My Big Head

Whether it’s due to excess brains or empty space, I have a larger than average head.   This makes it hard to find any headwear that fits.  Anything marked “one size fits all” does not seem to include me in the definition of “all”.  This might be only an annoyance if I were not a rock climber.  I need a helmet to protect my head from falling rocks, dropped bits of gear, impacts and banging my head against overhangs (which is a habit of mine).  If a helmet is to protect my head properly, then it has to fit properly.  Unfortunately, my big head means that the selection of helmets that will fit me is small.

Me wearing a Grivel Salamander XL helmet.

At a little over 62cm in circumference, my head is too big for Black Diamond’s popular Half Dome helmet as this has a maximum size of 61.5cm.  All helmets by Wild Country have a maximum size of 61cm.  Petzl’s Meteor III+ helmet and Elios helmet both have a maximum size of 61cm.  This is also the maximum size of Mammut’s Skywalker 2 helmet.

A quick internet search shows that I’m not the only climber whose head is bigger than 61cm in circumference and so I have written the following helmet guide for those with generous heads.

How to Choose a Helmet

The British Mountaineering Council (BMC) has published an excellent guide to helmets and it’s well worth a read if you want to understand what types of helmet are suited to different activities and how to care for your helmet.  To help the rest of this review make sense, I have summarised below some key points from the BMC.

As the BMC guide says, the “best helmet is a good fit, is comfortable, and is affordable.”  You need to try helmets on to see if they fit; don’t buy if they move around or are uncomfortable.  If you plan to use your helmet outside the summer months, then make sure it’s big enough to allow you to wear a hat or a hood underneath it.

A helmet must also be suitable for your needs and the activities that you will be wearing it for.  There are three types of helmet and the different characteristics of these three can go a long way to determining if they are what you need.

Hardshell helmets

• A hard, tough plastic shell with a flexible, internal cradle of fabric webbing.
• Advantages: good at withstanding top impacts (e.g. falling rocks) and durable.
• Disadvantages: offer little protection for impacts around the rim and tend to weigh more.
• Best for mountaineering and longer routes.

Foam helmets

• Usually an expanded polystreme (EPS) with a thin polycarbonate shell.
• Advantages: offers greater protection for impacts around the rim and is low weight.
• Disadvantages: not particularly durable.
• Best for shorter routes and outcrop and sport climbing.

Hybrid helmets

• Basically a halfway house between hardshell and foam helmets, they have a rigid plastic shell with a foam inner.
• Advantages: all-round performance that draws on the advantages of hardshell and foam helmets.
• Disadvantages: only really protects around the rim if foam is present.
• Best for all-round climbing and mountaineering.

Petzl Ecrin Roc reviewed

Me wearing a Petzl Ecrin Roc helmet

The Ecrin Roc is a bit like the shark or the crocodile.  It’s a design that just works and so hasn’t needed any real change for a long, long time.

It’s a hardshell helmet that uses two wheels in the rim to adjust the headbank and the nape strap.  These make it easy to adjust and, with a maximum size of 63cm, it fits a bigger head.  With only the headband and a cross of webbing touching your head, as well as plenty of vents, it’s also comfortable to wear.

Interior view of the Ecrin Roc

With its durability, unfortunately also comes bulk and weight.  The Ecrin Roc weighs 445g and even generously designed helmet-compatible hoods will only just fit over it.

Unfortunately, it has been reported that Petzl has discontinued production of the popular and well-liked Ecrin Roc from February 2012.  There are still likely to be some in the shops for a while yet, but when they are gone there will be one fewer option for big-headed climbers.

Grivel Salamander XL reviewed

The standard size Grival Salamander is a popular helmet.  The Salamander XL is really just a bigger version of it that Grivel markets as meant for those who need to wear a lot of hats (because they are going somewhere very cold) or have big heads.  As its maximum size is 66cm, it’s almost over catering for this market.

Rear view of the Grivel Salamander XL.

The Salamander XL is a hybrid helmet with an outer shell of ABS and an inner layer of shock absorbing polystyrene foam.  Most of this foam protects the top of the head and there is a thinner band of foam around the rim.  Although the Salamander XL is quite high at the front, it comes notably further down the sides and back of the head than the Ecrin Roc and so provides more coverage overall.

This is not an easy helmet to adjust.  The wheel at the back of the helmet that tightens the rear of the headband is fine, but the locking clasps on the chinstrap take a fair bit of playing around with to lock to the right fit.  If you don’t need to adjust the chinstrap often, this is alright.

It’s a comfortable helmet and weighs just 320g.

Unfortunately, not many places sell the Salamander XL.  If you are going to buy one online, take care that you don’t accidentally get sold the standard Salamander.

Interior view of the Salamander XL.

Other options

There are a few other helmets that look like they might work on a bigger head, but which I’ve never worn climbing.

The Edelrid Shield II is a foam helmet that comes in a large size that will fit a head up to 62cm and weighs a light 274g.  I’ve tried one on in a shop and it just fitted, although it did sit quite high on my head and so it is unlikely to work for some people.  The Shield II is very comfortable and looks nicely thought-out.  Unfortunately, my fiancée thought that it’s high and narrow profile and white colour made me look like a Roswell style alien.  She fell about laughing as soon as I tried it on.

The Black Diamond Tracer is a foam helmet that fits a head up to 63cm and weighs a very light 245g.  Black Diamond has also just introduced the Vector helmet, which has a large size that fits heads up to 63cm and is an incredibly light 240g.  It made of EPS foam with a polycarbonate shell.

If any big-headed climbers have tried these other helmets out, then I would be interested to hear their thoughts on them.

Earlier this week equipment manufacturer Edelrid issued a product recall for a selection of their via ferrata lanyards.  This recall follows a fatal via ferrata accident a couple of weeks ago.  Apparently, investigations have so far established an association between increased use of these lanyards and a weakening of their elasticated webbing.  As the Edelrid lanyards involved in this accident had apparently been rented, it is quite possible that they had seen greater than usual use.  However, the actual cause of the accident has not yet been established and Edelrid have issued the product recall as a precaution.

Using my Edelrid lanyards on the Via Ferrata Michielli Strobel.

Every so often you see product recalls for mountaineering equipment.  In the last year, for example, Petzl has issued product recalls for Scorpio via ferrata lanyards and some GriGri 2 belay devices.  Most of the time I just glance at these notices, but the Edelrid notice grabbed my attention because I’ve used Edelrid lanyards for the last couple of years.  My model isn’t covered by the recall and so I’m saved the hassle of returning the set for inspection and repair.  But this particular recall has got me thinking about is the trust we place in both our gear and the people who make it.

Any rock climb involves relying on multiple pieces of equipment.   Each of these items has a different history in which a multitude of factors could have affected its reliability.  This history includes the complex process of manufacture.  This is why we rely on manufacturers being open and honest about when something has not been manufactured to the standards expected.

There are good reasons why manufacturers issue product recalls.  There is the need to limit legal liability and so any potentially costly legal penalties.  There is also the need to avoid damaging publicity.  A product recall might create bad publicity, but not anywhere near as much as not issuing a recall and customers being injured as a result.  Recalls may also be costly in replacing or repairing the affected product, but they are cheaper than the costs associated with a tainted brand and reduced trust in the company.

As such, product recalls are common sense, however, it’s worth remembering that in the past companies have been reluctant or slow to issue them.  The classic example of this is the Ford Pinto, an early subcompact car.  The design of the Pinto’s fuel tank meant that it had a tendency to burst into flames when the car was rear-ended, even at low speeds.  Ford was apparently aware of this potentially fatal problem, but decided it was cheaper to settle legal claims for damages than to issue a product recall.  This design problem allegedly led to three deaths.  Following court action, Ford recalled 1.5 million Pintos in 1978.

The Pinto case can now seem like an extreme example, but it’s worth remembering that whether a product recall happens depends on the decisions of people.  They will make a decision on the basis of some form of cost-benefit analysis and their own personality and beliefs.  In making such decisions, people can sometimes be self-serving and short sighted.  This is why good regulation and company culture is needed encourage people to do the right thing.

In mountaineering related activities, this regulation comes from the UIAA (International Mountaineering and Climbing Federation).  They set the standards expected of equipment and only those products certified by the UIAA as meeting the required standards get to carry the UIAA Safety Label.  For those occasions when something goes awry, the UIAA even has an online directory of product recalls.

It’s also important that the customers of mountaineering equipment manufacturers are also very safety conscious and would take badly to not being told of an issue with the gear on which their lives can depend.

All this means that my trust in my gear and the people who make it is probably well founded.  Its unlikely a mountaineering gear company wouldn’t issue a product recall.  Edelrid did, after all, issue a product recall as soon as it became clear that there might be an issue with its products and this was soon zipping around the web.  I guess this means I can trust my lanyards.

UPDATE: There have been further recalls of via ferrata lanyards since this post and an update can be found here.

It’s been reported that an emergency meeting of the Safety Commission of the UIAA (Union Internationale des Associations d’Alpinisme – International Mountaineering and Climbing Federation) will be held this week because of concerns over the safety of via ferrata lanyards from several manufacturers.

My Edelrid via ferrata lanyards in use

A couple of weeks ago Edelrid recalled some of its via ferrata lanyards after a fatal accident on a via ferrata in Austria.  Since then, manufacturers Wild Country, AustriAlpin, Singing Rock, Climbing Technology and Edelweiss have all issued their own recalls on their via ferrata lanyards.  Apparently, initial research is suggesting that grit in intensively used, elasticated lanyards abrades the nylon and causes the lanyards to fail to hold a falling climber.

I did a post on the original Edelrid recall as I think it is intriguing how much trust climbers and mountaineers put in the equipment they use and the people who make it.  My feeling is that we can probably trust manufacturers to warn us if our gear is potentially unsafe because of the premium their customers put on safety.

This wave of recalls shows there is a widespread problem with a particular type of product, but it’s not a universal recall of all via ferrata lanyards.  Only some of the companies that make via ferrata lanyards have issued recalls and Edelrid have only issued a recall for some of the lanyards they have made over the last few years.  It’s possible that differences in manufacturer and/or materials explain this (particularly as the safety concerns are focused on elasticated lanyards).  It’s also possible that further recalls might come on the basis of the results of investigations or a decision from the UIAA.  Whatever the case, we still have to trust that those manufacturers who haven’t issued a recall are justifiably confident in the safety of their products.

I think we have little choice but to trust gear manufacturers if we want to practice mountain sports.  I didn’t hear about these recent recalls until today because I was using my Edelrid lanyards on via ferratas in the Dolomites.  They aren’t covered by the recall and the recalls from the other manufacturers wouldn’t have introduced enough doubt into my mind to make me stop using them.

An interesting question is whether these recall notices will be effective in getting people to stop using the affected lanyards.  Petzl issued a recall notice for some of its Scorpio lanyards in May 2011 and reported that by October 2011 only 24% of the 100,000 lanyards covered by the recall had been collected for inspection.  My hope is that people did learn about the recall and just decided to throw the lanyards in the bin rather than go through the effort of returning them to Petzl.  My fear is that they either didn’t find out about the recall or did find out and kept using their lanyards regardless.

It’s not possible to stop someone taking the needless risk of using a recalled product.  The only thing to do is to warn people as much as possible and hope the warning is heeded.  The recent wave of recalls have been well publicised and the warnings will reach the mountaineering and climbing community.  Those it may not reach are the casual climbers who don’t read climbing forums or read the specialist media.  Please spread the word.

Postscript

The British Mountaineering Council (BMC) is reporting that Salewa has issued a recall for its via ferrata lanyards.  However, Salewa’s own website has a press release proudly proclaiming that its testing has concluded that all of its via ferrata lanyards function “flawlessly and, when used correctly, offers complete safety in the case of falls even with intentive usage.”  As I usually trust the BMC as a reliable source of information, I find this a bit odd and recommend anyone owning a Salewa via ferrata set double check the situation with Salewa.

UPDATE: On 13 September 2012 the UIAA issued a press release reporting on its emergency meeting.  The UIAA recommended that all users of via ferrata sets check the websites of manufacturers to see if their unit is safe.  The press release also states that the UIAA is to review the UIAA 218 safety standard (the one that applies to energy-absorbing devices, including via ferrata lanyards) to include a fatigue test.

This UIAA press release and a press release from the German Alpine Club provide additional details of the fatal accident of 5 August 2012 that prompted this examination of via ferrata lanyards and the subsequent recalls.  Both state that this accident involved both lanyards breaking due to both intensive use and the materials used.  The German Alpine Club states that repeated stretching of the elastic lanyard led to a reduction in the strength of the fibers as elastic and strength-bearing threads rubbed against each other.  Not all via ferrata lanyards are constructed with this mix of elastic and non-elastic fibres and this seems to be the reason why some via ferrata models have been recalled and others haven’t.  However, it’s worth noting that these conclusions are the result of an investigation by the German Alpine Club and manufacturers and the accident is still being investigated by the Innsbruck District Attorney.  This means that there may be further developments.

UPDATE: in February 2013 a further wave of recalls were issued by manufacturers.

It’s been said that the view across Lago di Misurina to the Sorapiss group of mountains is one of the most photographed in the Dolomites.  The full mass of these mountains reflected in the quiet, clear waters of Lago di Misurina is a view to make you sigh and stare as you try to take in the glory of it.  During my time in Misurina, this view was in cloud.

Lago di Misurina and the Sorapiss mountain range

I’m a bit disappointed about this because I would have loved to see all of these rugged peaks reflected in the waters below a blue sky.  However, I’m English and so am used to accepting that a mountain view is usually a bonus rather than a given.  I also think that there can be a beauty in clouds and how they interact with mountains.Clouds hugged ridges and billowed around peaks, parting to open up new views and framing towers of rock.  These clouds made the mountain views I had from Misurina were stunning.  On each day of my trip I took a photo of one of the most stunning and photographed views in the Dolomites and these are the photos here.  Even in cloud this view has something.

Lago di Misurina and the Sorapiss mountain range

Lago di Misurina and the Sorapiss mountain range

Lago di Misurina and the Sorapiss mountain range

Misurina is just under 1,800m above sea level in the Dolomites of Northern Italy.  It’s a small, quiet place, made up of a series of hotels and restaurants strung along a road that follows the shore of an amazing clear lake.  The lake is surrounded by pine forest and several mountain ranges. The air is deliciously clean and Misurina has a history as a place where people would come to heal respiratory conditions.

