shuttle train took us to Samaden and then we started for Reichenau. Ever hear of the Albula Pass? I never did - but it's great. Not much climb, but then a tunnel under the top, and thereafter the show begins! A descent at a ghastly angle in a narrow valley, and when the situation becomes impossible, the train dashes into the mountain, does a spiral downwards, comes out a story lower down that sort of a path ->
The double lines are the streams, the Albula, in a series of waterfalls. After a spell we came down by Filigue [?] and to the valley of the Hinter Rhein - we were in another watershed, whose offerings go to the North Sea! At Reichenau the Vorder Rhein appeared and we took to it, by a series of high chalk cliffs, up into a broader valley where flax was being pulled through a queer contrivance to separate seeds and stalks - by hand! The hay storage changes so, here the barns were bigger and under the projecting gable was a place to cure the fresh hay.
We kept on up the Rhein until there wasn't any - at Oberalp and then came down to Andermatt where we were able - for the first time - to get a few morsels to eat - 5:45 breakfast, 4:15 lunch - very hungry! We had few provisions with us, too.
Next we did the Furka Pass, by the new railway which has a tunnel at the top. That was a flower show, more than a mountain show - such a different flora! Dark red & yellow gentians were advertized, and there they were, quantities of them, the dark red mostly closed, but with a grand color. We reached Gletsch at 6 o'clock - after 4 passes, if you've noted the ascents & descents. We went to bed soon after dinner - grand beds!
This forenoon we went up to the Rhone Glacier - you see we met the start of that river here - we do have fun tracing the water sheds! It is only a half hour from the hotel to the Glacier and it is a big one, a cascade over the steep base of the mountain - a thing maybe 200-300 feet wide at the end, with a huge blue grotto from which a full grown river dashes out. The glacier front may be 45-50 feet high, and there are so many crevasses in it & such wonderful color in them. I do hope the pictures show something. (note. we are now having our wooden shutters drawn in the "Salon" - we had only heavy shades before. It's cold and there is a fire - real comfort!) The stone is good granite - and the water here is almost soft! There is so much hard water in Europe!
At noon there was a grand plan to take a bus up to the Furka Pass and walk down, but the showers got heavy - it's easy to rain here - so the porter advised us to stay here. We might have gone perfectly well! As it was we walked out at 5 o'clock and went up the road a space - and saw a few more flowers.
I'm too sleepy to write any more. Sorry not to do the nice little goats, front end black, back end white, a fair tale - or the tipsy workman on the train who gave us all edelweiss, or the pleasure of having mail - two letters from you, last about July 24.
Oh - I'm sure I paid that August Insurance ahead, so as to have the matter attended to. Please - will you write them and ask them to look it up? I think there is none due in Sept. so I paid July & Aug. together. I don't want to have no bank acc't on returning when I planned to save some. Of course I have the receipt, but I'll not ask you to hunt that. They were told to look out for it. Flora's business will wait. My friend Mr. Quimby thought the estate too small to be taxed! It may not amount to much.
Thank you for the clippings - papers don't get through. Some letters are lost, too, largely around Cortina, I think. I hope you read Eleanor Mason's! It was a good one.
Mr. Stackpole seems to me making changes. I'm sorry to have Mr. Harkness go - he was good. But he was not easy to work with - for his subordinates, anyway. But he did try to get good things. I fear for the milk supply! Well - we'll have to work on Mr. Stackpole as we did on Mr. Adams! And that Faculty House drain! I suppose Mr. Gault was never told by Mr. Barstow about those traps - maybe Mr. B- never knew, but he ought to have known on taking the house over, or Mr. Stacy, or somebody! Plain negligence, that. Over & over we have found the college men not knowing about our building. We tell them where the 220 current is when Mr. Physics lecturer wants to know, or where the high pressure steam is, and such. We do need an efficient overhauling - and maybe it will be done by Mr. Stackpole - time will tell.
I'd like some green peas! Not one good one this summer. We are finding more vegetables here in Switzerland, I think.
Tomorrow to Zermatt. So far our route has been great! I'd like to play around Switzerland and the Austrian Tirol from July 1 to Aug. 15 some year - have about 4 stations and go to each three times for a week! Math. doesn't come out right, but I want to see the flowers at intervals on chalk and on hard rocks - and know something about them.
Lots of love,
Abby -