Retracing William Wordsworth's Route Over the Simplon in 1790 (a version written by Roger Meyenberg and Patrick Vincent on www.rc.umd.edu/features/features/simplon/)

 

In August 2001, we hiked Wordsworth's route over the Simplon Pass in order to get a better sense of the experience described so splendidly in Book VI of The Prelude, but also to evaluate the condition of the trail today, and to establish, of several reconstructed versions of the hike, which route Wordsworth and Robert Jones most likely followed.

 

Wordsworth and Jones began their hike across the Simplon on the morning of August 17, 1790. They used what is today known as the Stockalper trail, named after Baron Stockalper, who controlled trade over the Alps in the late seventeenth century. Along much of the itinerary, the trail avoids both the old Napoleonic road, completed in 1805, and the 1970s road currently in use. This mule track (“Strada vecchia” on Giuseppe Pozzi’s map of 1834) had been the standard route over the Simplon since the Middle Ages, during the lifetime of Stockalper (1609-1691) until the beginning of the nineteenth century when Nicolas Céard completed the present Napoleonic road in 1805. We were pleased to find out that much of the original route used by Wordsworth is still intact or in the process of being restored.

 

By the time they reached Brig, the two companions already had a month's walking in their legs, enabling them to ascend "the Simplon's steep and rugged road" (Prelude 1850 VI 563) to the pass in less than five hours, before the even longer walk down on the other side. The Stockalper trail has its start in Brig at Stockalper's castle. Leaving Brig (678m) they ascended the Stockalper trail passing Brei (875m), finally reaching Schallberg (1316m) a good 90 minutes later. The trail descends down to a wooded valley where they came across the tiny hamlet Grund (1071m), later described by Dorothy as a "lovely spot, which could not breed a thought but of pastoral life, and peace, and contentment” (Journals II 266).

 

From here the track rises steadily up a mountain glen encompassed by a picturesque larch forest. All along the way they were accompanied by the monotonous sound of the Taferna, a mountain rivulet that merges with the Saltina at Grund. Francis Kinloch, who crossed the Alps in 1804 coming from Italy, recalled in his Letters from Switzerland and France (1821) how he descended "through a continued forest of pines, amid a number of clear and rapid streams, which rushing along to join the torrent that roared below, contributed to animate and diversify the scene."

 

As Wordsworth described it, the trail “led at once to the bed of a stream which was to be our Companion to the Valais; and we were in the shade of a pine forest. The stream now small, and sounding cheerfully, filled all the space at the bottom of the glen. Pine-trees cover the upright hills, seeming to touch the sky, yet the broad highway which we had quitted, though at the first wholly out of sight, is over still higher ground. It was a pleasing thought, after looking in vain to espy that road, that we were enclosed among the natural solitudes of the Alps unmastered by the equalizing contrivances of men. ... meanwhile the voice of the stream, never turbulent, might always be listened to. Larch trees among the pines, though less frequent than yesterday, when we had first the pleasure of seeing that tree in its native mountain fastnesses. Some of the pines are magnificently tall.”  (Journals II 263-264)

 

On their way up the Taferna ravine Wordsworth and Jones passed Mittubäch (1452m) before they reached the Taferna Inn (1597m), "Tavernette" on Pozzi's map, after a 3-hour hike. The inn was the usual halting place for travellers. Located on the trail and several hundred meters below the road, it is no longer in use and is therefore easily missed today. Like Stockalper's muleteers, Wordsworth and Jones perhaps stopped here for a rest and may even have had their famous "noon's repast" (Prelude 1805 VI 500) after which the muleteers abandoned them. The inn, a small stone building dating back to 1684, and Johannely Fy, the innkeeper in Stockalper's days notorious for watering down the wine she sold at the tavern, are both still part of the local folklore.

 

After leaving the Taferna Inn (1597m) the trail ascends quite dramatically for about 2 kilometers (bee-line) until they finally reached the pass itself (2006m). From the Simplon Pass (2006m) the trail descends gradually to the Old Spittel (1870m), then further down through delightful forests, meadows, and hamlets, such as Maschihüs, through Simplon village (1572m) and down to the hamlet of Gabi (1228m). Right before Gabi, the trail fades off today.

 

Based on Dorothy's Journals (260-261), it seems quite clear where Wordsworth and Jones lost their way — rather than dipping left into the Gondo ravine right after Gabi, the original mule trail shoots straight up a second, lower range of mountains. The reason why Wordsworth may have been misled into thinking that he had not yet crossed the Alps is that during the four hour walk from the pass to Gabi, one faces this mountain, the Feeerberg, which, in bad weather particularly, does indeed seem "lofty" (1850 VI 548). The route they were following goes up the Feerberg to the Furggu (1872m), then down to Zwischbergen (1435m) and Gondo (855m) was in fact the standard muleteer trail in 1790. So Wordsworth and Jones were not altogether lost: they were simply following the old, safer route that takes four hours longer to reach Gondo, which is why the local "peasant" (Prelude 1805 VI 513) told them to take the shortcut through the Gondo gorge.[6]

 

The "trail" into the ravine is complicated to follow today, starting as in 1790 in the river-bed itself, then snaking higher and higher up along the right side of the Doveria. Much of it has been wiped out by rockfall, but one can still trace visually its vertiginous route. Until the Stockalper trail is fully restored, hikers must follow the Napoleonic road and even the new highway much of the way. Walking through the ravine while dodging the fast cars coming from Italy takes approximately two hours. Counting the hour-and-half it took Wordsworth and Jones to go up and back down the Feerberg, this time accounts for the "three hours" which produced such a strong impression on the poet (Letters I 33).

 

The village of Gondo sits sandwiched between two mountains at the end of the ravine, right on the Italian border. Henry Coxe gives an accurate account of the village, and of the feeling it evokes in hikers coming out of the ravine:  “Once more we behold the habitations of man, and a few straggling houses and a chapel constitute the dull and gloomy village of Gondo. One of these is the inn belonging to the barons of Stockalper, remarkable for its strange architecture; its eight stories, its little grated windows, and its gloomy situation give it more the air of a prison than the dwelling of a freeman. It is however in unison with the scenery of these stupendous heights, from which the thunder of the rushing tide is often heard with terror and amazement."