Many of the nearby mountains were the scenes of fighting in World War 1.  The open-air museum at Monte Piana and the old fortifications at Tre Cime are on the doorstep of Misurina.  They are also the locations for several vie ferrate and Misurina makes a good base for exploring some interesting low to mid-grade routes.  You can read a review of the campsite in Misurina by clicking here.

If you want to see the view of the Sorapiss group without clouds, then you can find examples here, here and here.

The Plan

Rock climbing certainly had to be part of it.  My best man, Jim, and I agreed that pretty early on.  My stag do would have to involve adventure and I’m a keen climber, plus I had met all of my friends who would be on the trip through rock climbing.  However, there were some issues with this idea.

Climbing on Glaciated Slab in Borrowdale.

My brother isn’t a climber and had been less than enthusiastic when I had taken him to a climbing wall in the past.  My friends also tend to be wall and sport climbers, with little experience of the trad climbing that is more common in the UK.  The solution, I thought, was to find somewhere with some easier, single pitch climbs on which I could set up a top rope.

I also thought this would be a great opportunity to try out something I’d been interested in doing for a while – the via ferrata at Honister Slate Mine in the Lake District.  I’ve done lots of via ferrata in Italy and I was curious to try out England’s first via ferrata.  Climbing on ladders and stemples (i.e. big staples punched into the rock) while attached to a safety cable also seemed more accessible than full rock climbing, while still being a mountain experience and adventurous.

The plan was to do the via ferrata on the Saturday and rock climb on the Sunday.  To get round the fact that my friends don’t own tents, we would stay in a yurt.  This was something else I’d been interested to try now that there are a few companies providing them as a more glamorous alternative to camping.

In a big estate car, we would drive up to Seatoller (in Borrowdale and just below the Honister Pass) on the Friday night and then be ready to go the next morning.

This was the plan, but plans don’t always go as you expect.

The yurt

I’d under-estimated how long it would take us to get to Seatoller from London.  Even with ACDC blasting from the stereo to power us through the night, rain and traffic meant we didn’t get to Seatoller until about 2:30am on the Saturday.

My relief at seeing the yurts in the field turned to concern as I realised I didn’t know which yurt was ours.  All I knew was that it was the yurt that wasn’t locked with a padlock, but that applied to the yurts that were already occupied as well as the one we had booked.  We quietly moved between the yurts, looking for a yurt without wood smoke from a fire or other signs of life and trying to avoid having to knock on a door that early in the morning.  In the end, we realised that our yurt was in a different field.  There were two yurts there and only one unlocked.  We threw in our kit, lit the fire to warm us up, made the beds and then fell into them.

Brian making breakfast in the yurt.

The next morning I opened the yurt door to see green fields, trees, a brilliant clear stream and the mountains of Borrowdale.  It was a great sight, made all the better by the fact that we were in the wettest part of England and it wasn’t raining.

Back in the yurt, we packed the futons up and tried to get as much heat from the cast iron stove as we could.  This was a really luxurious form of camping, with a wooden floor, a skylight, solar-powered lights, gas stove and kitchen equipment.  Brian made us omelette sandwiches and we sat there eating them and drinking coffee while we worked out what we were doing with the via ferrata.

The mine

The via ferrata at Honister Slate Mine has only been there a few years and the “extreme” addition to it that we were doing had only opened earlier this year.  The Mine itself sits in the saddle of the Honister Pass between Borrowdale and Buttermere and the via ferrata makes its way up through the old mine workings to the top of Fleetwith Pike.  The Mine has a long history and has only recently redeveloped itself as a tourist attraction as well as a fully functioning mine.   (The Mine and the via ferrata are something that deserve, and will get, a fuller post at a later date.)

Entering Honister Slate Mine.

Our trip to Honister Slate Mine started with a tour of the mine by an enthusiastic and knowledgeable guide.  A bus, that looked suspiciously like the sort of bus you see going around London streets, took the tour party along a steep, single track road to the mine’s entrance further up Fleetwith Pike.  We then followed the guide along tunnels into a couple of large chambers.  The slate here is sandwiched between volcanic rock and the mine follows this diagonal seam into the mountain.  Useless to the miners, this volcanic rock now forms an impressive, slanting roof to the atmospheric largest chamber.

It may not have been a typical choice for a stag weekend, but going into a mine and getting a feel for the lives of the miners of old was interesting and I now have an increased appreciation of what is involved in making a slate roof tile.  However, this was just the prelude to the adventure of the day.

The via ferrata

From the minute you start on the via ferrata, you get the full experience of exposure.  Descending a ladder and then a run of stemples, you have a sheer drop below you and Honister Pass opened out around you.  Traversing around the rock face and stretching out to the next stemple to get past a mini-waterfall cut into the rock, I really felt the fun of moving freely, high on a mountain.  Unfortunately, my plan that this would be an easily accessible way for my friends to do some climbing wasn’t exactly working.

Honister Slate Mine via ferrata and the Honister Pass.

My brother, Giles, was moving slowly and his knees were jigging up and down.  Brian was also telling me that this reminded him of why he had given up outdoor rock climbing.  This concerned me as I wanted them to have fun and I stayed close to Giles to offer encouragement.  However, my brother is very tenacious and despite clearly being unsure about the concept of via ferrata, he was pushing on and getting faster.   I was really impressed with how tough he was.  Brian was also racing ahead of us with the confidence and ability of a man who had always been a natural rock climber.

By the time we got to the section where you descend a slight overhang and then do a Burma bridge, Giles was clearly tired and could see that the next section required a lot of effort.  He decided to finish the via ferrata using the non-extreme route while the rest of us carried on.

The gully and the Burma bridge.

Giles’ decision was sensible.  Descending an overhang and then traversing one side of a gully by a series of stemples was fun, but the exposure was high and the climbing strenuous.  At the outside edge of the gully was the Burma bridge – three cables strung out across the mountain.  Getting over this bridge was one of the most strenuous things I have done in a long while.  The first twenty metres or so were great fun.  I enjoyed edging along, feeling content at the simple movement of a climb and looking at the view below my feet.  Then, as I moved closer to the middle, the bridge started to wobble.  As Brian and I rocked from side to side, I tried to push the cables out to steady the bridge, but all I seemed to achieve was to get more tired.  After an age of edging along, I got the other end with exhausted arms and looked back at the others.

Me on the Burma bridge.

As with lots of things that a bit difficult, it’s not pleasant when you do it, but funny when you watch someone else trying.  I spent a while trying to stop laughing as I watched Jim and J edge along the Burma bridge.  Somehow they moved in time in such a way that the bridge pitched them from nearly thirty-five degrees in one direction to nearly thirty-five degrees in the other almost continuously.  They saw the funny side too, once they had got off it.

I think we were all tired, but all smiling, by this point as we ascended a blunt arête by numerous stemples and then finished by climbing a cargo net.  We walked to the top of Fleetwith Pike for our summit photos and then walked down the mountain.  It had been good fun and a memorable experience.

The slab

The yurt

I woke up cold on Sunday morning.  Jim had tried to keep the stove going in the night, but the fire was dead and my breath froze as I breathed out.  I was coming to the view that renting a yurt in October might not have been the best idea.  However, I would later find out (from the instructions for the stove, which we hadn’t read because we hadn’t realised there were any) that we could have kept the fire going longer if we had restricted the air intake through the vents.  With the fire stocked up and burning, plus more clothes, we got coffee in us and then got going under brilliant blue skies.

The plan was to walk from the yurt to Glaciated Slab, above Coombe Ghyll, and do some low grade climbing.  However, this plan founded a bit because I hadn’t counted on how tired my friends would have been from the day before.  I also hadn’t realised from the limited description in the guidebook that the last bit of the approach to Glaciated Slab is an uphill slog with some tricky patches of scree.  Brian decided to go for a walk instead.  He had a nap on a rock for a while, before a sheep bellowed in his ear, and then walked back to the yurt.  The rest of us struggled up to one of the loveliest little slabs I’ve ever climbed on.

Me climbing on Glaciated Slab.

Glaciated Slab makes up one side of a promontory of rock that gives views across Borrowdale and as far as Keswick.  This nicely curved slab has a mix of cracks with juggy holds and almost blank faces with fingery edges.  It made for some really entertaining and varied climbing and we had a great time playing around on the rock while being warmed by the autumn sun.  Giles was our official photographer and Jim and J stormed up the routes.

The walk out saw us navigate a stream crossing and a farm with ten (thankfully, friendly) sheep dogs.  We found Brian relaxing on a futon back at the yurt.  After a pub dinner and another night trying to keep the stove going, we headed back to London.  It was a fantastic stag trip and I want to thank my friends, brother and best man for making it happen.

UPDATE: the Honister Slate Mine Via Ferrata has attracted some controversy since it was opened.  How this controversy, and the quality of the climbing, might affect your decision to climb this via ferrata is something I’ve explored in a later post.

A failure of crucial safety equipment leads to a tragic death.  Major manufacturers issue urgent recalls of the equipment and an emergency meeting of the industry body decides to review safety standards.

If this were a story about a major consumer product, it would be major news.  It’s not.  This is a story about a piece of specialist mountaineering equipment – via ferrata lanyards.   For this reason you won’t find this story mentioned outside the specialist press.  It’s a story with a lot of the features of a crisis.  Although the response to it has been swift, it raises all sorts of questions about the regulation of mountain sports and the accessibility of the mountains to the public.

Climbers on the Via Ferrata Sandro Pertini

Vie ferrate

Vie ferrate are a way of enabling access to mountainous areas that would normally only be accessible to experienced mountaineers or rock climbers.  These “iron roads” have a mixture of attachments to the rock to help people climb past the sections where the rock climbing is a bit harder.  These can include stemples (i.e. giant, metal stables), ladders and wire bridges.  To ensure safety, a metal cable is pinned at intervals to the mountain or rock face.  Someone climbing a via ferrata attaches themselves to this cable using specialist equipment called lanyards. These are essentially two arms of tough fabric, which is often elasticated.   Each lanyard ends in a locking karabiner for attaching to the cable and they join together at a kinetic energy absorbing device.  These lanyards are attached to a climbing harness worn by the person climbing the via ferrata.

The karabiners slid along the cable and, when one of the pins is reached, first one, and then the other karabiner is removed and clipped again past the pin.  This ensures that there is always one karabiner attached to the cable in case of a fall.  There are several forms of lanyards, but all basically work by stopping a long fall by having the karabiners catch on one of the pins holding the cable and absorbing the energy generated.

There is a good explanation of how lanyards work (with some useful diagrams) on the Black Diamond website.

The accident

On 5 August 2012, near Walchsee in the Tirol region of Austria, a set of these lanyards didn’t stop a fall.   The lanyards snapped and the climber died.  Investigations are still going on as to what exactly happened, including an investigation by the local prosecutor.  However, what is known comes from investigations by the company that made the lanyards, Edelrid, the industry and safety standards body the UIAA (Union Internationale des Associations d’Alpinisme – International Mountaineering and Climbing Federation) and the German Alpine Club.

They have stated that the accident involved the lanyards breaking due to both the intensive use they had been subjected to and the materials used in their manufacture.  The German Alpine Club has said that repeated stretching of the lanyards during use led to a reduction in the strength of their fibres as elastic and strength-bearing threads rubbed against each other.  As the lanyards involved in the accident were rented, it was speculated that they had received more use.

The recalls

Via ferrata lanyards in use

Edelrid rapidly issued a recall for all its via ferrata lanyards made using the same methods as those involved in the accident.  Over the coming weeks, there were product recalls from Wild Country, AustriAlpin, Singing Rock, Climbing Technology, Edelweiss, Ocun and, recently, Mammut.  It’s probably fairly safe to say that these recalls have cost these companies a fair bit of money as they try to maintain consumer confidence in their products and in the safety of vie ferrate.  For them, this brings to mind other recall crises for companies.

To deal with this, there was an emergency meeting of the Safety Commission of the UIAA in September 2012.  This led the UIAA to announce it would review its UIAA 218 safety standard (the one that applies to energy-absorbing devices, including via ferrata lanyards) so that it would now include a fatigue test.

The German Alpine Club also, apparently, worked during this time with a laboratory to develop a new test procedure for the long-term use of lanyards.  In October, Edelrid stated that it had developed new lanyards that passed, and even exceeded, this new test.  They also stated that all the lanyards they had recalled, and have been returned, had been reworked with these new lanyard arms.

This rapid response from all concerned is worthy of praise.  It could be seen as putting this matter to rest, if it were not for what else Edelrid had said in its statement and the uncomfortable issues this whole episode throws up.

The issues

It seems to be fairly widely accepted that vie ferrate have become more popular in the last few years.  This is understandable because vie ferrate is incredibly fun.  Vie ferrate have the thrill, challenge and joy of movement on rock that comes from rock climbing, but without all the equipment and the need to belay that comes with rock climbing.  A lot of climbers do vie ferrate.  They also provide a way into the high mountains and onto more severe terrain for many people who might otherwise only get as far a viewpoint or be walking on a trail.  It’s in relation to these people, who maybe come to vie ferrate very occasionally, that issues arise.  This is because they are less likely to own via ferrata lanyards and so are more likely to rent them.

As Edelrid noted in a recent press release:

“More and more people are exploring Via Ferratas – often on holiday with a hired Via Ferrata set. The Via Ferrata rental business is a relatively new development that creates a new set of challenges for equipment manufacturers – the current industry standard for Via Ferrata sets no longer appears to be sufficient.”

The challenge referred to by Edelrid is that rented lanyards are likely to get considerably more use than they would do if owned by an individual.  The old safety standards were just not written with this sort of usage in mind.  With the new safety tests and standards being developed, it looks like this issue is being dealt with, but Edelrid pushes the issue further in its press release.

“The Via Ferrata equipment rental sector is not regulated; mountaineering schools do not have sovereign rights.  Via Ferrata equipment is available for hire from restaurants, mountain railways and fashion retailers among others. However, Via Ferrata sets are “Personal Protective Equipment” (PPE). This type of equipment should be maintained correctly and subject to regular inspection, i.e. its functioning should be inspected and documented on a daily basis by appropriately trained personnel.”

