Where a barrier of rock completely closed the glen we began to climb the southern hillside, zigzagging steeply amidst wet mossy crags and the tangled branches of a wood of creeping pines. The path suddenly reached the rim of an upper platform lying in the centre of the great peaks. Hitherto we had been wandering amidst woods and over broken ground, whence no general view could be gained. But the lawn on which we now lay was in the very heart of things. Full opposite to us rose a colossal rock, one of the most prodigious monuments of Nature's forces. Its lower portion rose in diminishing stories like the Tower of Babel of old Bible pictures. Above it was a perfect precipice, an upright block, the top of which was 4,000 to 4,500 feet above our heads. Behind this gigantic keep a vast mountain fortress stretched out its long lines of turrets and bastions. But as we approached its base the great tower rose alone and unsupported, and the boldness of its outline became almost incredible. It fairly challenges comparison with the Matterhorn from the Hörnli, or the Cimon della Pala from above Paneveggio; and it combines to a great extent the noble solidity of the Swiss peak with the peculiar upright structure which gives dolomite its strange resemblance to human architecture.
But if the central object of the picture was enough to keep our attention fixed in growing astonishment, there was much else which called for notice. On our left was a second massive rock castle, the Cima di Brenta, connected with the Cima Tosa by the Fulmini di Brenta, a long line of flame-like pinnacles of the strangest shapes, some of them seeming to bulge near the top like a Russian steeple. Before us, between one of the loftiest of these spires and the Cima Tosa, lay a deep snowy gap which I pointed out as the Bocca di Brenta. Our peasant guide at once corrected me; he declared that the only passage to Molveno was to be found at the head of a long glacier ribbon crumpled up amongst the cliffs of the Tosa. As he professed to have stood on the summit and looked down the other side, we were unwillingly forced to believe him.
A very steep goat-track led us through rhododendron bushes to the level of the glacier, from which no visible stream came forth. After traversing a huge and unusually crumbling moraine, we entered upon the ice which, though steep, was little crevassed. The rock scenery was now most extraordinary. On either hand a line of ramparts rose sheer out of the glacier in precipices of mingled murky red and ashy-tinted grey; behind us lay the massive block of the Cima di Brenta, its precipices relieved by slender snow-streaks. In the distance was the Orteler group, with ominous clouds hanging about its summits. As we penetrated further the valley of ice rose in long steep steps before us. Overcoming these by the occasional use of the axe we reached a recess, the reservoir of the winter snows, at the back of the great tower of the Cima Tosa. On the right was a well-marked gap, which the guide pointed out as the Bocca. We were soon standing on it; at the same moment a pair of horns appeared on the opposite side, and we found ourselves face to face with a chamois. For some seconds we stared at the animal, and it at us, in mutual surprise. The moment some one spoke the chamois started off over the snow-field, and when we shouted after it took to the almost perpendicular rocks of the Cima Pra dei Camozzi, halting occasionally for a moment at François' whistle.