Via Ferratas Italian Dolomites: Vol 1 - Italy - Europe

• Location
• Description
• Contents
• Introduction
• Sample Route
• Maps
• Updates
• Reviews

Are the Dolomites the most beautiful mountains in the world? It is always difficult to make comparisons where so much natural beauty exists wherever you climb. However, the Dolomites are without doubt some of the most dramatic, spectacular and beautiful mountains you will find anywhere. With explosive shapes and unique colours they can be regarded as the crown jewels of the European alpine range. Via ferrata climbing is a way of enjoying the sheer magnificence of this awesome mountain environment in which you will be stopped in your tracks by amazing views and mountain situations.

Many via ferratas were originally built to aid the movements of alpine military units during the First World War, and now (although they also exist in Germany, Austria, France and Switzerland) they represent one of the major attractions in the Dolomites. They are, in effect, a range of protected routes, comprised of fixed cables, ladders and even gorge-spanning bridges, which aid ascent to places normally reserved for expert rock climbers. Routes are graded according to difficulty, and this is fully explained in the ‘Safety’ section of the Introduction.

In recent years, the old wartime routes have been restored and many more routes added to give a network of routes around the whole Dolomite region. Routes are regularly checked, maintained and waymarked by the Italian Alpine Club CAI (Club Alpino Italiano). You will also see reference to SAT (Societa degli Alpinisti Tridentini), which is the largest section of CAI and plays a major role in maintaining the Dolomite environment. To give you some idea of the scale, SAT has more than 20,000 members in 76 sections. They have 39 refuges and 12 bivouacs, and maintain over 6000km of paths, including via ferratas. Further background to the CAI is covered in the ‘History’ section of this Introduction.

How To Use This Guide

This guide departs from the usual convention of listing routes by reference to the geological group in which they lie. Instead routes are grouped according to the best point of access to help you decide where to set up base. This has inevitably involved a few fairly arbitrary judgements, and it will be immediately obvious that many of the valley bases are sufficiently close together to enable you to tackle several different groups from a single location. Information is also included on the availability of mechanical assistance (such as cable cars and jeep taxis), which can make getting to the start of the route considerably easier, and help conserve your energies for the climb.

The availability of maps is covered in ‘Map Availability’ below. Most via ferrata are indicated on the maps in popular use, although errors in location and naming are not unknown. You should also note that as the Dolomite mountains are characterised by such swooping, vertical faces, maps can often show only a fairly diagrammatic view of what is actually on the ground. This means that it is not always easy to visualise the vertical dimension of a route, especially the gradient to be encountered, nor is it easy to visualise the exposure involved until confronted by it! Even some of the technically easier via ferratas will take you into some extremely exposed situations, and an indication of exposure is therefore given in some route descriptions; this has been taken into account when grading the routes.

The route location diagrams for this guide are just that – diagrammatic. They are not all to the same scale, and their purpose is simply to help the reader locate the route on the appropriate map. They are not a substitute for a properly detailed map for use on the hill.

The times given in the guide assume a reasonable level of fitness on the part of the climber and, just as important, no undue congestion on the route. However, these timings are for guidance only, so whilst a fit and experienced via ferratist will frequently complete a route more quickly than our guide time, it is just as likely that the more popular and accessible routes will require twice as long.

Whilst ‘via ferrata’ is used as a generic term covering any protected route, there is other traditional nomenclature which you will see on local maps and signposts in the hills. ‘Sentiero’ (and its plural ‘sentieri’), ‘sentiero attrezzato’, ‘sentiero alpinistico’, ‘percoso attrezzato’ and?‘cengia’ (which is Italian for ‘ledge’) are a collection of other route titles in general use across the Dolomites. Incidentally, whilst the plural of ‘via ferrata’ is, of course, ‘vie ferrate’, this guide uses the anglicised form ‘via ferratas’.

The guidebook follows the convention of using the local?title for all routes. You will notice that some routes are referred to as ‘sentiero’. What you will find is that sentiero routes are?generally easier than via ferrata?routes, and are in fact frequently extended traverses of mountainous areas. Whilst some of the sentieros are fully equipped with cables, ladders and stemples, a good many involve somewhat less challenging terrain, where the need for such equipment is limited to the more exposed passages encountered. However (and this is covered in the grading of routes and individual route descriptions), one thing you should?note?is that even though some of the easier sentiero routes have limited?hands-on climbing, some do involve considerable exposure!