The implication of these statements is that many of the businesses renting via ferrata lanyards don’t employ qualified people (such as the guides that are employed by a mountaineering school), may not know how to manage equipment to ensure it’s safe and aren’t regulated by any authority that can get them to behave safely.

Me climbing the Sentiero de Luca / Innerkofler

If you’re a cynic, you might think Edelrid is just trying to shift the focus (and maybe any blame) away from itself and other manufacturers and onto the small businesses that rent lanyards.  There might be some truth in the idea that shifting the debate is in Edelrid’s interests, but Edelrid also has a point.  Vie ferrate lanyards are used to save people’s lives.  They need to be in working condition and retired when they become unsafe.  The people who rent lanyards have no choice but to trust that what they are renting is safe to use.   They don’t know the history of what they are renting and can’t check the lanyards with a microscope to make sure they will work in a fall.

This raises questions of trust and responsibility.  Manufacturers and the many businesses that profit from vie ferrate (rental companies, mountain guides, mountaineering schools, rifugios, campsites, etc) need people to trust in vie ferrate and the equipment you need to do it if they are not to lose custom.  In addition, mountain communities need people to feel comfortable doing vie ferrate while on holiday if they are to get the tourist income they often depend on.  With this comes the need to earn this trust through responsible behaviour.

It’s perhaps worth asking if manufacturers did behave responsibly by not looking to how their products were being used and anticipating that they needed to change them to ensure they were safe.  However, the rapid and widespread recalls of lanyards and quick commitment to review standards is very responsible.  It also, rightly, keeps the focus on preventing more accidents.

Whether rental businesses are only renting safe equipment is something I doubt anyone knows at the moment.  The only they may be able to clearly demonstrate responsible behaviour and so ensure public trust in their business is to accept some form of regulation.  However, with vie ferrate spread over many countries (mostly in Europe), there are questions about who and how this regulation might be done.

In addition, there may be some mountaineers and climbers who may question whether there should be a rental business for this sort of equipment at all.  Doing a via ferrata involves a lot of risks and the possibility of some pretty nasty consequences if something goes wrong.  To manage those risks requires knowledge, skills and (some) specialist equipment.  It may be that a person who does mountain sport so infrequently that they rent lanyards doesn’t have these things.  Some might argue that they should either be informed or not go up a via ferrata.

This gets to the issue of the accessibility of the mountains.  Probably more than any other mountain sport, vie ferrate make alpine environments and steep rock faces accessible to wider group of people.  The ability to rent lanyards in turn makes vie ferrate more accessible by allowing people to spend a day or two out on a via ferrata as part of their holiday.  There’s something great about mountains being there for anyone to explore and enjoy.

There is also the need to ensure that people can enjoy these mountains safely.  Safety and accessibility should be balanced by looking to how those people who want to do a via ferrata can have safe equipment and know how to use it.  The need to maintain the trust of their customers ensured manufacturers recalled their products quickly and this need for trust can have some influence on the rental sector.  However, with this sector so disparate and the high stakes involves if these businesses don’t respond this pressure, other incentives (like regulatory action) may be needed to prevent another tragedy.

Mountain sports have always had to balance people’s desire for adventure and to enjoy the mountains with questions about how to ensure safety.  This is often a difficult balancing act in which some risks are accepted.  As the consequences of these events continue to play out, it would be a shame if the mountains became less open or less safe.

You can read my first post on these recalls and the issues involved here and an update to this post here.

UPDATE: there has been a further wave of recalls of via ferrata lanyards and you can find out more about this by clicking here.

I never would have guessed that an island in the Atlantic, off the coast of Africa, has incredible vie ferrate – the cabled climbing routes more normally associated with the Dolomites and the Alps.  But Gran Canaria has several vie ferrate that give interesting, hard climbing on volcanic rock and which take you through wild country with stunning views of mountains and sea.  Two of the vie ferrate on this Spanish island have even been listed in the top ten in that country and I fully understand why.

Climbing the corner of a cave on the Via Ferrata La Guagua on Gran Canaria.

I’d not heard of the vie ferrate on Gran Canaria until I started researching the island as a place to go on honeymoon.  However, it’s not that surprising that I’d not heard about these vie ferrate as I can find little information on them in English.  I suspect they may be hardly known about outside Spain.  That’s a situation that needs to be corrected so that more people can enjoy them.

Comparisons with vie ferrate in the Dolomites

The vie ferrate I have the most experience of climbing are in the Dolomites in Italy and it’s pretty inevitable that you compare anything new with something you’ve tried before.  The Dolomites are also seen as the home of vie ferrate and the model for what came later, so it’s worthwhile being aware of how Gran Canaria gives a different experience.

In particular, the vie ferrate I climbed on Gran Canaria have a different construction from the Dolomites and this affects how you climb them.  From photos I have seen, I think that this style of construction is fairly common in mainland Spain, but I’m happy to be corrected on this.

Climbing the ridge that makes up the lower section of the Via Ferrata La Guagua.

The cables on these vie ferrate are probably half as thin, if not thinner, than the cables used on vie ferrate in the Dolomites.  They are also not attached to the rock by the giant pins used in the Dolomites.  The cables are instead attached by the sort of bolts that are used on sport climbing routes and this maybe why these cables are quite slack.

Both the slackness and thinness of the cables make it harder to hold on to them if you want to haul yourself, hand-over-hand, past a difficult section of climbing.

I don’t have any reason to believe that slack, thin cables make the vie ferrate on Gran Canaria any less safe, but they are do give them a different character to the vie ferrate of the Dolomites.  This just adds to the already strong characters of the two vie ferrate that I had a chance to try on Gran Canaria.

Via Ferrata La Guagua

The Via Ferrata La Guagua winds its way up this mountain.

The Via Ferrata La Guagua (pronounced wah-wah) is big, bold and utterly brilliant.  Set in the rugged scenery of the edge of the Parque Natural de Tamadaba, it gives a full mountain experience combined with views of the Atlantic Ocean.  The Via Ferrata La Guagua is reported as being the longest via ferrata in Spain.  I can believe it, as it’s at least twice as long as any via ferrata I’ve done in the Dolomites.  In its 600m of ascent there is, at the very least, 500m where you are clipped to the cable doing top-quality climbing.

The approach

The starting point for the walk in to the Via Ferrata La Guagua is Vecindad de Enfrente, a neighbourhood of the little town of San Pedro in the North West of Gran Canaria.  San Pedro is about three kilometres inland from Agaete and sits in the bottom of a barranco (canyon) at the point that the barranco’s walls rise up into mountains.

Walking straight towards the Via Ferrata La Guagua.

How to get out of San Pedro and onto the path to the Via Ferrata La Guagua is not very obvious.  The best thing seems to be to park near the bridge that crosses the (most likely dry) riverbed that runs along the bottom of the barranco.  From here, go uphill on a straight road that passes a white-walled school on your left and passing a sign saying “camino real Tamadaba” on your right.  Keep following this road uphill onto what looks like someone’s driveway and as it zig-zags between houses and becomes a path.  Periodically there are white arrows painted on walls and rocks to show the way.

This path makes its way up a broad ridge that gradually levels out before it heads straight towards the mountains.  Somewhat strangely, this path has street lighting in its early stage on the ridge and the black power cable that connects the lights is a good indicator of whether you are on the right path.  The path leaves this ridge to climb into the back of a mountain bowl below the peaks.

The boulders you have to bypass to get to the start of the Via Ferrata La Guagua, which starts at the base of the broad ridge in the centre of the picture.

Although my wife and I didn’t find the thirty-minute walk to the start of the Via Ferrata La Guagua challenging, we did find actually locating the start of the via ferrata a bit a difficult.  At the point where the path takes a sharp right turn, there are a pile of large boulders under which a stream trickles.  The Via Ferrata La Guagua starts about 30m above and behind these boulders at the base of a broad rock arête.  The easiest way to get to this is to continue up the path for about 10m and then go diagonally left to climb over rocks and scrubby plants.  If you can’t spot the via ferrata cable as you do this, try aiming for a black water pipe running down the mountain – the via ferrata is to the left of this.

The climbing

Once you are on it, it’s easy to see why this via ferrata has been listed in the top ten vie ferrate in Spain.  Apart from giving a huge amount of climbing in its incredible length, the Via Ferrata La Guagua involves a variety of interesting climbing that is often exposed, sustained and a bit technical.  The compact, hard volcanic rock gives consistently good holds.  In the places where the route goes up rock with fewer features, the Via Ferrata La Guagua has stemples punched into the rock to climb on.  It seems that the people who built the Via Ferrata La Guagua tried to keep the interest up (and make the climbing more challenging) in these stemple sections by having the stemples (and so the route) sometimes wander around the rock.  This makes the stemple climbing less like going up a ladder and requires you to think through your sequence of moves.

Something else that makes the Via Ferrata La Guagua interesting and fun is that it feels like exploring a wild terrain.  As you get higher, you move through different types of terrain and going around each corner or over each rise feels can bring something new and interesting, be it strange rock forms or a challenging bit of climbing.  Getting higher and higher the views of Agaete, Puero de Sardinia, the Atlantic and the surrounding mountains open out more and more and become increasingly stunning.

Agaete, Puerto de Sardinia and the Atlantic seen from the Via Ferrata La Guagua.

In its lowest section, the Via Ferrata La Guagua is essentially following a rocky ridge.  Care is needed on this part of the climb as some of the rock is a bit loose and there is the odd passage without cable that requires you to scramble or walk over loose rock and scrub.

The character of the climb changes when you get to a wire ladder on the outer edge of a large overhang.  This is the point where things get a lot more serious and strenuous.

Me climbing the wire ladder on the Via Ferrata La Guagua

The ladder ends with a 40m vertical wall of rock that you have to climb by a series of stemples.  This is just the first of a several long, steep rock faces climbed by stemples that drift around the rock.  Several of these sections involve pulling and pushing yourself over small overhangs.  The occasionally wide distances between the stemples makes all of this stemple climbing harder.  I’m 6’3’’ and I often had to stretch for the next stemple or work my feet higher in order to stand up for the next hold.   My wife, who stands at nearly 5’7”, found these sections awkward and strenuous, but certainly more interesting.

Climbing the long stemple section after the wire ladder on the Via Ferrata La Guagua.

Between these long stemple sections there are traverses and slightly easier climbing, including a couple of slab sections where you climb hand-over-hand using a chain.  The rock in this area is often ochre and grey as well as involving weirdly shaped caves and pockets.

It’s after traversing along such a cave and climbing its edge on stemples, that you get to an optional detour that takes in going through a vertical cave and over a wire Burma bridge.

Climbing a corner on stemples on the middle section of the Via Ferrata La Guagua.

Carrying on using more stemples brings you to the final section involving some unprotected scambling and easier terrain.  A final stemple climb of a corner leads to the top on some earthy, rock slabs just outside the pine forest on the top of Montana de las Presas.

The descent

In both the ascent and the descent, there are stripes of yellow paint on rocks to mark the way.  Unfortunately, these are not very big and are sometimes fairly widely spaced.  This means you sometimes have to look carefully to find them and it would be very hard to find your way if the cloud came down.

Once at the top, you follow these yellow paint stripes up through bushes and into the pines and eucalyptus trees until you reach a plateau on Las Presas.  Continuing to follow these yellow paint stripes leads to a concrete drainage channel running roughly east to west.  This provides a useful expressway through scrub to a dam, which you then walk cross.

Following the drainage channel on Montana de las Presas.

What happens next is a bit up for debate.  The guidebook Vias Ferrata; Las 50 Mejores de Espana suggests turning right after the dam and basically following the stream bed / water channel running from the dam.  This looked a bit too steep and rough for my wife and me and so we didn’t give it a try.

My map showed a trail heading right after the dam and then curving northwest around Montana de las Presas before turning north to descend a ridge.  We tried this by turning right down a track running past the dam, but found this ended abruptly after a few minutes.  A short, well-worn path ran downhill to another concrete watercourse and so we followed this.  This watercourse did traverse around Montana de las Presas and had clearly been used as a path before.  It also got us to the ridge, but part way along a well-maintained north-south path that I wouldn’t have minded picking up earlier and which might have been the proper route.

The path then winds down a rocky ridge with brilliant views of the coast and wonderful volcanic rock formations.  It reaches the crest of Montana Bibique and a takes a right turn at a junction to go south and descend back to the path used to approach the via ferrata.

It’s on this stretch that the path passes the stunning Cuevas de Berbique.  This is a honeycomb like collection of caves dug by the Guanches, the original inhabitants of Gran Canaria, as a grain store.  It’s an unusual sight and the final treat on an amazing mountain day.

Cuevas de Berbique – a grain store for the original inhabitants of Gran Canaria, the Guanches.

The undertaking

The Via Ferrata La Guagua is a serious undertaking that requires good mountaineering and climbing skills and a level head.  The sheer length of this via ferrara means that it requires a fair bit of stamina.

In the guidebook Vias Ferrata; Las 50 Mejores de Espana there is an estimated completion time of three hours, although it took my wife and I four and a half hours including breaks and stopping to enjoy the scenery.

This guidebook grades the Via Ferrata La Guagua as the Alpine grade MD (Muy Dificil, or Tres Difficile, TD, in French).  Using the grading system often applied to Dolomites vie ferrate, I’d give it a 4C.  In this system, the number represents a technical grade on a scale in which 1 is easy and 5 indicates highly technical climbing.  The letter represents a level of the seriousness involved that takes into account the commitment involved, accessibility, escape routes, the fitness required and dangers.  Although the Via Ferrata La Guagua is only half an hour walk from a town, it’s long length, lack of straightforward escape routes and end on an isolated mountaintop make it serious.

The more sophisticated of the two water stations on the Via Ferrata La Guagua.

The isolated location, difficulty of the climbing and length of the route mean doing this via ferrata requires careful planning around equipment.  The north of Gran Canaria has the potential to be cool (including wet) or hot and you need clothing for these eventualities.  My wife and I did this climb in a humid 28C heat and were dripping sweat.  We really needed more than the two litres of water we were carrying each.  Obviously, realising the challenge climbers have in balancing the need to have enough water on this route with the need to travel light, the builders of the Via Ferrata La Guagua have set up a couple of containers to collect water draining off the mountain.  It’s debatable how safe this water is to drink (I didn’t try it).

