Via Ferrata in Late October 2010

In October 2010 I visited Cortina d’Ampezzo in the Italian Dolomites with the intention of doing some Via Ferrata. Things didn’t work out the way I expected but I had a great time.

Col Rosa

Col Rosa

The first ferrata I wanted to attempt runs up the south ridge of Col Rosa. As can be seen in the photo, there was a bit of snow around.

Looking Down the Wire on Col Rosa

The snow, that I was on my own and that I wasn’t used to the amount of exposure on the route meant that I made a retreat from not far above where the next photo was taken. The route moves across onto an arete which increased the exposure to more than I was comfortable with.

Looking Up the Wire on Col Rosa

There were some awesome views of the North side of the Tofane Group from where I rested on decent.

Croda Del Valon Bianco

Walk Up To Rifugio Pomedes

I was a bit shaken up after Col Rosa so the next day I decided just to walk. Because it was out of season there were not many buses running so I started out on foot from Cortina. This meant I has a long pull up though woodlands before I could get anywhere. I did get a nice view of the Pomagagnon ridge on the other side of the valley

Pomagagnon

I would not recommend the walk up to anyone. I got bored with going up hill though the wood pretty quickly. After that I was slogging up pistes - not the most fun in the world. However, from the top I had an amazing view of the Tofane Group

Tofane de Rozes and part of Tofane de Mezzo

There were no other hikers out, but I did see a mountain goat.

Mountain Goat

On the way back to town I saw the Cinque Torri and Averau on the other side of the valley

Cinque Torri

Via Ferrata Giovanni Barbara

I was very pleased when my girlfriend Bridget arrived in Cortina. For her first ferrata we chose Ferrata Giovanni Barbera in the Val de Fanes gorge.

Me and Bridget enjoying the sun near Ponte Outo

The ferrata starts on wide ledges with drops down into the gorge below

Bridget kitted up and ready to go

The ledges are lead you to the edge of a waterfall and then behind it

Me behind the waterfall

Looking over the lower cascade

Bridget behind the waterfall

The route then climbs a narrow gully before descending to the bottom of the gorge

Bridget peers into the gully

Bridget descending the wire

From the bottom of the gorge we climbed out on the other side. There is an option to return to Ponte Outo using via ferrata Lucio Dalti, but we chose to walk out on the North side of the river.

Me pointing out the route from the other side of the gorge

Ferrata Strobel and Punta Fiames

Returning down Val de Fanes Bridget was quite taken with the look of Punta Fiames so the next day we went to take a look at it. For some reason I wasn’t feeling great that day which made me much more scared then I should have been as we progressed along the ledge leading to the wire. We turned back at the bottom of the wire because of this.

Bridget on the ledge leading to Ferrata Strobel with Fiames sports ground below

We decided to walk up to Lago Ghedina instead. After crossing the Boite in the bottom of the valley we climbed through an alpine meadow.

“The hills are alive…”

The lake was a lot smaller than I was expecting and it was pretty much dominated by the restaurant. It did have a nice jetty to cool my feet from.

I had to break the ice. The water was very cold

Val de Tofane

This day was the best of the whole holiday for me. Starting from the Fiames hotel we walked around into the Val de Tofane then climbed to the Col dei Bos before traversing below Tofane de Rozes and descending to Rifugio Dibona.

Icicles in the shady part of the Val de Tofana

Some frozen rivers were difficult to cross

Once we turned the corner into the sun everything was much brighter.

Looking ahead up the valley

The climb up to the col was pretty tough. The snow was quite deep and powdery which made moving pretty hard work. It also hid the path. By the time we made it to the col the weather had clouded over a bit

Bridget and me at the Col dei Bos (the camera is not flat)

Cinque Torri and Nuvolau from the Col

The first part of the traverse under Tofane de Rozes was a bit nervy but the path got a bit wider and we were able to make good progress in the late afternoon light.

Me on the path under Tofane de Rozes

Looking back at the traverse

We caught an amazing sunset before hitching a lift back to town.

Sunset on the Cristallo Group

Another day in the Val de Fanes

We climbed Passo Posporcora to see if the condition of the Col Rosa ferrata had changed. The snow was much more compact and slippy then my first time there. Because of this, and because the top was in cloud we decided to descend the other side of the pass into Val de Fanes. On the way down we saw some wires near a waterfall. This is not marked on my map nor mentioned in the guidebook but we thought we’d have a look. We couldn’t find the start of the wire, but we did find a nice alpine pool

Alpine pool

After arriving at Ponte Outo again we repeated the start of ferrata Giovanni Barberra. However, the path was closed after about 50m. We have no idea why.

Instead we descended to the valley floor on ferrata Lucio Dalti (which can be used with ferrata Barberra to complete a loop).

Bridget at a tricky patch on Ferrata Dalti

Me clipping past a stemple

On the way back to Fiames we climbed Podestagno which used to have a castle on top of it. There were some pretty good views from the top

Bridget figuring out what she is looking at

Venice

On the final day of our holiday we went to Venice.

Venice Sucks

Everything that is wrong with Venice in one photo (apart from the smell)