Via Ferrata

A via ferrata (Italian for "iron road". Plural vie ferrate. In German, Klettersteig) is a mountain route which is equipped with fixed cables, stemples, ladders, and bridges. The use of these allows otherwise isolated routes to be joined to create longer routes which are accessible to people with a wide range of climbing abilities.

Last weekend, Matt took a few of his Venturing Scouts out to Seneca Rocks, West Virginia. They left at 3 pm Friday, had a good night camping at Seneca Shadows Campground (with some DELICIOUS dutch oven cooking). The next morning, they were all up early as the excitement of rock climbing the Via Ferrata at Nelson Rocks was hard to contain.

After a breakfast of instant oatmeal and hot chocolate, they quickly packed the tents and headed to Nelson Rocks Preserve. The guys had an 11:30 climb start time, and couldn't get in earlier, so hiked a bit, scouted the mountains and the rope bridge they'd soon be crossing, before heading on up.

At 11:30, they strapped on their safety gear, had a quick briefing, before starting up the cliffs. The scouts climbed a few hundred feet, made it passed Scheisse Gap (where we squeezed through a small area to turn a big corner on the cliffs and had to find our hidden foot hold while looking down several hundred feet of straight vertical cliffs), and prepared for the bridge crossing.

With the bridge swaying back and forth, and wood slats a couple feet apart, they crossed safely and scrambled up the other side.

(Look closely and you can see the bridge way down below)

The views were absolutely spectacular! After a couple hours of climbing, the guys made it to the top and then started their way down. Everyone had a blast and can't wait for the next adventure together!