Via Ferrata Baviera

The Via Ferrata Baviera is a relatively short via ferrata that is made longer by the need to do a multi-pitch abseil (rappel) to get back down it.  This via ferrata is located among the striking ochre and grey volcanic rock buttresses and pillars by the small town of Ayacata in the centre of Gran Canaria.  It climbs the front of a giant rock fluting before diving into, and then up, the dark gully to one side of it.

The Via Ferrata Baviera seen from the road.

The Via Ferrata Baviera has great views of the pockmarked rock buttresses and towers around it.  It ends on the edge of a secluded pine forest with the smell of wild lavender.

The negative points of this via ferrata are the severity of the climbing, that there is too much unprotected scrambling and that there is a set of poorly thought out abseil anchors.

The approach

The Via Ferrata Baviera is about half a kilometre outside Ayacetta on the GC60.  There’s a dirt layby with space for a few cars just after the junction of the GC60 and GC600.  Park here and then walk a few minutes west on the GC60 (taking care because of the passing traffic) and then strike uphill through almonds trees and bushes for about five minutes.  There is a rough path most of the way up until about five metres from the cliff face, where it becomes a matter of finding the easiest way through the bushes to the rock face.  I suggest using the photo here to find your way to the start and to get a sense of the route of the via ferrrata.

The climbing

The climbing, particularly at the start, is hard.  Not fun hard like the Via Ferrata La Guagua, just hard.  The rock has few neat holds and many of the holds are small.  The rock is also loose and friable it’s fairly easy to dislodge something.

Me climbing the Via Ferrata La Baviera.

After some effort in the lower section, the climbing gets a bit easier as it gets less vertical and goes up a series of slabs.  The route then traverses into the shadowy gully and goes up this gully by a rounded arête.  The cable then ends abruptly, only two-thirds of the way up the route.

Me climbing up the gully on the Via Ferrata La Baviera

The rest of the ascent is undertaken via unprotected scrambling up the gully on often rounded holds.  This scramble includes a squeeze through a gap under some boulders followed by a scramble up to an area of broken slabs on the edge of a pine forest.

Squeezing under boulders on the Via Ferrata Baviera.

This is a beautiful, tranquil place with good views of interesting rocks.  It’s great to stop for a while.  However, it still felt to me a little like this via ferrata had ended too soon.  That feeling didn’t take account of how long it would take to get back down again.

The top of the Via Ferrata Baviera.

The descent

A multi-pitch abseil is required to get down the Via Ferrata Baviera.  I knew this in advance because I’d found an online video showing people abseiling down.  However, looking around at the top of this route, I couldn’t find the first set of anchors and my memory of this video was not good enough to figure out exactly where they were.  Now that I’m back in the UK and have looked at this video again, it seems to me that the first set of anchors are reached by turning right at the top of the via ferrata and following the edge around.  It was in this area that I looked for these anchors, but I clearly didn’t go far enough along the edge to find them.

Also, after having seen the route first hand and now looking at this video again, I wonder about the length of this first abseil and whether I could have done it on the 60m rope (doubled over) that I was using.  As it was, my wife and I gingerly did the difficult and worrying down climb back to the cables and abseiled from there down to the next set of anchors.  These were to the right (if facing in) of the broad arête to which the final section of cable is attached.

The last set of anchors for abseiling down the Via Ferrata La Baviera.

The anchor points on the Via Ferrata Baviera are painted in orange to make them stand out.  They are mostly bolts with maillions.  However, there is one anchor made up a maillion attached to the main via ferrata cable and, separately, to the rock by its own cable and a bolt.  Getting to these anchors on the descent requires a short traverse out of the gully, which you can protect for most of the way by reattaching yourself to the via ferrata cable.

It’s very important to know that a 60m rope, doubled over, is not long enough to abseil from the penultimate anchors to the final anchors.  My wife found herself about 3m above the final anchors and at the end of the rope when she abseiled down.  She was forced to clip her lanyards to the cable, remove herself from the abseil system and down climb a few metres in order to rig the next abseil.  As the final abseil was about 20m, this is just poor design on the part of whoever built this via ferrata.   It’s has the potential to be a fatal design hiccup for an inattentive climber who doesn’t knot the ends of their abseil rope.

Me abseiling down the Via Ferrata Baviera.

It’s also hard to see how a climbers abseiling down wouldn’t get in the way of climbers coming up on the lower section of this vie ferrate.  In addition, there are a few loose rocks on this lower section that it’s easy to knock onto someone below you either with your foot or as you pull the rope down.

The undertaking

It’s really this abseil and the hardness of the climbing that gives the Via Ferrata Baviera it’s challenge and its interest.  You certainly need a variety of technical skills to do it well.  Although the start is in easy walking distance of a village, there are no escape routes before the end of this via ferrata and the end is a bit isolated.

It’s for these reasons that I’d give the Via Ferrata Baviera a 4B grade.

Further Information

I’ve not been able to find much information in English on these vie ferrate and the other vie ferrate on Gran Canaria.  The information that is available is predominantly in Spanish.  This made my planning difficult, as my Spanish is terrible.  Thankfully, if you are like me, a lot of the information that is available includes photos, maps and videos that give a reasonable indication of what is involved.

The websites Aventura Canarias and DeAndar both have information on vie ferrate on Gran Canaria.  There are also a few YouTube videos of vie ferrate on Gran Canaria being climbed.

The guidebook Vias Ferrata; Las 50 Mejores de Espana has information on the Via Ferrata La Guagua and the Via Ferrata Primera Luna, both of which it puts in the top ten vie ferrate in Spain.

If anyone knows of any other sources of information, or has done vie ferrate on Gran Canaria, I would be really interested to hear about it.

Safety

Doing vie ferrate carries a variety of risks and is dangerous.  Don’t set out to try these vie ferrate unless you have the skills, knowledge and equipment to do them properly.  There are a few tips on this blog about how to do vie ferrate safely, but they are just tips and not a substitute for knowing what you are doing in the mountains and making good decisions. 

Have fun and be safe.

The UK’s first via ferrata is one of the Lake District’s biggest attractions but has also been one of its biggest sources of controversy in the last few years.  How might these controversies, and the quality of the climb, affect your decision to pay to climb this via ferrata?

The gully and the Burma bridge on the Honister Slate Mine Via Ferrata.

It was probably inevitable that when it opened in 2007 the first via ferrata in the UK would attract some strong opinions.  The system of climbing a mountain using ladders, stemples and occasionally bridges, together with a metal cable to attach to so as to prevent a long fall, could be considered to be more at home in the Alps.  Vie ferrate have their origins in the Alps and they seem more at home among the cable cars and ski pulls that dot those mountains.  Yet a via ferrata had been constructed on Honister Crags to provide a way to climb from a little way above Honister Pass to just below the summit of Fleetwith Pike.

Although the route of the via ferrata goes through disused Victorian mine workings, the land it passes has been deemed ecologically important enough to be declared a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI).  This via ferrata is also a large metallic addition to a mountain in the Lake District National Park, one of the most beautiful parts of England and somewhere held in strong affection by many people.

Fleetwith Pike as seen from the Honister Slate Mine.

The via ferrata was built by the Honister Slate Mine that quarries and mines Fleetwith Pike.  Together with a café and mine tours, the via ferrata was an additional source of income that it was argued would help this business and so bring much needed jobs to the local, rural community.  It was perhaps to fully take advantage of the business that the via ferrata might bring in, that Honister Slate Mine decided to build an extension to the via ferrata.  It was with its efforts to expand that the controversies really started.

The controversies

The extension to the via ferrata went through the SSSI and Natural England argued that it had damaged the habitat.  In August 2011, the Mine pleaded guilty to building this extension without planning permission and paid roughly £28,000 in fines and costs.

Yet what has really generated hot debate over the last few years has been plans to expand the via ferrata by adding a zip-wire.  The original proposal was for a 1.2km zip-wire that would have run from Black Star crag on the side of Fleetwith Pike to the Mine’s visitor centre at the Pass.  It was suggested that those riding the wire would have reached speeds of 60mph.

The view of Honister Pass from near the top of the via ferrata. It’s from roughly where this picture was taken that the zip-wire to the Pass was planned to start.

Cumbria Tourism, Cumbria County Council and famous mountaineer Sir Chris Bonnington supported the plan.  Those opposed included the Friends of the Lake District, Natural England, the British Mountaineering Council, the Fell and Rock Climbing Club and the two parish councils local to the mine.

Those in favour argued that the zip-wire would bring new (and especially, younger) visitors to the Lake District with resulting economic benefits.  They also argued that the zip-wire would have limited damage to the environment because it would be amid the mine workings.

Those against argued that the former industrial nature of the Pass didn’t stop it being home to an important environment that would be damaged by the zip-wire.  They also argued that the zip-wire would spoil others’ enjoyment of this area and lead to too many visitors in a quiet area.  In addition, they felt that approval would set a precedent that would make it easier to develop the National Park in future.

The visitor centre at Honister Slate Mine.

The Development Control Committee of the Lake District National Park Authority turned down this proposal in September 2011.  They stated that the zip-wire would adversely affect the character of the natural environment and that this outweighed the economic benefits and the unique experience the zip-wire would give visitors.  Despite these set backs, the via ferrata did expand with a harder version opening alongside the original in 2012.

In January 2013, the same Development Control Committee considered a revised plan for the zip-wire.  This involved a 1.4km zip-wire, in two sections, with a lower starting point on the crags and with a different approach to breaking at the end.  The Committee rejected this plan.  This decision prompted Sir Chris to resign as vice-president of the Friends of the Lake District.

Should you climb it?

With this recent decision, the controversies may have died down for now.  Yet the via ferrata is still there to be climbed and so the question arises of whether climbing it is something that mountain-loving people should do.  I think that there are two aspects to answering this question.  The first relates to how you feel about the via ferrata’s existence and how it has been managed.  The second is whether the climb is a worthwhile experience and worth the money.

Honister Slate Mine and the via ferrata.

If you disagree with the existence of the via ferrata, then it would obviously be contradictory to contribute to its continuation by paying to use it.  I’ve heard and read a few rock climbers express (sometimes strong) scepticism about vie ferrate and I suspect their views are informed by UK rock climbing ethics.  In general terms, these ethics can be divided into two broad sets of rules.  The first sets of rules relate to the importance of preserving the rockface and its surrounding environment.  The second relate to the style of ascent and gives greater merit or value to such things as whether the climber does the climb under his or her own power and without artificial aid (see Jamie Maddison’s article for a good summary of rock climbing ethics).  Vie ferrate sit ill in this system of ethics because they change the nature of the rockface and are a very artificial aid to climbing.

I support this system of ethics, but it’s a rock climbing system and I am cautious and a bit sceptical about how applicable the specifics of it are to a different mountain activity such as vie ferrate.  In addition, there are limited circumstances when altering a rockface or its surroundings is considered acceptable in this ethical system, e.g. by adding sports climbing bolts where trad climbing is not really possible.  This means that I don’t think it’s possible to say that vie ferrate are absolutely wrong for the UK.  Instead, I think the general principles of preservation and style should be part of considering whether other mountain activities, like vie ferrate, are appropriate to the circumstances and whether their benefits outweigh the costs.

Me climbing on the Honister Slate Mine Via Ferrata.

There are probably few locations in the UK in which a via ferrata would not interfere with other users or change the landscape too much to be acceptable.  However, a mine is probably as good a location as you will get.  Honister Slate Mine has been an industrial site for a long time and shows the scarring of this.  The cables, ladders and stemples of a via ferrata are not really making this much worse.  The impact of the via ferrata and those climbing are also limited to particular lines up the mountain (when you are clipped to a via ferrata, there really is only so far to either side you can go).  The sight and noise of people both going to the via ferrata and going up it are also no more than you get at a lot of rock climbing crags.  I do consider it wrong that Honister Mine built an extension without permission in an SSSI, but they have paid for it.

Me crossing the wire bridge on the Honister Slate Mine Via Ferrata.

If the zip-wire had been built, that would probably have changed how I feel about this via ferrata.  Vie ferrate do not have to have zip-wires and I would be concerned that the amount of construction require to put the zip-wire up might have notably damaged the SSSI.  I would also be worried that the screaming of people flying down the fells at 60mph would disturb other people’s enjoyment of the mountains.  However, the zip-wire has not been built and so I think it’s a moot point in considering whether to climb the via ferrata.  The idea of building the zip-wire did little to endear the owners of Honister Slate Mine to some people and it may be that some feel so strongly that they want little to do with the place.  For me, the act of trying to get approval for the zip-wire is not enough to justify bearing that sort of grudge.  I think it’s time to move on.

What the Honister Slate Mine Via Ferrata brings is a new way to climb a mountain that has the potential to open the mountains to others who might not otherwise have come to enjoy them.

Is it a good climb?

This leaves the issue of whether the Honister Slate Mine via ferrata is a fun climb.

Me on the Honister Slate Mine Via Ferrata Xtreme.

I did the Xtreme version on my stag weekend towards the end of last year.  After picking up helmets, harnesses and lanyards from the visitor centre, you are driven up to the mine entrance by the sort of bus I usually see on the suburban streets of London.  Entering the mine, I followed a tunnel until it brought me out on a slanting terrace on the mountain face high above the Pass.  From there, there were several lines of stemples and ladders to follow that moved up, down and across the crags.  Although a lot of the climbing was straightforward, there were a few interesting moves and plenty of variety in what you were climbing, with several ladders and a fun descent over a slight overhang into a gully.  The sweeping views and the crags were dramatic and it was fun moving above long drops above the Pass.  The 100m Burma bridge had plenty of this exposure but the challenge of it really came from how strenuous it was trying to keep upright and going forward as I tilted one way and the other.  I imagine that the effort of this and climbing into the gully might make the Xtreme version unsuitable for some people.  Thankfully, this bridge was followed by some easier slab climbing before a finish up a rope cargo net.  There was then a quick walk to enjoy the view of Buttermere from the 658m summit of Fleetwith Pike before the walk back down.

Me climbing off the top of the cargo net.

Anyone trying it should not expect this to be like a European vie ferrate.  In the Alps the ladders and stemples are usually an aid to climbing and there are sections of climbing rock.  There was hardly anywhere climbing on the Honister Slate Mine via ferrata were I was not holding onto, and standing on, metalwork of some description.  Another difference from the vie ferrate I have been on elsewhere in Europe is how the ladders are managed.  In the Dolomites the cable just runs straight next to the ladder and may have no intermediate pins between the top and bottom of the ladder.  This potentially means a long fall if you come off.  At Honister they have dealt with this by having loops of cable at intervals to clip in to.  It’s a neat safety touch.

