9th to 23rd July 2024
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| A photo from a via ferrata we did in France in 2018 |
Just for a change this was, for us, a short, two week trip, but we packed a lot into it and wasn't relaxing!
We planned a trip of high mountain walking and climbing on via ferratas staying in a mixture of mountain refuges and valley hotels as we moved between mountain locations. A via ferrata (Italian for iron way) is a mountain climbing route using steel cables, staples, ladders, carved rock steps, ledges and wire bridges fixed to otherwise difficult, exposed rock faces. When climbing, we wear a rock climbing harness with two special leashes, called a lanyard, fixed to it and clip the leashes to the steel cable as we travel so, should we fall, the lanyard should hold us to prevent an uncontrolled fall. There's a good description of them on Wikipedia, which you can read about by clicking here.
The origins of them go back many years, but many people know them from the First World War when many routes were constructed at the then frontier between Austria and Italy to give access for fighting troops. Tunnels, ammunition depots and gun placements were constructed in inhospitable terrain and the remnants of some of these are still visible today with modern cables installed to give access to them.
We went with our friends Simon and Diane, who we first met in 2014 in Vietnam on a kayak trip in the wonderful Ha long Bay in North Vietnam. Since then we've met up for skiing climbing and walking trips around the world, the last one being Hadrians Wall coast to coast walk last year. We've all done via ferrata trips before, us a multi day trip in the Brenta region of the Dolomites about 15 or 18 years ago (before we started this blog) and a number of one day routes in France, Spain and Andorra, so we know the ropes so to speak. We had to buy new equipment as all our gear is a bit 'long in the tooth' and mountaineering gear has a shelf life of a maximum of 10 years, even if only used infrequently.
We chose routes in the areas Arraba, Corvara, Pedora and Falzarego of the Dolomites, which include a mixture of easier routes to start with, some harder routes, some old WW1 routes for a bit of history and plenty of high alpine walking in between, so we covered a good range of activities in amazing scenery.
Here's a map of our route. If you click the rectangle in the top right to make it full screen then the box top left with the right pointing arrow, it'll open up a list of each destination. Clicking each one will open a box of where we went:
Below are links to blog entries relating to this trip:
9th to 14th July: Click here to open blog entry
15th to 23rd July: Click here to open blog entry
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