Tyrol and the Skirt of the Alps (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1880 Excerpt: ...greeted my eyes before. The vast grim glacier of the Marmolata was close before us, the conical peak of Tofana shut out the Ampezzo Valley, and the giants of Tyrol, from Vorarlberg to the Carinthian border, from the Ober Pinzgau range to the Venetian Alps, stood in thick array on every side. With a later and more difficult experience in my mind, I commend the Coll di Rondella to those who would see this company of mountains all unshorn of their grandeur, their majesty measured by the stern scale of the overtopping Lang Kofel and the Titanic peaks of the Sella, which stand out a full half mile above their fringe of stunted pines. Its easy climb was the best-rewarded excursion that I made in Tyrol. The constant down-hill drive to Waidbrnck in broad daylight revealed the superb details of this most charming of mountain roads, which our evening ascent had hardly more than suggested. It is as picturesque as the Wissahickon and as grand as the White Mountain Flume, and everywhere noisy with the rush of the mad Grodner Bach, which pours its foaming flood through a channel piled with huge rocks. Its scenery is unique among mountain valleys, as are its people among the secluded communities of the far-away corners of the world. CHAPTER XI. AT THE FOOT OF THE GREAT RANGE. We had regarded the Puster Thal too lightly. One is disposed to consider a valley where a railway has been built as necessarily tame and unromantic. Even our knowledge of the M ild route of the Brenner road had not chastened us of this heresy. The Puster Thal is in its way unsurpassed. Beginning at Franzensfeste, 2500 feet above the sea, it climbs on to a height of over 4000 feet at the Toblach plain, and thence descends to 2250 feet at Lienz. It is the main stem of the chief system of valleys in Sou...