The view of Buttermere from the summit of Fleetwith Pike.

Accompanying you on the via ferrata is a guide (although not a qualified mountain guide) and the one I had was a nice bloke who was helpful when one of my group felt a bit unnerved.  This guide takes photos of those on the via ferrata which you can get on a DVD for £15 once you have finished the climb.  The Mine has a rule that people don’t take photos on the via ferrata.  This may be to prevent people falling off as they focus more on taking photos than on climbing, but I suspect that it is also about making money.  Like the nearly £40 fee for an adult (nearly £30 for a child) to use the via ferrata, I find it hard to believe that the charge reflects their costs.  It’s also a bit annoying that the quality of the photos you get depends on the guide’s photography skills (which weren’t amazing in my case).

From speaking to people, it is often the price that seems to put them off this via ferrata as well as a feeling that something that is predominantly free in the Alps is charged for.  However, if you don’t mind the cost, then I would recommend the Honister Slate Mine Via Ferrata Xtreme as a fun and different way to climb a Lake District peak.

Today a group of manufacturers have issued new recalls on via ferrata lanyards.  This is the second wave of recalls of this type of equipment in the last six months and relates to a different type of lanyards than in the first wave.  The statements issued by the UIAA (the International Mountaineering and Climbing Federation) and the manufacturers are clear that the issues with these particular lanyards are potentially fatal.

Climbing the via ferrata Via Delle Trincee in the Dolomites.

Usually, recalls of climbing and mountaineering equipment are for particular items and are specific to one manufacturer.  The safety issues that have affected via ferrata lanyards in the last six months relate to a multiple products, from multiple manufacturers.  The costs to these manufacturers must be substantial, with entire product lines withdrawn and customers compensated with replacements.  There is also the testing and development of new, safer lanyards.  However, not recalling these products would have been far worse to their reputations and their customers.  Via ferrata lanyards are designed to withstand the very high fall factors associated with falling off a via ferrata and, together with the harness they are attached to, are the only thing that arrests a fall that could result in serious injury or death.

It was a fatal accident that started this sequence of events.  In August last year a climber fell off a via ferrata in Austria and both his lanyards snapped.  This led to a number of recalls as manufacturers tested their products for the fault that it is believed caused that accident.  The issue appears to have been how elasticated lanyards are made and how they weaken with intensive use.  These are recalls are something I have blogged about before.  However, the new recalls are of old, used via ferrata sets using rope-breaking systems.  Again, the issue appears to be both intensive use and the basic construction of this safety equipment and has been revealed by a testing programme by manufacturers.  A full list of the models affected is on the UIAA website.

Climbing the via ferrata Piz da Lech.

Manufacturers have worked with a relevant sports body to identify potentially dangerous products and remove them from use.  The UIAA is also in the process of improving the relevant safety standards.  While I feel somewhat reassured by these recalls as they seem to show a system that works, I’m not completely reassured for two reasons.  The first is that I’m unsure if there are not more recalls of this or similar equipment to come.  I didn’t imagine that there would be a second wave of recalls and I’m guessing most people who climb via ferrata didn’t either.  The second reason is the scale of what has happened.  A lot of people would have used these lanyards that have now been recalled, possibly for quite a while and possibly when they were unsafe to use.  Therefore, the fact that there have not been more fatalities may be just down to chance.

Whether the manufacturers are to blame is up for debate.  Manufacturers couldn’t recall something they didn’t know to recall and which had passed existing safety standards.  Yet, it’s worth asking why they didn’t do better fatigue tests on their products and why the safety standards were not more robust. I find this whole saga a bit unsettling, as climbers of all descriptions must trust equipment to keep them safe.  Hopefully this is the end of this story.

WW1 ruins and a view of Marmolada from the Via delle Trincee.

Vie ferrate have much of their origins in war.  As the Italians and Austrians fought a war of attrition in the passes, summits and ridges of the Dolomites, they built vie ferrate to help the movement of troops and supplies.  Now these routes are a major leisure activity, with climbers clipping to metal cables fixed to mountainsides to protect them as they climb ladders and scramble over rock.  Vie ferrate are an incredibly fun way to explore the mountains and in the Dolomites they also provide one of the best ways of learning about an aspect of World War 1 of which many people are unaware.  Seeing the tunnels, trenches, emplacements and debris of this mountain war can begin to bring to life the hardships and sacrifices of the men who fought on what the Italians called the “il fronte vertical.”

The Mountain War

From June 1915 to October 1917, Italy and Austria (or the Austro-Hungarian Empire as it was then) fought among the mountains of the Dolomites.  Both sides tried to gain the high ground and set up positions and fortifications on mountain summits and ridges.  Cold and exposures were just as much of a danger as bullets and shells and avalanches were a particular danger.  It’s been estimated that at least 60,000 soldiers were killed in avalanches.

This was a war of attrition in which both sides tried to break the stalemate by tunnelling and mining to undermine enemy positions.  In the end, events further south largely brought the mountain war to an end.  In late 1917 an Austrian and German offensive broke through the Italian lines at Caporetto and the Italians retreated from the mountains in order to better defend Venice.

A WW1 bullet casing on Tofana di Dentro on the Via Ferrata Lamon.

In the 1930s the Italian Alpine Club began to restore the old via ferrata routes and to build new ones as a way to attract tourists.  This process continued after a break caused by World War 2 and the development of vie ferrate since has seen them become a major attraction.

Climbing to learn

Many vie ferrate pass through, or by, the remains of the mountain war.  Some of these remnants have been restored to provide a better understanding of what happened in these mountains.  Some remnants are little more than broken wood, old barbed wire and falling down defences.  Seeing ruined buildings perched on steep ridges, walking down long tunnels dug into mountains and looking at trenches hacked into rock is a practical lesson in the hardships and toil soldiers faced in the Dolomites.  Vie ferrate provide a means of having a fun climb while getting closer to this history and learning more about a conflict that is too often forgotten.

WW1 fortifications on Monte Piana.

Below are what I think are the top five vie ferrate for both learning about the mountain war and having a good climb.

1) Via delle Trincee

This stunning via ferrata above the town of Arabba follows a high mountain ridge.  As you ascend and descend along the ridgeline the climbing is varied, engaging, exposed and often fairly hard (it’s graded 4B on a scale in which 5 represents the hardest technical difficulty).  Added interest comes from a suspension bridge and a few sections of stemples.

Me climbing the Via delle Trincee.

The views are also stunning, with the mighty Marmolada and its glacier filling your view to the south.  This via ferrata is also named the Way of the Trenches for good reason.  Ruined WW1 buildings balance precariously on the ridge and the final third of the route is past gun emplacements and along tunnels.  If you choose to walk back on the slopes to the south of the ridge you also pass the remains of extensive trench systems.

2) Via Ferrata degli Alpini (AKA Via Ferrata al Col dei Bos)

The ruins of the old military hospital.

This via ferrata was not put on up in World War 1, but in 2007 by the Alpini Brigade (Italian mountain troops) for training purposes.  As such, the construction and protection is fantastic.  It also seems to be have been built to give you the most interesting and varied line up the peak of Col dei Bos.  The climbing is that right balance between being a little bit challenging in places and having sections where you can just enjoy scrambling up the rock (it’s graded 3B).

Valerie climbing the Via Ferrata degli Alpini with the old military hospital and old military road below here.

This via ferrata is situated above Passo Falzarego and the views of the surrounding mountains are excellent.  As Passo Falzarego and the area near it saw a lot of fierce fighting in WW1, it has a lot of history.  The walk-in goes along part of the old military road linking the pass to Cortina and the remains of the old hospital of the 5^th Alpini Brigade sit near the start of the via ferrata.

3) Via Ferrata Delle Scalette and Sentiero del Curato Militare Hosp

Me climbing the ladders on the Via Ferrata Delle Scalette.

The Via Ferrata Delle Scalette (graded 3B) climbs to the summit of Torre Toblino, which was an important Austrian observation post during WW1.  The route follows the line that the troops stationed on the (really quite small) summit had to take up a rock chimney.  This really enjoyable climb involves a mixture of ladders, which either zigzag up the chimney or follow the exposed ridge on its outside, and rock climbing.  This includes the fantastic crux that requires you to bridge your way into the chimney.

Valerie climbing the crux on the Via Ferrata Delle Scalette.

Descent is via the Sentiero del Curato Militare Hosp (graded 2A) on the other side of the tower.  This is a straightforward scramble that’s mostly on easy angled rock.

There are stunning views from the top of Torre Toblino.  The walk to Torre Toblino from Rifugio Auronzo (which you can reach by taking the toll road up from Misurina) passes the beautiful and iconic Tre Cime di Laveredo.

4) Sentiero de Luca / Innerkofler

Monte Paterno and the Rifugio Tre-Cime-Locatelli.

Monte Paterno is a mountain that essentially consists of three sharp ridges that join and rise together into a single summit.  It’s a lovely looking mountain.  During WW1 it was extensively tunnelled and the route from Rifugio Tre-Cime-Locatelli climbs a lot of this mountain from the inside.

The route of the Sentiero de Luca / Innerkofler.

The route then exists these tunnels to climb to a col (with an optional detour to the summit) before descending to follow the line of the ridge south.  Ledges carved into the rock face eventually bring you to a particularly low and narrow tunnel and an exit on the crest of the ridge at Forcella Lavaredo with some great views of the Tre Cime.  All of this feels like a fairly grand mountain day, even if none of the climbing is particularly hard (its graded 2B).  It’s also a fascinating route that’s full of history and with great views.

5) Via Ferrata Ivano Dibona

Me on the suspension bridge on the Via Ferrata Ivano Dibona.

This via ferrata is a long traverse of the main ridge in the Cristallo group of mountains.  It’s high level and in good weather the fantastic views seem to take in the whole of the Northern Dolomites and some of Austria as well.  This via ferrata is also famous for having the longest suspension bridge in the Dolomites.  These facts make it well worth visiting in themselves, which is good because the climbing is middling (it’s graded 2B).  There are some interesting ladder sections and the optional detour to climb Cristallino d’Ampezzo is engaging and fun.  However, there is quite a lot of walking rather than climbing.  This walking is only made interesting by the sharpness of some of the ridges, the views and the ruined WW1 buildings and emplacements that you pass.

WW1 ruins on the Via Ferrata Ivano Dibona.

And finally

There are a couple of places that I’ve excluded from this list because they don’t provide good climbing.  However, they are still historically very interesting.

The Lagazuoi Tunnels are a complex of tunnels in the Little Lagazuoi above Passo Falzarego.  This pass was a strategically important location during WW1 and the area is full of the remnants of the war.  These have been restored and the area is now a giant, open-air museum of which the Lagazuoi Tunnels are a highlight.

Descending the Lagazuoi Tunnels.

Italians dug the tunnels as they tried to dislodge the Austrians from the mountaintop.  Some of the tunnels were to place mines under enemy positions, some were for firing or observation, others for access and some to counter Austrian tunnels.  These efforts included, in June 1917, the detonation of 33,000kg of blasting gelatin under the Austrian positions.  No Austrians were killed because they had heard the tunnelling and left.  The Italians did gain the Austrian positions.  They also blew the top off the Little Lagazuoi, leaving a gap where the summit had once been.  You can now walk through this gap and explore the tunnels.  The guidebooks often say this will take two hours, but it will only take this time if you just walk straight down the main tunnel and its worthwhile giving yourself more time to explore the many other tunnels.

The Little Lagazuoi, with the left side showing the damage (and the absence of a summit) caused by the Italian mine.  If you look closely in this picture you can also see some of the windows for the tunnel complex.

Another fascinating place to see the impact of the war is Monte Piana outside Misurina.  The two armies each held one of the two summits on this mountain and covered it in fortifications, trenches and tunnels.  It’s now an open-air museum.  An occasionally precarious path runs around the main summit and has sections of via ferrata cable (it’s graded 2B and via ferrata kit is a good idea).  When I went here in 2012, some of these cables were in serious need of repair and so take care if you visit.

Climbing on the via ferrata on Monte Piana.

Climbing vie ferrate involves a lot of risk, particularly as the vie ferrate described here are in alpine environments.  Please don’t attempt any of them unless you are suitably equipped and skilled.  There are tips on doing vie ferrate elsewhere on this blog, including tips on how to get safely started at climbing vie ferrate. 

Have fun and be safe.

Further information

The main, English language, guidebook for these vie ferrate is Via Ferratas of the Italian Dolomites: Vol 1 and is published by Cicerone.

Via Ferrata: Climbing the Iron Paths of the Dolomites
This webpage provides a good introduction to via ferrata and an overview of their history in the Dolomites.

Trails and Trenches of the Dolomites
A brilliant Financial Times article that describes the mountain war and its legacy.

La Grande Guerra
This website provides information on the open-air museum around Passo Falzarego.

Via Ferrata – Protected Climbing Paths in the Dolomites

A great and comprehensive website that provides route descriptions and photographs of many via ferrata in the Italian Dolomites.  An interactive via ferrata map is a useful tool for planning a trip and routes are also listed by mountain group and name.

Planet Mountain – Via Ferrata

A brilliant website that provides very detailed and clear route descriptions of vie ferrate in the Italian Dolomites.  A search function allows you to look for via ferrata by mountain group and name.

Further useful links.

A ladder on the Rotstock Via Ferrata. The Eigergletscher Station and Eiger Trail are behind and below.

“All the Grindelwald via ferrata are closed.”  The woman at the tourist information office said these words in a firm, brisk tone that indicated that she didn’t realise that I would find them disappointing.  I knew that there was a risk that the long, cold winter might mean that some mountain routes would still be impassable with snow that the hot July sun had not yet melted.  I had started to accept that this might be quite a high risk when I had seen snow clinging to slopes and hiding in gullies as I looked out of the train window on the way in to Grindelwald.  My trip to the tourist information office in Grindelwald had been done in the hope that I would be told my concerns were unfounded because there was one via ferrata around Grindelwald that I particularly wanted to climb.  Not only had the tourist information woman confirmed that I wasn’t wrong, but added that there was also a risk of rock fall.  I could have not let this news stop me from trying to climb, as you can’t, strictly speaking, close a cable and a series of ladders running up a mountain.  However, I know the importance of listening to local advice about mountain conditions if you want to stay safe and so thanked the woman before walking out dejectedly.

