Chockstone Forum

      Sponsored By
      ROCK
   HARDWARE

Chockstone Photography

Australian Landscape Prints

Chockstone Forum - Crag & Route Beta

Crag & Route Beta

Area	Location	Sub Location	Crag	Links
International	(General)	(General)	(General)

Topic Date User

Via Ferrata in Chamonix 21-Feb-2011 At 11:33:21 AM teerex

Message

On 18/02/2011 ambyeok wrote:
>Im still curious if fall arresters are any good after the first fall?

I did some Via Ferrata in Zermatt last summer, it was a hoot. My list of handy hints for anyone considering it:

Fall arresters (locals call them lanyards) are single use only, if you take a decent fall half way along your Via Ferrata route, I don't know what you do from that point, but your lanyard is buggered.

The ski shops in the resort rent the lanards, we just took our harnesses. I would only use the proper lanyards designed for the job, not a sling or a short piece of dynamic rope. At plenty of points the fixed cable on our routes ran vertically, if you took a fall from just under an anchor on a vertical section, you would be pulling some big G's when you hit the next anchor.

You don't want to do Via Ferrata in your rock shoes, standing on the steel rungs would get pretty uncomfortable after a while. A light hiking boot is the go.

We passed through Chamonix on the same trip, there are some epic climbs, and I noticed a beginner's area just out of the village, if there was some Via Ferrata at lower altitudes you might be OK.