Italian Dolomites via Ferrata

Over the next few days, I will be writing blogs about my Europe trip with my family. One of the amazing places we traveled to was Badia, Italy. My brother and I spent a few days away from my family to hike and climb through the via ferrata routes that run through the dolomites. These routes are protected climbing routes that range from all levels! Anyone can do these as long as you are in healthy shape. Via ferrata means iron road. These paths have iron cables, steps, and ladders that trace back to World War One. Honestly, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. My brother planned the whole thing for us.

I didn’t risk taking photos with my camera on the routes because I’m not Jimmy Chin yet. (look him up if you don’t know him)!! This is one of the selfies from the first day! We climbed up and across this bridge that was super unstable, but soooo much fun! The views were insanely beautiful. I seriously have never seen such a huge rocks, mountains, and clouds before in my life. It is an outdoor enthusiast and photographers dream up there. Here are some of the photos from my camera from day one!

The second day, we went for a little harder route that I ended up not being able to finish. Don’t worry, I still got INCREDIBLE photos and was able to hike and climb a good bit. We started this hike that was straight uphill for, what felt like, forever. My brother is from Colorado and is used to climbing crazy mountains and he was so patient with my out of shape self… hahaha. Once we got up a good ways, we saw these other climbers gearing up. So we decided that might be a good path or the right way. I am so glad we took this little detour. We climbed across the mountain, then up a little bit to find a beautiful cave. We walked around exploring with our head lamps, crawled under to find some dead ends, and quickly realized we had to back track. We then found our way to the cave/tunnel we were looking for.

Backstory about me, I have a little fear of the dark and also a little bit of trauma from being stalked by my neighbor when I was 18. I got a little bit into the tunnel, where eventually there was no light coming in, and I had a small panic attack. The night before, some friends we made said they did this route, and it feels like you are in the tunnel forever. I decided it was not my day to overcome my fear. Haha. It’s funny how you don’t realize how much you fear one thing until you experience your own personal nightmare. I turned around and hiked down to the car taking my own time, and let my brother finish the route on his own. Whenever he got down from his climb, he told me there were little foot grips, and he was pulling himself up by the wire. Honestly, I think I need a lot more practice in the climbing gym and outdoors before I can do that. Another example in my life where I look back and say, everything happens for a reason. Check out these amazing photos from day two!

Thanks for reading my blog from this trip my brother and I took. We had such a fabulous time staying at the Collett’s Mountain Holidays hotel for a couple of nights! You should definitely check out their website, and think about hiking through Italy on your next vacation. It is such a beautiful place that should be explored!

Check the website tomorrow for another blog about our adventure to Paris and Venice!