The Rotstock.

My disappointment came from my feeling that I was going to miss a chance to do a via ferrata that would allow me to climb a little bit of the legendary Eiger by a route that is within sight of its iconic Nordwand (North Face).  Admittedly, this via ferrata actually goes up a subsidiary peak of the Eiger called the Rotstock, but this simple climb would probably be as close to climbing the challenging and dangerous Eiger Nordwand as someone with my climbing skills would ever get.  I’d wanted to climb the Rotstock Via Ferrata ever since I’d heard about a via ferrata on the Eiger a couple of years before.  With a baby on the way for Valerie and I, this trip might be my only opportunity to try this route for a few years.  But with the Rotstock Via Ferrata off the agenda, I started to think about where to go for a walk.

The Green Light

A couple of days later, Valerie and I walked from Mannlichen towards the Eiger.  The Eiger looked magnificent, while the Rotstock looked like an insignificant wedge of rock at its side.  A vertical cleft separating the Rotstock from its parent peak, breaking what would otherwise have been a continuous crest.  I looked at the patches of snow around the Eiger and wished they would melt faster.

The Eiger, Rotstock and Monch seen from Kleine Scheidegg.

When we reached the tourist and rail hub of Kleine Scheidegg, Valerie pointed out a large board with a map.  On one side of this was a list of the walking and skiing routes around the Eiger.  Next to the words “Klettersteig Rotstock” (Klettersteig is the German for via ferrata) was a green light.  The Rotstock Via Ferrata was now open.Click to view slideshow.

The ascent

The next day was our last full day in Grindelwald and only the second day that year that the Rotstock Via Ferrata had been open.  We got up early and rode the railway back up to Kleine Scheidegg.  The crowds catching the views and catching the trains of the Jungfraubahn mountain railway were beginning to grow as Valerie and I walked slowly up the ridge to the Eigergletscher Station.  The Jungfraubahn is one of Switerland’s most famous attractions.  It’s a railway that climbs up and inside the Eiger, through the Monch and out at the Jungfraujoch station perched on a ridge at 3,454m between the Monch and Jungfrau.  The views from the Jungfraujoch are supposed to be as amazing as the price of the tickets to get there.  Even getting to the first station on the line at Eigergletscher is painfully expensive for such a short ride, so we walked up and drank in the wonderful views.

Me walking up to the Eigergletscher Station, with the Jungfrau in the background.

From Eigergletscher we walked down the Eiger Trail towards the Nordwand, crossing the odd patch of snow and feeling the chill of being in the shadow of the mountain.

The Rotstock and Eiger Nordwand.

Now we were at its foot, the Rotstock had an impressive bulk, with steep cliffs and a mean, huge overhang running across half its face.  Thankfully, the via ferrata misses all this.  It goes up the buttress and gully to one side of the Rotstock before it climbs around the back of the Rotstock to the saddle (the Rotstocksattel) that sits between it and the Eiger proper.  Valerie and I turned off the Eiger Trail at a place inexplicably called Wart to climb a grassy, whale-back ridge to the bottom of this buttress.

The Eiger Nordwand (left) and the Rotstock. If you look closely, you can see walkers on the Eiger Trail.

I was feeling quite excited as I put down my rucksack and began getting myself ready.  I was happy to be about to climb, but strangely uneasy and a bit sad that Valerie wouldn’t be able to share this with me.  Via ferrata is definitely out when you are pregnant and Valerie was going to watch me climb the first part of the route before getting in place from where she could see me when I got to the summit.

I gave her a hug goodbye and scrambled up to the start of the via ferrata and the first of a series of ladders that switch-backed up the buttress.  The ladders wobbled and creaked as I climbed and occasionally looked at the mountains stretching out around me.  At the top lip of the buttress I came into the sunshine and stopped to wave at Valerie and look at the dark mass of the Nordwand that was now so close.

Me climbing the ladders on the Rotstock Via Ferrata.

I then walked and scrambled up neatly stacked or broken pancakes of rock.  I was really enjoying moving over the rock, the feeling of being almost wrapped in the mountain and stunning sights of the Alps.  An unprotected walk up grey scree took me into the back of the gully and the Rotstock train station.

Rocks like stacks of pancakes.

Around the turn of the 19^th and 20^th Centuries, the Jungfraubahn had a station in the Rotstock that was the starting point for tourists to climb along a protected path to the top of the Rotstock to enjoy the view.  This path makes up the second half of the via ferrata.  It’s the reason why this section has lots of steps cut to take advantage of the natural layering of the rock, some old metal posts for safety ropes and the last, rusty, but seemingly solid, ladder on the route dates from 1899 (according to my guidebook).  The station is long closed and sealed up behind metal doors.  When I got there a waterfall of melt water was falling between these two doors and an old snow drift was pilled up.

Me standing outside the former Rotstock Station.

I climbed steps that became more broken up as I moved into a rock scoop at the back of the gully where the cliffs stood tall and framed an amazing view.  A large patch of snow sat in this scoop and buried a section of the cable.  This was probably why the via ferrata had been closed.  That the snow was only about 10m across near the top and that a rope had been attached over the snow was probably what had allowed the via ferrata to be opened.  I happily clipped into the rope and walked across, enjoying the exposure and the chance to do something slightly more adventurous.

The buried cable and rope over the snow.

The via ferrata then curved and climbed around the other side of the scoop before reaching a ladder in a narrow cleft that led me up to the broad Rotstocksattel.  A short walk along the saddle and a short section of mostly protected scrambling and I was on the 2,663m summit of the Rotstock.  It had been only an hour of easy climbing and walking.

The Rotstock Via Ferrata steps are visible cutting diagonally across the Eiger and into a snow-filled scoop at the back of the gully.

The summit

I spent nearly an hour on the summit basking in the views and the sun and eating lunch.  I just wanted to enjoy the panorama, particularly the relatively close-up views of the west face of the Eiger and of the Monch and Jungfrau.Click to view slideshow.

I probably looked like a complete idiot to the other people up there as I waved at the dot 400m below me that was Valerie, but I’m pleased that she saw me.  Retracing my steps back to the Rotstocksattel, I started down the back of the Rotstock to the Eigergletscher station.

In this magnification, you can see me waving to Valerie from the Rotstock summit

The descent

The descent route from the Rotstock.

The karabiners of my via ferrata lanyards clipped by the knot at the end of one of the ropes on the descent from the Rotstock.

Getting back down from a climb can sometimes feel more risky and difficult than getting up.  This was certainly the case with getting off the Rotstock.  I zigzagged across scree and slabby ledges as I followed the white and blue paint marks that marked the path.  Apart from trying to avoid the odd patch of snow, I had to take care that the bits of rock strewn over the ledges didn’t act like ball bearings under my feet, sweeping them out from under me and sending me bouncing down the mountain.  Some of the steps between the rock ledges were also quite tall and I had to take care finding holds.  Ropes had been fixed across some of the trickier sections.  I initially clipped my lanyards on to these to catch me if I fell, but stopped doing so when I realised that most of these ropes were only connected to the mountain at the top and ended with a knot that would easily pass through my karabiners.  Instead, I down climbed some of the ropes.

The descent route from the Rotstock, with some of the fixed ropes and the west face of the Eiger.

Partly because of these slight challenges and partly because I was enjoying the odd glance at the glaciers around the Monch and ridges of the Jungfrau, I was having a really good time.

I was about two-thirds of the way down when I met two climbers who stopped me with a hopeful “klettersteig?” and pointed fingers up the way I had just come.  They were surprisingly not that annoyed when I told them that they were on the wrong side of the mountain and showed them where to go on the map.

People zigzagging across the mountain as they descend from the Rotstock.

After this I picked up the pace to make sure I wouldn’t be too late for meeting Valerie.  I met her at Eigergletscher station and celebrated having done a fun little via ferrata, and a little bit of the Eiger, with a big eis cafe.

Further information

The English language guidebook that describes the Rotstock Via Ferrata is Via Ferrata Switzerland by Iris Kurschner and published by Rother in 2005.  This includes a description of the route and a simple map.

The SummitPost website has a good, detailed description of the Rotstock Via Ferrata together with lots of useful photos, including photos with the ascent and descent routes marked on them.  There is also a summary of the Rotstock Via Ferrata on the website of Switzerland Tourism.

If you don’t have any experience of via ferrata and want to give the Rotstock Via Ferrata a go, Grindelwald Sports runs a via ferrata taster course in which a mountain guide will take you up this route.

Me on the 80-metre long suspension bridge on the Murren-Gimmelwald Via Ferrata

Murren is a pretty village of wooden chalets and hotels perching on slopes covered in woods and meadows.  In the summer, men farm the meadows for hay accompanied by the clanking of cowbells.  Tourists sit in cafes or wander streets kept quiet by a ban on all but electric vehicles.  The Eiger, Monch and outlying peaks of the Jungfrau across the valley provide a dramatic horizon of dark rock and bright snow.  Standing in its centre it’s easy to not realise that this quiet Swiss village comes to an abrupt halt at sheer limestone cliffs that drop hundreds of metres to the bottom of the narrow Lauterbrunnen Valley.  It’s this drop that makes Murren a favourite place for base-jumpers and paragliders.  It’s also along the top of these cliffs that a brilliant via ferrata descends from Murren to the village of Gimmelwald by a route that seems designed to test your nerves.

Gimmelwald (on the left) and Murren sitting above the cliffs of the Lauterbrunnen Valley.

The Murren-Gimmelwald Via Ferrata was opened in 2008 after six years of construction.  It was funded by contributions from local businesses and individuals, whose generosity is recognised in them being named on little plaques attached to rocks at periodic intervals along the route.  It’s the most sponsored via ferrata I’ve ever done.

It’s often described as unusual for a via ferrata for going down instead of going up.  This isn’t entirely accurate as saying a via ferrata goes up or down is a bit like saying a ladder goes up or down – it really depends on where you start from.  What is accurate to say is that most vie ferrate are used for ascending and fewer are commonly used to descend a mountain.  The Murren-Gimmelwald Via Ferrata has been built specifically for people to descend.  This just adds to how it tries to unnerve you, as down-climbing is harder than climbing up and involves considerably more looking down at the drop.

Strangely, this descent starts from the back of Murren’s tennis courts and is accessed via a tunnel under the courts.  The via ferrata then descends and traverses through woods and over rock faces to Gimmelwald.  What makes this route fun is how it’s been built to take advantage of the natural obstacles to give you a feeling of exposure and challenge you to overcome any nerves you might have about long falls.

The first example of how this via ferrata puts you in an exposed position is also the best – a traverse along a series of stemples at the top of the Lauterbrunnen cliffs, with a 600-metre fall below your feet.  The drop is so steep and so far, that a wooden platform has been built here for basejumpers to launch themselves from.  To make you feel the exposure even more, the path of the stemples descends vertically a couple of times.

The view down as I traversed across the Lauterbrunnen cliffs.

I hung on these stemples for a while enjoying the mix of exhilaration and nervousness at the exposure as well as the views of the wall of cliffs, the flat, green valley bottom with a river cutting it down the middle and the snow-covered peaks in the distance.

Stemples descending the Lauterbrunnen cliffs and the Lauterbrunnen Valley.

The other obstacles come from gorges cleaved out of the cliffs.  The first of these can be crossed by a zip-wire, but only if a guide accompanies you.  I didn’t feel the need to pay a guide just to use the zip-wire, so went away from the cliff and to a long Burma (three-wire) bridge that was strung across the gorge higher up.  Its location was fantastic – passing close to a waterfall and surrounded by forest.  I’ve done a much longer Burma bridge before, with a much bigger drop below it, but I felt more nervous about falling off this one.  It swayed just enough to be disconcerting and as I inched across it was hard not to look at the rocks and water below.

The first Burma bridge.

The second Burma bridge also crossed a gorge with a waterfall, but its shorter length meant less wobble and so I felt fine crossing it.

Between these two Burma bridges were two fun sections of ladders.  The first was straightforward climb down a short buttress, followed by crossing the run-off from a waterfall by stemples.  The second section of ladders goes down a long cliff face and includes a middle ladder angled to throw you off balance a bit.

Me on the first section of ladders on the Murren-Gimmelwald Via Ferrata.

The last obstacle, and the finale, of the Murren-Gimmelwald Via Ferrata is an 80-metre suspension bridge over a 300-metre drop into a gorge.  What made crossing this bridge a bit unsettling was that during the beginning and end thirds there weren’t any cables to use as handrails.  There was a cable for clipping your lanyards on to, but this was only on one side of the bridge and I felt that holding on to this with one or both hands could send me off balance.  There were vertical cables holding the walkway, but these were further apart than my reach and I could only hold them occasionally.  Every small step I took also made the bridge sway.  Once I got to the middle third of the bridge I could hold on to the cables from which the bridge was suspended and fully relax.  Then I could enjoy the view of the valley and mountains and enjoy being in such a dramatic situation.

The suspension bridge.

This bridge is close to the Schilthorn Bahn cablecar and I waved at one of the cars as it glided up to Gimmelwald.  No one noticed – they were all too busy looking at the snowy mountains to see a man standing on a suspension bridge hundreds of metres in the air.  After the bridge, the via ferrata made its way through the woods to Gimmelwald.

A view from the Murren-Gimmelwald Via Ferrata (including a paraglider).

Further information

The Murren-Gimmelwald Via Ferrata is in the Bernese Oberland region of Switzerland.  The main English language guidebook for Swiss vie ferrate – Via Ferrata Switzerland by Iris Kurschner – was published in 2005 and so doesn’t include any information on this via ferrata.  However, the Murren-Gimmelwald Via Ferrata has its own website (in German and English) that provides information on how to get to the via ferrata, a simple map and a gallery of photos.  A lot of this information can also be downloaded as a brochure.

SummitPost has a good description of the route together with some excellent photos.  The author also describes a different route to Murren than the one that I took – driving to Stechelberg and then taking the Schilthorn Bahn cable car to Gimmelwald, followed by a second cable car to Murren.  I got to Murren by taking trains to Lauterbrunnen, followed by a cable car up to the top of the cliffs and a further train along to Murren.

