Via Ferratas in Dolomiti, 20 – 22nd July 2010

Another holiday in our style with everything- history, sea, wild sleeping, and of course mountains. Now, we start with three days in mountains. Not "some" mountains, but the dominant Dolomites itself. One hears about it, admires it on TV, but you are only able to understand its dominance from inside.

We reach the olympic town of Cortina D Ampezzo at noon just at the lower cablecar station of Rio Gere under the masif of Cristallo. Due to our late arrival and the long ferrata of Ivano Dibona, we take the cablecar up at least. We decided correctly as we find later. At the upper station, we are getting equipped. Many climbers are passing us to reach the top of Cristallo about 200m above us. Ferrata ID with top at 3004m classified as 2B/D indicates its majesty by upright ladders right at the start. Later it really fits 2B/D, but it is very much beloved cause of its beauty and vistas. The whole round takes about 10 hours. We ignore the last, a bit boring, part and head down, up, and steeply down to the Olympia camping (Pooh!). Horrible ground at the campsite makes us pitch our tents on the other river bank right opposite the camping at a sort of free park place with some caravans. Saved 20 Euros make us feel even higher at the first beers. We take the the descriptions with Mišo to choose another two ferratas to be made the following two days. We want something technically more difficult, so we decide for Michielli Strobel (3B/D) right above our camping. The last day, it is gonna be Trincee. According to its mark 4B/E we should get sweated. At another beer we are speculating about the tomorrows way up the wall right above us. The following day, we find we were a bit wrong. We reach the ferrata after 1 hour scramble, get equipped and go up. The ropes and steps help but still everybody is securing himself to the rock. Steep scrambles alter with less steep walking often for some tens of meters along narrow ledges invisible from the bottom. On the top of Fumes, we write our names in the book, refresh ourselves, and head down a steep, owful scree on the other side. Down we look like workers from a limestone processing factory. Stepping down is much longer but we are pushing by an aproaching storm and being refreshed by its periphery. We rest at the same "camping" but this time s.o. called police to expel us. We accuse the fucker from the caravan next to us (sorry man if inocent). So we are leaving for Cortina for 2 hours and get back to the other side of the camping as the man in charge advised us. We find out that the camping is actually an old runaway which also proves a helicopter we are pitching our tents by. Its pilot calmly warns us "camping forbidden" in the morning and flies away. The third day we are setting off farther away from Cortina. After some mountain passes I almost run out of petrol. At last we park our cars at the top of Passo di Fedaia by a picturesque dam with Marmolada with its decreasing glacier above us. We can also see Trincee. The reach of the ferrata is a long, streght consuming steep path. The temperature rising to 30 C. Exactly according to our knowledge the ferrata begins with upright climbing which discourages two of our girls. It is really hard. A sort of volcanic rock has only a few holds and steps. We continue three of us. After 30 minutes we reach the top of the first climb which is a knife-like ridge. Simply nothing for weak stomachs. After passing some bypasses we meet our girls and the old war ruins lower are admired by all five of us. We also admire the dam deep below, Marmolada with its glacier right in front of us. Taking a lot of pics. We get surprised that there is no skiing on Marmoladas glacier. Reputadly, skiing goes all year round there. Even bigger surprise is when we reach half of 2 hour long ferrata after 2 hours of scrambling. The final part we will make in the future. In the end, we indulge sightseeing in Bologna, Pisa, and evening swimming in the sea in Livorno.The following day our paths part. Kate and Mišo go home and we head to Roma.

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