We have done 14 Vie Ferrate so far, from grades 1 to 4 and different levels of exposure. However, they’ve all been relatively short (around 2hrs). Today, we are pushing for a long one.
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Last night we slept at the Victor Emmanuel fortress car park to do more vie ferrate today. This place is quite quirky, seven vie ferrate have been built around the Fortress, with different levels of difficulty, exposure and length. So there is plenty of choice for everyone. In addition, the Fortress is very easy to access and the surroundings are beautiful.
Today we will do our longest vie ferrate. We have chosen three consecutive ones to make a nice long loop. These routes are more difficult than the ones we did last night. We will start with the highest grade (four), to warm up 
, followed by two of grade three. These are the details of our first route;
Name: La Descente aux Enfers and la Montee au Purgatoire
Now you have to forgive us. By mistake, we wiped out all the photos of this route, so we have nothing to show you. I will try my best to describe what the route was like and how we found it.
The route divides in two sections;
A) La Descente aux Enfers
We start at the top of the gorge and descend for 125m to a Nepalese bridge. The descent doesn’t present too much difficulty, although it involves a few awkward moves, but the cable is quite tense and the stemples feel solid.
The 20m bridge is not too wobbly and it can take quite a few people, although Gary and I normally wait for the other to finish, we feel a bit unease when someone else is walking on it.
B) La Montee au Purgatoire
The second section starts immediately after the bridge, and guess what, the 125m we’ve just descended have to be climbed up again. To start with, the cable runs horizontally along the rock face and the stemples are closely spaced out, which is good for me, so I don’t have to stretch my legs to reach the next rung.
Suddenly we find a ledge. By experience, this could be a sign that something nasty is coming up, so we take a rest and have a bit of water.
It is not that bad for a 4, is it? Gary asks.
I find it quite enjoyable, so far.
Once we go around the corner, we are presented with an off-vertical climb on ladder along the Cascade du Nant. We could end up getting quite wet, although it looks like it may not be carrying much water at this time of the year. The climb gets increasingly strenuous, especially towards the end of it, my minuscule biceps are burning.
We finish the climb in an hour and we remain dry.
The only photo we had was from yesterday. We climber the left hand side of the waterfall, pulling up just below the bridge. GDR
Although the route has been graded four, it hasn’t felt that difficult if we compare it with the ones we did yesterday morning; there are no overhangs and no strenuous relentless climb, well, only towards the end but it is very short.
Fairly satisfied, we give a good shake to those arms and we head off to our second VF:
Name: La Traversee des Anges
Luckily, we have photos for this one.
Straight away, we start on a fairly airy ledge.
The traverse doesn’t follow a horizontal line like the previous one, rather, it goes abruptly down, on a series of rungs,
to go up again
The cable is fairly loose in this section. Some of the rungs are a bit small, enough to tip toe on them. Thank goodness, strong handrails have been provided, although my poor arms have not yet recovered from our previous route, well, I better say from our previous five routes we’ve done in the last couple of days.
The narrow ledge gradually disappear. Great! precisely now that we are traversing this massive overhang.
This is a very uncomfortable position. My body feels it is on a 80 degrees angle. I painfully feel the gravity force pulling me down. Come on arms, respond please.
Gary is gradually leaving me behind.
Are you okay?
Yes, I am, I respond, just taking my time but still enjoying the challenge.
We reach the escape point of the route but we feel we can cope with more, so we continue.
jesus, overhangs come thick and fast now. The trouble with them is when you reach the cable knot and have to clip and unclip in an inclined body position. You have to be quick, otherwise if you hang around too much, you lose precious energy.
But surprisingly, we are coming to the end of the route. Gary warns me from the top; the last bit is a 12m muscular climb. Be prepared!.
Okay. I take my time, and in every fairly secure spot; I rest, shake my arms and make the next move up very quickly.
But still smiling, still enjoying…
Ooops, nice ledge is coming up. Ideal to recover before
the final push.
Very, very nice. And the views of the gorge are fantastic.
This via ferrata has been the most challenging of the ones around the Fort.
Now we go for our third and last via ferrata of the day;
Name: La Montee au Ciel
which starts just by crossing the Pont du Diable. A few people are walking towards the hills. They look at us strangely and stop to find out what we are up to.
The cable section starts immediately and goes under the bridge. Once again, I go first and Gary takes the photos. One of this days we will swap, I promise, so you don’t get bored of my look.
The river is immediate beneath us but the ledges are broad enough to minimise imminent exposure. Exposure no longer intimidates us.
The route has a couple of abrupt vertical climbs with small overhangs to overcome, nothing serious compared to the previous routes.
See that tree? Avoid it! Although tempting, you shouldn’t trust trees, you never know how deep the roots are and loading your weight on them could be fatal!
I go off forgetting that I have to wait for Gary to take some photos. This via ferrata feels a relief; it is less physically demanding, which my arms particularly welcome.
I thought I was going to be absolutely knackered by the time I did this route but nope, there is still enough energy within me to cope with a bit more.
We’ve got an audience, Gary shouts. The trekkers are still watching from the far distance.
We now get to the final section of the route. Although we have not climbed fast, we have finished the route in a third of the time. Our book seems to be quite conservative with the times it gives. Either that, or we are becoming good at it. I think that having done rock climbing before has definitely helped us.
So lets do a comparison between what the book says about these three routes and what we think about them;
According to the book;
According to us;
We have filled in the vie ferrate quota for the day. As it is nearly lunchtime, we head back to St Michel de Maurienne to buy some bread, have some lunch and head off further south to the next vie ferrate area still within the French Alps; Briancon.
We switch on our Orange data sim card at the Carrefour car park, which luckily shows 5 bars and 3G. So we post to the site the thirteen posts we have written over the last week, plus upload the videos on youtube. That has used up all the data. But, we won’t top it up online. Buying an one extra GB costs more than getting a new 2GB card (€20 vs €14.95), which is completely illogical. And buying a new card is not really worth it. We won’t be in France much longer. Instead we will pop in McDonalds to have a coffee and abuse their Wi-Fi.
Briancon is only a 100kms drive. In normal circumstances, the drive would take under two hours, but we have to go through the Col du Galibier (2645m). Despite of having gone through so many passes Dora doesn’t quite get used to them, too heavy, too fat, but the poor vehicle copes extraordinarily well.
The trouble is we love passes. The roads are amazing;
the landscapes, surprisingly beautiful and varied;
the look of the mountains, dramatic;
the weather, evocative, moody, changeable.
Driving through the pass has not delayed us much, we still arrive at Briancon at 18.30. We could do with filling up Dora’s water tank. Our book suggests there is a free aire with water by the sport centre, just outside town. The aire is fairly busy but there is still space for us. We park in a corner where no one is. Interestingly, there is a electricity. We look at each other, it can’t be true, should we try? Yes it is, electricity works and we didn’t need to pay!
We jump in Dora and plug everything to recharge. This is too good to be true. I am still suspicious, there must be 50 motorhomes in this aire and no one has picked up on the fact that there is free electricity at this corner? Maybe we are the fools, maybe they know something we don’t know, maybe the council will be knocking at our door tomorrow with a €200 electricity bill.
1.8 kms
4.5 hrs
SM