The Men Who Jump Off Cliffs is a great article on the Digital Nomad blog about the base jumpers who leap off the cliffs around Murren and Lauterbrunnen.

Valerie on the bridge on the Via Ferrata Sandro Pertini in the Dolomites, Italy.

If someone asked me what causes accidents on via ferrate, I would only be able to make a few informed guesses. This is because there is surprisingly little readily accessible information on why accidents happen on vie ferrate. This concerns me because understanding why the cause of accidents is essential to preventing them. I’d like there to start a conversation about the causes and prevalence of these accidents as a way of improving understanding and helping people safely enjoy vie ferrate.  As a starting point, I’ll set out what I know and suspect.

Frequency and prevalence

The only figures I’ve been able to find on the number of accidents on vie ferrate are published by the Aiut Alpin Dolomites. This is a voluntary association of seventeen mountain rescue teams that mainly operate in the Ladin Valleys of the Dolomites, an area with a high number of vie ferrate. The Aiut Alpin Dolomites figures are on the types of “interventions” they have done during the summer and winter seasons each year. These figures note that in 2013 there were 19 interventions in relation to “fixed protection climbing paths (via ferrata).”  This doesn’t seem a lot to me as I imagine that every summer thousands of people must use the vie ferrate in the area the Aiut Alpin Dolomites cover. It also doesn’t seem a lot when compared to the other types of interventions these mountain rescue teams report that they were involved in that year (see chart).

Source: http://www.aiut-alpin-dolomites.com/english/statistics_2013.html

However, there is a limit from what can be said from this sort of comparison. The activities involved are quite different and so it isn’t possible, for example, to use these figures to say that climbing a via ferrata is safer or more dangerous than cycling or rock climbing. It’s also not possible to know the prevalence of accidents for each of these activities without knowing the numbers of people undertaking them. There were 19 via ferrata interventions in 2013, but this is 19 out of an unspecified number of climbs of vie ferrate in that year. Was it 19 interventions out of 10,000 climbs, 50,000 climbs or 100,000 climbs? Without this other figure it’s very hard to get a sense of how prevalent accidents are on vie ferrate.

What can be done with these figures is compare the number of via ferrata interventions by Aiut Alpin Dolomites over time to get a sense of whether accidents are occurring more or less frequently in this major area for vie ferrate climbing.

Source: Aiut Alpin Dolomites

This shows no obvious trend to more or fewer interventions by Aiut Alpin Dolomites in the last 13 years. Apart from an unexplained spike in 2004 and a slight dip in 2003, the number of interventions per year has kept within a range of between 10 and 19.

It’s not possible to draw many firm conclusions from these figures as:

• the number of interventions each year are so small;
• “intervention” is not defined;
• it’s not possible to get a sense of prevalence; and
• accidents that did not require a mountain rescue intervention, or in which mountain rescue was not contacted, are presumably not included.

What the figures do indicate is that accidents are regularly happening on vie ferrate and that these accidents are serious enough for the victims to need the assistance of mountain rescue. To understand how to reduce the number of such accidents, it is necessary to understand what causes them.

Using the wrong equipment

Falling off a via ferrata involves far higher impact forces than would be encountered falling off a rock climb and specialist via ferrata sets are designed to cope with such impact forces and so arrest a fall (the Mammut website has good explanation of the impact forces involved). Yet when I’ve been climbing vie ferrate in the Dolomites I’ve regularly seen people using protective equipment that they have put together themselves out of bits of climbing equipment such as quick draws, slings or lengths of rope and standard karabiners.  The chances of such a homemade set-up arresting a via ferrata fall is very low to nil. This is demonstrated by an excellent video of what happens when an 80kg person (represented in the test by a big lump of wood) falls off a via ferrata using different protective set-ups. The specialist via ferrata sets hold the fall, but the sling on the homemade set-up snaps (there is also a full length, German language version of this video).

Me climbing the last wall on the Via Ferrata La Guagua on Gran Canaria in the Canary Islands.

I’m guessing that the reason people try to make their own set-up rather than buying a proper set is to save money and because they are ignorant of the risks. It could be argued that such people are more likely to be first time or occasional via ferrata climbers with little rock climbing or mountaineering experience. I think this is true to an extent, as doing a via ferrata is far more accessible to inexperienced people than other aspects of climbing. However, people who don’t go rock climbing or mountaineering don’t have slings and karabiners lying around the house to use as via ferrata protection. Also, the cost of buying slings and karabiners is not dissimilar to buying a professionally made via ferrata set and so there is little financial incentive for someone to not buy a properly manufacturer via ferrata set. A more likely explanation is that most of the people who make their own via ferrata sets already have some degree of rock climbing or mountaineering experience (and so own climbing equipment) or are occasional climbers who have been lent climbing equipment. They use what is readily available because it saves a little bit of money and they don’t understand the risks. I can understand someone with no or little climbing experience making the mistake of using a homemade set-up, but it’s disquieting to think that someone with climbing experience can be ignorant of, or not care about, the potential consequences of what they are doing.

Using the right equipment badly

Ignorance or arrogance can also cause people to use the right sort of equipment in a way that means it will not work in the event of a fall.

When climbing the Via Ferrata Ivano Dibona a few years ago I saw two climbers descending a series of rock steps without their via ferrata sets being clipped to the cable. As one of these climbers climbed down, he stepped onto loose rocks that rolled and his feet slipped from under him. He then slid on his bum towards a cliff edge, coming to a stop with only his bum on the mountain and his legs sticking out into space. A little bit more momentum and he would have gone over the cliff and probably fallen to this death. This near miss could have been avoided if he had simply clipped-in.

Valerie climbing the Via Ferrata Ivano Dibona in the Dolomites.

This was not the first or last climber I’ve seen climbing unclipped from the cable and I wonder if some accidents happen when one of these solo-ists has a slip. Although it’s an imperfect way of making this assessment, the clothing and equipment of these people seems to indicate that they have some experience in the mountains and climb regularly. I suspect that it is this very experience that leads to them taking the risk of not using their via ferrata sets at times as they have decided that their experience, and lack of previous accidents, means that they are less likely to stumble and fall (the dangers associated with this attitude is something I’ve written about before).

Another possible cause of serious accidents is using equipment that is too old or damaged to arrest a fall. When I climbed the Rotstock Via Ferrata last year I geared up at the base of the route at the same time as another party. The guy who appeared to be leading the group had a brand new via ferrata set (I saw him removing the manufacturer’s label) attached to a climbing harness that, from its style and faded colours, was probably over 20 years old. He was in his mid-40s and I’m guessing that he had climbed a lot when younger and had dug out his old kit to take some inexperienced friends up the Rotstock. The new via ferrata set could have saved him if he had fallen if it were not for the high probability that his harness, degraded by age, would have snapped during a fall.

The warning sign at the start of the Rotstock Via Ferrata in Switzerland.

There is an interesting presentation from someone from a French mountain rescue team about a fatal accident on a via ferrata caused by a more unusual misuse of equipment (CAUTION: this slide show contains a photograph of a dead body that some people might find upsetting). The climber had tied a knot in the lanyard of an old via ferrata set in order to reduce its length and this knot reduced the lanyard’s strength. The lanyard snapped when he fell and the climber died.

Equipment failure

Equipment failure in the event of a fall is a nightmare scenario for most climbers because it has the potential to be unpredictable, unpreventable and fatal. Thankfully, testing and standards are high in the manufacture of climbing gear and most climbers are very careful to look after their gear. I don’t have any indication that it is anything other than rare for via ferrata sets to fail to arrest a fall when they are in a good condition and used properly. However, there have been a couple of times, that I know about, when someone has fallen and the via ferrata set that they were trusting failed.

Valerie climbing the Via Ferrata La Guagua on Gran Canaria in the Canary Islands.

In May 2011, a young man died after falling to the ground from the Bastille Via Ferrata in Granoble, France. The accident appeared to have been the result of a manufacturing defect in the Petzl Scorpio lanyard that he was using and it led Petzl to recall all their Scorpio and Absorbica via ferrata sets.

The other incident occurred in August 2012 when a man died near Walchsee in Austria after he fell and the lanyards of his via ferrata set snapped. The manufacturer, Edelrid, the UIAA (Union Internationale des Associations d’Alpinisme – International Mountaineering and Climbing Federation) and the German Alpine Club stated that the accident involved the lanyards breaking due to both the intensive use they had been subjected to and the materials used in their manufacture.  The German Alpine Club has said that repeated stretching of the lanyards during use led to a reduction in the strength of their fibres as the elastic and strength-bearing threads within them rubbed against each other.  As the via ferrata set involved in the accident were rented, it was speculated that they had received more use than if it had been owed and used by a member of the public. This incident led to recalls of via ferrata sets with elasticated lanyards made by:

• Edelrid
• Wild Country
• AustriAlpin
• Singing Rock
• Climbing Technology
• Edelweiss
• Ocun
• Mammut

This was followed a few months later by recalls of via ferrata sets using rope-breaking systems. In both sets of recalls the issues related to intensive use of the via ferrata sets and their basic construction.

Me climbing the Via Ferrata Michielli Strobel in the Dolomites.

I’ve written about this before (see Recalling a Crisis and Further Recalled) and have mixed feelings about the whole affair. The swift response in these cases deserves credit. It’s probably this, the revision of safety standards, the rarity of these sorts of accidents and that the issues were not really taken up by the media that has meant this crisis doesn’t appear to have damaged consumer confidence in either manufacturers or climbing vie ferrate. Yet it’s deeply worrying that so many manufacturers had to recall so many different models of via ferrata sets because of a seeming failure of design and/or manufacture. We have to trust mountaineering equipment manufacturers to sell us via ferrata sets that work because if we ever do need to rely on a set, it really must work or we suffer potentially catastrophic consequences.

Carelessness, bad judgment, bad luck, etc.

Accidents on vie ferrate can have the same causes as accidents that happen during rock climbing, mountaineering or hiking. Carelessness, bad judgment and just plain bad luck (e.g. a falling rock) could all cause accidents on a via ferrata. Forethought, proper equipment, mindfulness, skills, experience, a critical perspective on your own judgment and heeding the advice of those with more knowledge can go a long way to preventing such accidents. Even when the accident is the result of chance, having these things can mean someone is better able to cope with the situation.

Valerie climbing the Via Ferrata Marino Bianchi in the Dolomites.

Why I can’t find out more

The trouble I have in considering why accidents happen on vie ferrate is a lack of readily accessible information. I suspect that there are two reasons for this.

The first, and simplest, explanation is that little examination has been done of why accidents happen on vie ferrate and little written about it. As climbing vie ferrate is a niche activity and (from what I can tell) accidents are fairly rare, no one may have felt the need to commission research and few first hand accounts of accidents have been published. I could only find one account from someone who had fallen on a via ferrata  and in that case the cause seemed to be carelessness. I also found a video of a climber who falls a short distance, twice, as he tries to climb up an overhang In that case, it looks like the climber is just too tired to make climb up the stemples.

The second reason is that I live in the UK and don’t speak the languages of the European countries in which most vie ferrate exist. If I were fluent in Italian, French, Spanish and German then I might be able to do a comprehensive search of the news reports of vie ferrate accidents and find research published in those countries.

Unfortunately, what I have to go on is limited factual information and some speculation based on my own experiences.

Conclusions

What I can tentatively conclude is that a common theme in the potential reasons for these accidents are ignorance and arrogance. Ignorance of the risks involved in doing certain things or arrogance of the susceptibility to those risks.  Another theme relates to the things that can be outside a climber’s control – the quality of equipment and chance. What these themes have in common is that knowledge and good judgment could reduce the possibility of an accident or improve how the aftermath of an accident is dealt with. Maybe improving the knowledge of people climbing vie ferrate is the best defence against accidents.

I’m interested to hear other people’s thoughts on the causes of accidents on vie ferrate and if they know of any evidence about these accidents. If we don’t know why these accidents happen, then in what can be done to stop them.

Thanks to Paolo for bringing to my attention the website of the Aiut Alpin Dolomites.

The view down as I traversed across the Lauterbrunnen cliffs.

The Red Bull website has an article by Alison Mann with a list of some of the top via ferrata around the world.  It was flattering to be interviewed by Alison for the article.  Since Alison and I talked, I’ve been curious to see which via ferrata people suggested as some of the best and the article highlights some amazing routes.  Reading about these via ferrata and seeing stunning photos of them really makes we want to get out there to climb.

The article is at:

http://www.redbull.com/en/adventure/stories/1331725297772/8-high-wire-via-ferratas-to-give-you-vertigo

Me climbing the Klettersteig Huterlaner.

I did my first Austrian via ferrata last week, introducing my brother-in-law Nick and his son Ben to climbing with cables. The Klettersteig Huterlaner was a fun and varied climb with some good views down the Zillertal and of the town of Mayrhofen. As it starts only two minutes walk uphill from the base of the valley and is in the woods, it had a different feel to the mountainous via ferrate I’ve done elsewhere.

Instead of following a ridgeline or going up a rock face, the Klettersteig Huterlaner weaved its way through the trees in order to keep to the most interesting buttresses and slabs. This meant that the route felt a bit contrived at times, but also that it included sections of really enjoyable climbing.

Having a cold drink at a hut following a very hot climb made for a nice end to the climb too. However, we each only had a sip of the complimentary schnapps that was given to us at Gasthaus Zimmereben (which probably makes a good income from the climbers of the four via ferrate that end minutes from its door) before descending through the woods.

Further information

The Zillertal tourist information publishes a great booklet on the via ferrate and climbing in the area. It’s available in the tourist information offices and online.   There is also a good overview of information on the via ferrate by Mayrhofen, including the Klettersteig Huterlaner, on the local tourist information website. The website of the Gasthaus Zimmereben has a brief description and topo of the Klettersteig Huterlaner too.

In addition, three German language via ferrata sites that include information, topos and photos of the Klettersteig Huterlaner are klettersteig.de, bergsteigen.com and via-ferrata.de.

