Via Ferrata Basics - safety, gradings etc

Why should you think about doing VFs? Well, the Dolomites are ffantastic, with a reliable climate and lovely scenery (see photo looking north from Passo Gardena). It takes less time to get to the Dolomites from London than it does to get to the Highlands, and the weather is a hell of a lot better. Many of the VFs follow fascinating historical routes (generally built so people could kill each other more efficiently in WW1). But for me, the main reason is that it allows you to climb above your level in almost absolute safety (if you use your kit correctly).

Generally speaking, a VF is a climb with a fixed protection system, generally a wire rope secured to the rock every few metres, sometimes supplemented by pegs or ladders.

 

You must wear a special device which you clip onto the rope (with two clips to allow you to pass the securing pegs in safety) and then you just, well, climb !

Do you need to be a climber? No, but it will help if you have good scrambling or a little climbing experience. You must have little or no vertigo (just look at the photos and you'll see why). Hoefler. grades the climbs as 'A' to 'G'. As a calibrator, Frank and I scramble to Grade III in the UK and can climb VDiff (that means Pretty Easy, by the way) and we found the ''A' and 'B' graded climbs too easy and the 'D' graded Via Ferrata within our capability.

There are two main groups in Italy- the western Dolomites (the Brenta group) and the eastern Dolomites. There are also VFs in France and Switzerland. We particularly like the eastern Dolomites - to get to them, you fly to Venice, followed by a three hour drive to Pedraces (north of Arabba). You're in the South Tyrol here, and the locals speak a local tongue or German as the first language, with maybe a bit of Italian on the side. Neither of us speaks German, so our choice of one of Collett's hotels was sensible, as the knowlegable 'guides' spoke English.

I recommend late May or September. The weather is still great (it can be very hot in the middle of the summer) but do make sure that the lifts are open, as this it limits your routes. The best guides to the Dolomites are the Cicerone guides. You'll also need maps, and for the Dolomites I would strongly recommend the Tabacco 1:25000 series rather than the Kompass 1:50000.

Most importantly, SAFETY. You will need to buy or hire a VF kit and learn how to use it. The VF gear is not there (primarily) to protect you. It's there to protect the cable that you and thirty other people are depending on by absorbing some of the shockload if you fall. Don't just clip on with a sling or a bit of old rope !!

The other items you must wear are a sit harness to clip the VF device onto and a helmet (a falling rock can really ruin your day). In addition, I would recommend leather-palmed gloves to protect yourself when you have to haul on the rope (and you will), and don't forget the suncream.

Via Ferrata in Switzerland

There are five VF in central Switzerland, accessible from the lovely village of Engelberg, which is bang in the centre of the country (we got there by flying to Zurich, taking a train to Luzern and then a cute little cog-train to Engelberg. These VF range from very easy (designed for kids) to very hard. The VF were created in 2001 to encourage tourists in summer, and they are well worth the trip. Forgive the lack of photos in this section - I forgot to pack the camera! You can see some photos in this newspaper article and the tourist guide.

The Brunnistockli

You will often see families with young children and boy scout troupes on the Brunnistockli, which will tell you that it is a good introduction to the sport. If you want a harder day out, about 500 metres from the end of this route is the start of the Rigidalstock route, which is a much harder proposition.

Take the Ristis cable car and the Brunni chairlift to 1860m. Turn right out of the chairlift and along the path, following the white-blue-white markers. After passing through a small gate, turn left and grind up an eroded path. The VF proper is very short and starts with a rocky nose, then a small ledge and then a three-wire rope bridge. Afther another nose, you cross an exciting rope bridge and you are pretty much at the top. Takes 30-45 minutes, and is good for morning or evening fun, followed by wurst and rosti at the wonderful restaurant Chuchichaschali in the town.

The Furenwand

Take the bus to the base station of the Furenalp cable car and then follow the road for about 10 minutes. At a small rise, follow the white-blue-white markers up through woods and a scree slope to the start of the climb. Now, you will have noticed a huge vertical rockface above you and will be thinking that you can't possibly climb that. Well, you can and you will.

The route starts with a vertical face (250m) easily handled using staples. You then have a traverse across the face aided by pins onto a wooded ledge. After a rest and a diagonal gully, it's another traverse (this time across wet rock) and then onto a very difficult overhanging traverse (very hard on the arms). You have another 100m of staples and you are then onto the final section of the climb, a 30m rope ladder hanging in space and swinging around as you try to scale it - I have to say I hated this bit as it's hard to climb and very, very exposed.

