Via Ferrata in the Dolomites
Ryrie and Wende moving up the Col Rodella via ferrata near Passo Sella, Italy.
Today, we climbed our first Via Ferrata. It was called the Col Rodella Via Ferrata.
For those of you who don’t know what a Via Ferrata is, it’s a climb/hike where you wear a harness and clip into a metal cable attached to the mountain for safety. It’s steep enough that if you didn’t have the cable to clip into and you fell, you’d get hurt or worse.
We started by hiking about 40 minutes up to the base of the climb. Once we got there, we clipped our carabiners into the cable. Every few feet or so there was an anchor that we had to go around by unclipping and reclipping. Our via ferrata lanyards attach to our harness and have two slings with carabiners, so you are never totally unclipped from the safety cable even when passing an anchor.
Our feet were slippery against the moist limestone (except for dad because of his sticky shoes), and some of the route was really slick since so many people had climbed it before. At first it was a little tricky but then it slowly got easier as we got farther along.
Lila and Ryrie at the base of the Col Rodella via ferrata near Passo Sella, Dolomites, Italy.
About three quarters of the way through it got so foggy that I could barely see the ground below - we were actually in a cloud! But before I knew it, we were out of the fog and could see the top.
Once we got there, we took off all our gear and started to hike back down. On our way, we saw a lot of cows and one cute calf.
After a little while, we made it to a lodge, and I had a some schnitzel (sausage) and some French fries. Then we went back to the hotel - it had been a long day, but a good one.