Valerie climbing the Klettersteig Knorren

The Knorren is a broken mass of yellow, cream, grey and ochre rock that rises out of the side of its parent mountain, the Penken. One side is made up of steep stone faces, pinnacles and buttresses above a field of boulders and bushes. The other side, facing the valley below, is covered in trees and vegetation. A via ferrata (klettersteig in German) ascends the rock faces of the Knorren by alternating between sometimes strenuous vertical climbing and easier traverses. After reaching the summit, this via ferrata traverses and then descends the spiny crest of the Knorren before negotiating a buttress that stands just apart from the main peak. This via ferrata is easily my favourite of the three I climbed in Austria. It is in a wonderful location with amazing rock and climbing that is fun and occasionally surprising.

I initially wasn’t that interested in climbing the Klettersteig Knorren as it’s a fairly small via ferrata, with only 180m of cable and only 50m of altitude difference between the start and the summit. It’s also a reasonably easy grade (B/C) and described in the guides as a good route for beginners looking to try out via ferrata.

There were two reasons I changed my mind and decided to give the Klettersteig Knorren a go. The first was that its position on the top of Penken meant that there would be good views of the Zillertal and higher peaks of the Tirol to the south. The second was that Valerie was interested in an easier reintroduction to climbing via ferrata and I needed a straightforward, short climb to introduce her father John to the delights of via ferrata.

The Knorren

Shortly after I decided that I did, after all, want to climb the Klettersteig Knorren, it looked like I wouldn’t be able to. The guides to via ferrate in the Zillertal suggest that the Klettersteig Knorren is reached by taking the Penkenbahn cable car from the centre of Mayrhofen and then the Gondelbahn lift, followed by a short walk west along the Penken. Unfortunately, when I went to check the opening times, I found that the Penkenbahn station in Mayrhofen was a building site. The station and cable cars were being upgraded and it wouldn’t reopen until the start of the 2015/16 ski season. Thankfully, Valerie noticed that there was a cable car from Finkenberg, just down the road from Mayrhofen, which also goes up the Penken. So we headed to Finkenberg.

From the Finkenberger Almbahnen top station it was only a walk of about 10 minutes east to the Knorren. Unfortunately, finding the start of the via ferrata took about another 10 minutes as the topo in the guide is drawn as if you are approaching the Knorren from the Penkenbahn and the map in the guide was a bit too simple to easily identify where we were going. The map and the topo gave us enough indications of where to go to head in the right general direction and we soon found a signpost and a series of blue dots painted on rocks that marked the path to the start of the climb.

A signpost pointing the way to the start of the Klettersteig Knorren.

The start of the Klettersteig Knorren is one of its surprises, as it’s probably the hardest part of the whole climb. A series of stemples form a ladder up a rock face of a slightly negative gradient. The overhang isn’t at too much of an angle, but it’s enough to make this section harder going than we were expecting. Standing at the top and looking down at John beginning to climb, I wondered if the first few metres of via ferrata climbing he had done might be enough to put him off the whole experience permanently.

The strenuous start of the Klettersteig Knorren.

Fortunately, John tenaciously and steadily climbed up. There were a few more grade C sections that required a bit more technical climbing and/or more effort, but they didn’t have the sting of the start. The climbing was actually great fun, being varied, interesting, often exposed and on gorgeous rock. There were a couple of lovely traverses that required some smearing and/or careful footwork. There was a corner to climb around and other upward stemple sections.

One of the other surprises on the climb was that, strangely, the via ferrata and various sport climbing routes on the Knorren intersected at a couple of points.   I wondered how the two different types of climbers managed if they happened to arrive at one of these intersections at the same time. I also guessed that using a via ferrata stemple while going a sports climb would be tempting if you were tired or having some trouble, but that it would probably count as cheating.

Having reached the top, we followed the crest of the Knorren through bushes and then down a rocky crest to a dark corner between the Knorren and a separate buttress of rock. Some slippy climbing brought us back into the sun near the top of this. As if to give a parting shot to us and finish as it began, the last surprise of the Klettersteig Knorren was a steep ladder of stemples down the front of the buttress. Although it wasn’t overhanging, some of the stemples were very widely spaced and it required a bit of thought and effort to get down. We went off to reward ourselves at the nearby Penken Panorahmarestaurant  with lunch, ice-cream and beer by a fantastic view of the high peaks of the Zillertal.

The Penken Panorahmarestaurant.

On the walk back to the Finkenbergbahn we took a slight detour to go to the Granatkappelle (Garnet Chapel) devoted to the Blessed Engelbert Kollard, a Franciscan priest who was born locally. It’s a beautiful and amazing building that’s unlike any other chapel I’ve seen. Its rusted sides are in the shape of a cut garnet and it sits as if one of its edges has been imbedded in a concrete plinth. The inside of the chapel is an intimate space lined full of angles and perfectly crafted local wood. That the chapel is somewhat incongruous atop a mountain, above a deep blue lake and with a vista of peaks and valleys, is part of what makes it such a wonderful building. By being so eye-catching, strong and simple in such a pretty alpine setting, it felt like the chapel made me see it and the landscape differently.   I also thought that the garnet shape was a brilliant way of ensuring it sheds snow and withstands high winds.

It turned out that John had enjoyed his first taste of via ferrata enough that he returned for more a few days later, doing the Klettersteig Huterlaner with my sister- and brother-in-law. For me it was a perfect little climb and exactly the sort of day I love in the mountains.

Further information

The Klettersteig Knorren also goes by the names of the Klettersteig Penken or Klettersteig fur Jedermann.

There is a description and topo of the Klettersteig Knorren in a great booklet on the via ferrate and climbing in the Zillertal that is published by the local tourist information office. This is available at the tourist information offices and online.   There is another, similar guide that includes much of the same information on the Klettersteig Knorren, but also a basic map showing where the start is.

Two German language via ferrate websites also include information, photos and topos of the Klettersteig Knorren – klettersteig.de and bergsteigen.com.

The sport climbing at the Knorren looked like great fun and there are topos for these in the two booklets mentioned above and there is also information on UKClimbing.

A little over half way up the Klettersteig Pfeilspitzwand there is a brass bell hanging from the rock. If you want to ring the bell, then you need to take a detour that traverses the face of the buttress above a sheer drop.  There’s a slightly tricky step to negotiate, before you stand on a very small ledge, hang off the cable with one hand and clatter the clanger in the bell with the other.  It’s a bit surreal and a bit silly, but fun. Ringing that bell feels like you’re declaring to anyone who can hear that you’ve managed to climb this far.

Climbing that far does take quite a lot of effort as the Klettersteig Pfeilspitzwand throws a few challenges at you. Like the Klettersteig Huterlaner I’d done a few days before, the Klettersteig Pfeilspitzwand runs up a series of buttresses and rock faces that stand out from a tree-covered hillside. It’s the longest of the via ferrate above the town of Mayrhofen and has an overall grade of B/C+. However, the climbing is mostly on sections graded B and C grade, with a couple of strenuous D- sections.

One of those D- sections is at the start and it packs quite a punch. The via ferrata goes to one side of a large overhang and then over its steep top edge. The topo calls this overhang the Kathedrale. Climbing the lip of this cathedral required pulling hard with my arms while trying to push myself up on feet that I had to keep stretching and swapping between small stemples. It was demanding, exposed and technical climbing.

The rest of the via ferrata was a fun and engaging mixture of hard and easier climbing, with some great, flake handholds. But by the time I had passed the bell I was wishing that I had brought more water as I roasted in the warm sunshine and the heat that radiated off the rock. Thankfully, Valerie generously shared some water with me.

I was soaked in sweat and tired by the end of the Klettersteig Pfeilspitzwand, but satisfied and elated. Valerie and I then took the short walk through the woods to a guesthouse to recuperate with Tyrolean stew, ice cream and lots and lots of water.

Valerie at the Gasthaus Zimmereben.

Further Information

There’s a great booklet on the via ferrate and climbing in the Zillertal that is available in local tourist information offices and online.   This includes a description and topo for the Klettersteig Pfeilspitzwand.   There’s also a good overview of information on the via ferrate by Mayrhofen, including the Klettersteig Pfeilspitzwand, on the local tourist information website.

In addition, the German language via ferrata website bergsteigen.com has a topo, photos and description of the Klettersteig Pfeilspitzwand.

The Tec Step Bionic Turn 2 is Mammut’s top-end via ferrata set. It’s robust, handles well and has some brilliant features, but a swivel joint that doesn’t swivel enough and a couple of simple design issues mean that it isn’t perfect.

Me climbing the Klettersteig Pfeilspitzwand using the Mammut Tec Step Bionic Turn 2.

Two things persuaded me to buy the Tec Step Bionic Turn 2. The first were the strong safety claims made about it by Mammut. The second was the swivel joint designed to eliminate that annoying problem of your lanyards getting twisted during a climb.

Safety

Mammut states that that the Tec Step Bionic Turn 2 “incorporates the most recent findings from safety research” and that:

• the lanyards are of “an extremely strong and robust construction”;
• that the shock absorber that has been optimised to “brake falls even more gently and thus better protect the body”;
• that the maximum impact force of a fall has been reduced; and
• that it will still safely hold a fall “in the case of a 180 degree misuse” i.e. a fall when only one carabiner is attached to the cable.

The last of these claims the one that swung me in favour of buying this model over its competitors. One of the basic pieces of safety advice for via ferrata sets with a webbing shock absorber (such as the Tec Step Bionic Turn 2) is that two carabiners must be kept attached to the cable if it’s going to work properly. The only time that just one carabiner should be attached to the cable is when you have to move each carabiner, in turn, past one of the pins holding the cable to the rock. A fall when you are doing this is a worst-case scenario, particularly if it happens while the leading carabiner is unclipped. Such a fall carries a risk of catastrophic gear failure because it combines potentially high impact forces with a shock absorber being used outside its recommended safety limits. The idea that I would be using a via ferrata set that could cope with this happening was appealing.

The Mammut Tec Step Bionic Turn 2 (note: the Klettersteig carabiner attached to the resting loop does not come with this via ferrata set, you have to buy it separately).

While this claim helped persuade me to buy this via ferrata set, my commitment to writing a thorough review is nowhere near strong enough to make me want to check the accuracy of this claim (or any of the other safety claims by Mammut). However, if anyone reading this review every does accidentally fall off a via ferrata while using a Tec Step Bionic Turn 2, please let me know how it went.

Another safety feature (although, strangely not one Mammut highlights) is that red indicator markings above and below the shock absorber bag appear when the shock absorber has been damaged. Essentially, these red indicators are likely to show if a minor slip or fall has caused the shock absorber to partly deploy and so lose some of its ability to absorb the energy of any future fall. If these red indicators are visible, then the via ferrata set is unsafe and should be disposed of. It’s a simple, clever little feature.

The Swifel

The Swifel is Mammut’s name for the swivel joint that connects the shock absorber bag and the tie-in loop on the Tec Step Bionic Turn 2. The aim of this is to allow the shock absorber bag and lanyards to rotate when the set is in use and so prevent the lanyards becoming twisted together. This twisting happens as you move the carabiners past the pins holding the cable and inadvertently, and repeatedly, clip the carabiner that had been trailing on one section of cable as the lead carabiner on the next section. It’s easy to do, particularly if the climbing is hard and you’re focusing on your moves or are so keen to clip the carabiners on the next cable section that you don’t really care what order you clip them in. Getting your lanyards in a twist is annoying because it limits how far you can move each lanyard when you are clipping past a pin.

Valerie climbing the Klettersteig Pfeilspitzwand

I found that the Swifel works well some of the time. The lanyards didn’t get twisted at all on the first via ferrata I used the Tec Step Bionic Turn 2 on. However, on other climbs I found the lanyards either got twisted less or as much as other via ferrata sets I’ve used. One possible explanation for this is that how much the Swifel is able to rotate depends on the features of the climb (e.g. how steep it is, how much traversing there is). Another explanation is that the shock absorber is weighted unevenly when an extra carabiner is added to the set (to allow for rests) and this carabiner hangs down on one side of the set more than the other.

This isn’t variable performance great when you consider that you pay an extra £15 for the Swifel. That’s the difference in price between the Tec Step Bionic Turn 2 and the Tec Step Bionic 2, which are identical except for the Tec Step Bionic 2’s lack of the swivel joint. Whether you want to buy one over the other may come down to just how annoying you find getting your lanyards in a twist and whether you are prepared to buy extra for a swivel joint that can reduce, but doesn’t eliminate, the problem.

Other features

This mixed performance with the Swiftel is symptomatic of how the Tec Step Bionic Turn 2 otherwise performs in practice.

On the plus side, the Tec Step Bionic Turn 2 is really nice to use and robust. The carabiners work smoothly and clipping and un-clipping them from the cable is easy. The synthetic rubber on the locking mechanism on the carabiners feels nice in the hand and improves grip. Although the tough outer fabric of the lanyards initially made me think that they would be stiff, they stretch well. The shock absorber bag is compact and so gets in the way less that some other models when climbing. Lastly, I really like that you can add an extra carabiner to the Tec Step Bionic Turn 2 for hanging off the cable to rest, to take a photo or when you want the added security of the set being closer to the cable (e.g. when traversing).

On the negative side, the tie-in loop is only just long enough to allow the Tec Step Bionic Turn 2 to be put on and really needs to be a bit longer. The storage bag is also a tight fit. These aren’t big issues, but they do make it less easy to use the Tec Step Bionic Turn 2.

The last feature of the Tec Step Bionic Turn 2 that it’s worth noting is the puzzling via ferrata safety card that sits in a little pouch on the shock absorber. The Tec Step Bionic Turn 2 already comes with some very good instructions and this safety card is basically a cut-down version of these. Unless you are an absolute beginner with a poor memory, I can’t really see why you would need to refer to the instructions for a via ferrata set in the middle of a climb. What Mammut might have in mind with this safety card are people with little via ferrata experience who rent via ferrata sets while on holiday and so might not otherwise see the instructions. The one useful feature of this safety card is that it includes the phone numbers for emergency services across Europe.

The safety card in a pouch in the Mammut Tec Step Bionic Turn 2.

Conclusion

The Tec Step Bionic Turn 2 is well made, easy to use and robust. Mammut makes some strong claims about its safety features and, if true, this is a via ferrata set you can have a lot of confidence in. This is a via ferrata I’ve liked using, but I’ve been a little disappointed with the Tec Step Bionic Turn 2 because the Swifel didn’t live up to its promise and there are a couple of niggles that I wouldn’t have expected in such an expensive bit of kit.