You then have a short final section and a path leading through an alpine meadow to the restaurant at the top. The guide recommends 160 minutes for this route, but it took us about 220. After a refreshing sherbet, there are lots of hiking routes down, or you can take the cable car down. We travelled down with one of the guides who had built the route, who said that it took two spring-times and involved carrying one and a half tonnes of iron work up the mountain.

He described it as sporting (ho bloody ho) but Furenwand requires little real climbing skill - there are pins and staples almost everywhere, and where there aren't the guides have chipped footholds. But this is not an easy route - you have 750m (2500 ft) of near vertical climbing and we were completedly knackered at the end of it. It is relentless and there is nowhere to rest, and you have to be fit. Oh, if you don't fancy hopping from pin to pin with 200m of nothing below you, then this route is not for you.

The Graustock

This route is on the opposite side of the valley from the others, and it is visible as a huge stepped rock-face dominating the sout-west aspect of the valley. This route is much closer in character to the Italian VFs - it's a combination of a walking path along the edge of the cliff and a set of vertical, very exposed climbs up those steps. The route warns of snow cornices in early summer, and the exit is difficult to find in cloud.

Start by taking the Trubsee cablecar and then the chairlift to the Joch pass at 2207m. Don't even think about walking in unless you are very fit and prepared to walk out as well (the last cable car is pretty early).

The route starts immediately from the top of the Joch, rising steeply up the hill. After a short and very easy climb and another few hundred metres of deceptively easy path, you get to the second ridge, 60m high. This isn't difficult but, unlike the Furenalp, it requires some climbing skill. After another section of scree and meadow, you reach a pair of rock spires divided by a gully. Climb the left spike on rock and staples, and then traverse the top of the gully - this is exposed, overhanging and very difficult and I was glad of the protection (cos I fell off). Then it's round the corner, and a few difficult moves and 20m climbing gets you off the rope.

The path leads you to a narrow rock-ridge about 100m long. Follow the protection across the ridge - which has its moments - to the summit cross at 2661m. Back down the ridge the way you came up (which has the same moments, only going downhill), and sign the summit book on the way.

Still retracing your steps, bout 150m after coming off the ridge, you come to a junction where one of the white-blue-white paths takes you southward over a rise (look for the cairns). This follows a nose and then drops of the left-hand side at the shallowest point - take extreme care here!). Then head south-east and after about 20 minutes you will come to the motorway that heads back to the Joch. Say hello to the marmots!

 

BACK

 

This is one of the most popular VFs in the eastern Dolomites, a long rope chain constructed by the 3rd Brigade of the Italian Army under the direction of the warden of the Rifugio Pisciadu in 1967. To find the route, drive up towards to the Passo Gardena / Grodner Joch from Corvara. On one of the many south-facing hairpins, you'll find a large quarry posing as a car park. You'll recognise it from a goods lift for the hut (if it's still there!).

The route starts immediately, with a long and easy ladder section up a buttress, followed by a short walk through dwarf pine to the next section, a diagonal ropeway that leads after a few hundred metres of easy climbing by the waterfall and onto a large traverse, on which Frank is modelling his red helmet in the adjacent photo.

What you can't tell from the photo is just how exposed this traverse is. It was a long drop, believe me, and if you have any problems with vertigo, you won't enjoy this bit at all. If you've had enough there is an exit point here, but the best of the VF is still to come.

After the traverse, it's up a long series of pegs and a few more difficult handholds, still on the vertical face. Then you find yourself in a chimney with a ladder and more pegs, and round to the corner of the face - here you can see Frank (in front) clambering under the final overhang.

And then, just round this corner you get to the final lollipop of the climb, a pretty (and rather shaky) little suspension bridge, seen in the photo opposite.

After you have traversed that, it's just a 10 minute stroll up to the Rif. Pisciadu for a beer. After refreshment, there are a number of routes off, but we took the easy (and long) trip down into the Val de Mesdi.

The climb took us just over three hours, and it was a peach of a morning. It's well-protected throughout, but very busy (there must have been over thirty people on the rope.

Punta Fiames - the Strobel route

Just 5 minutes drive north of Cortina D'Ampezzo lies Punta Fiames, with a VF dedicated to guide M. Strobel on its western and southern flanks. Like the Brigata Tridentina, it's graded 3 by Cicerone but it is substantially more difficult and exposed than the route described above, with no exit points. Frank thinks that the hard bits, 50m after the start and the first 50m of the final assault are probably about Grade IV scrambling. Other than that, it's a (mostly) protected Grade II/III.

