Sal Vaglica
| USA TODAY GoEscape Summer magazine
Few outdoor adventures offer the payoff rock climbing does — a screensaver-worthy shot from a summit, along with a story you’ll never tire of telling. The boasting and epic views are rewards for years spent learning climbing routes, which is why hanging off the side of a mountain isn’t on most itineraries. But a via ferrata mountain climb changes that: Now nearly anyone can reach the summit and live to tell the tale.
Translated from the Italian phrase for iron way or road, a via ferrata is a mountain-climbing course comprised of steel rebar steps, handholds and safety cables drilled and epoxied into the rock face. Wearing a safety harness and helmet, climbers clip into cables that stretch along the route. Should you slip, the harness arrests your fall, while the rebar helps you move from step to step. Along with a guide coaching climbers along the way, the harness and steel rung route give newcomers the confidence to scramble up the mountain.
Routes are a mixture of vertical climbing and walking, while some include features such as ladders, tightrope-like walkways and suspension bridges.
Before World War I, Austro-Hungary and Italian soldiers installed via ferratas to make…
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