PIZ PISOC.

105

Scliloss Tarasp by a cart-track, mounting steeply atfirst, and then traversing meadows to the entrance ofYal Zuort. At the corner take the higher of two paths,following a watercourse until it reaches the stream.Cross and ascend by an ill-marked track, which soonfails, and leaves you to find your own way throughrhododendron bushes and over stony slopes beside therocky barrier closing the glen. Climb the bank of snowabove the barrier to the level of the Zuort Glacier. Alarge snow-filled cleft now opens among the rocks onthe left, offering an unexpectedly easy means of sur-mounting the lower cliff's of Piz Pisoc. Ascend thisgully for some distance, until, above a slight bend in itsdirection a recess is seen on the left, with a small bedof snow in it divided from the great snow-slope by abank of shale.

This spot is the gate of the mountain. A shortsharp scramble places one on the rocks above the smallsnow-bed, and there is no further difficulty in climbingstraight up them towards the gap at the northern baseof the final peak. A few yards only before reaching it,turn sharply to the right, and, by keeping below theridge and choosing with some care the easiest spots atwhich to pass a succession of low cliffs, the summit willsoon be gained. The blindness and intricacy of theroute form the only difficulty. If the right course ishit off, there is no hard climbing on the mountain, butthe general steepness and abominably loose nature ofits stony slopes render mountaineering experience or agood guide essential.

Of the panorama as a whole I saw, and thereforecan say, nothing. The near view has a strong characterof its own. The cornfields and white villages of the