Park behind the Hotel Fiames on the abandoned airfield and look east - you'll see a large vertical gash in the rock with a scree run coming out of it, and that's where you are going. Make your way through the woods following the waymarkers and climb north-east up through the dwarf pine. Then it's a painful slog up the scree eastwards to the foot of the ravine. Climb easily up a 400m ledge to the south and then onto 100m of diagonal ropes with some testing moves. You will be glad of the protection on many of the more difficult steps.

These ropes will take you to another south-rising ledge with lots more opportunities for scree-slogging and up on to the southern nose of Punta Fiames. The climbing then starts to get a lot more exposed and trickier, as you ascend the southern nose of Punta Fiames, initially by a set of pegs, then to a rather grotty ladder, then some more pegs and finally some easy-ish handholds. The second photo is of Yours Truly finally getting on to a bit that I didn't have to hang on to - note the grateful expression.

It's then up a set of easy paths to the summit, where you will get a chance to feed your sandwiches to the Alpine Choughs (actually, they won't give you a choice).

On this climb, we were a lot slower than the book suggested - we took an hour to get to the base of the climb and just over four hours to get to the summit. It's a fantastic day out, though, with a fast but dusty 900m descent down a scree chute, which takes you down to the line of the forest and a gentle walk out to the waiting beer.

Via Delle Trincee

This route is easily reached by the cable car (Porta Vescovo) but it that isn't open (it wasn't) allow 90 minutes to walk in from the Lezuo restaurant and take plenty of water (cos the rifugio won't be open either).

The route starts with a near-vertical slab with precious few footholds - the only advice I gan give is to us the rope and run up it. After that, the route features a very memorable pinnacle (good rock) and a wobbly suspension bridge. Assuming the weather is still good, continue along the ledges and an awkward down-climb and onto a grassy section.

Now comes the highlight of the Dolomites, and the reason this is called 'the way of the trenches'. The war here was fought not just on the outside of the mountain but inside it as well. Continue along the crest of the ridge past another of the seemingly endless World War One buildings you have been passing. Soon after passing a cave the route heads into the mountain through the tunnels. Occasional side galleries provide illumination but you will need a torch. The tunnels are steep and wet, but not difficult. After about an hour underground, you emerge blinking into the light and stroll down to a pub giving thanks to the fact that peace seems to have finally broken out in Europe.

Marino Bianchi / Ivano Dibona

We tackled two of the three routes on the Cristallino massif, with an overnight stop at a hut. Starting with the Bianchi, after a very entertaining ride up in mobile yoghurt pots to Rifugio Lorenzi, the route winds up onto the rock and onto an 800m ridge - the scrambling is tough and exposed (paticularly on the three ladders) but great fun. You are 3100m up, so you will notice the exposure. and you will also have lots of fun descending by the same route while people are still coming up, especially if it's heavily iced.

We stayed at the Lorenzi and I remember the dawn, with frost all around the hut and a few peaks peeping out of the cloud layer. The Dibona route starts with a spectacular and very long suspension bridge (yes, it is the one in Stallone's excrable 'Cliffhanger') and up a ladder onto a long ridge. After a quick detour to the summit it's along the ridge and a series of ledges while gawking at the WWI ruins all around you. I sincerely hope that parts of the 80-year-old rope have been repaired. This route is HUGE - it takes between 5 and 7 hours, but it is never dull. I must say that you then have a 90 minute descent down scree and through the woods to a 13th century pub, and you will be very tired at the end of the day...and in the middle of nowhere, so make sure you think through the logistics first. It's about 300m and 2000m of descent, so this is a real knee-crusher, requiring lots of stamina.

This was one of the most memorable trips of my climbing life, with two great routes and an overnight stay at a friendly hut. The Dibona is a wonderful, but very long, day and the overnight allows an early start.

Gran Cir (aka Grosse Tschierspitze)

If you are new to scrambling (or just fancy a day off) then I recommend the Gran Cir. Like the Brunnistocki, you often find children on this route. Start from Passo Gardena and follow the marked route to Gran Cir up a badly eroded path. The route itself is an easy ramp and a zig-zagging route up, protected most of the way - then reverse the route and back down for lunch. There is an alternate route down (you will see the rope on your right as you climb) which descends into a steep gully.

Other links

We enjoyed, and would recommend to other English-speaking visitors, staying with Collett's Mountain Holidays.when in the Dolomites.

For other information on the Dolomites, look at Paul Benham's excellent Dolomites page, concentrating mainly on the western (Brenta) group.

Finally, if you speak French, here is a world-wide guide to VF with a lot of useful supporting information, inspiring photos and some suggested itiniaries.