“No, I didn’t know that,” Sam replied. “I can also gather too, that they didn’t have the luxury of such safety equipment as this,” he continued, pulling at his lanyard and harness.
“We’ll be doing it in veritable luxury, as you say; it will be easy.” She wasn’t sure if Sam was just trying to reassure himself.
She then gave him a very basic run down of the process of climbing a Via Ferrata.
“The essence of a modern Via Ferrata is a steel cable which runs along the route and is periodically affixed to the rock at three- to five-foot intervals. Using a Via Ferrata kit, climbers can secure themselves to the cable, limiting their chance of falling. The cable can also be used as an aid to climbing, and additional climbing aids, like iron rungs, called stemples, pegs, carved steps, and even ladders and bridges are often provided. Thus, the Via Ferrata permits routes which would otherwise be hazardous to be undertaken without the need for heavy climbing equipment.”
She watched as Sam nodded his head in understanding.
“I’ve read about them.”
Aliana continued, “A Via Ferrata set is comprised of a lanyard and two carabiners. The lanyard consists of an energy-absorbing system, such as this, and two arms which connect to the cable with the carabiners, and a means of connecting to the harness.”
She then showed him how to clip onto the steel cable.
“You’ll see that these carabiners are made specifically for use on Via Ferratas. Their design creates a larger-than-average opening, and they have a spring-locking mechanism that can be opened with one hand. They are also strong enough to withstand high fall factors. These carabiners are marked with a “K” in a circle, which stands for Klettersteig, the German term for Via Ferrata.”
Aliana watched as Sam played with the mechanism.
Sam’s intelligent mind took in the practical steps in using them, and the physics behind their simple mechanisms.
She could tell that, for someone like him, it was all easy to understand.
“So, it uses a spring-loaded sleeve on the carabiner gate?” He asked, pressing it with one hand. “While the gate is closed, the sleeve is held in place over the gate opening by its spring; to unlock and open the gate, the sleeve slides directly down the gate shaft away from the opening?”
“Yes.”
“Anything else I need to know?”
“Probably, but we’ll talk about it when you come across it.”
Aliana watched as Sam confidently clipped himself in, tentatively looked down at the river which looked tiny from this height, then looked back at her, as if he were sizing up whether or not she was worth the effort.
He then gave her a defiant smile.
The small dimple that appeared on his left cheek when he smiled, reminded her how often he looked just like that.
“So, I’ll see you on the other side?” Sam said as he began to make his way across the traverse.
Sam carefully made his way across the 220 foot cable bridge.
It used three cables to form the bridge. One at the bottom to walk along, foot in front of foot, and two at his shoulder height which formed an imaginary triangle.
It was good, he decided, to allow him to settle in his own way. He had always been afraid of heights, and had taken great pains to attempt mountain climbing as a means of overcoming his fear. Somehow, it didn’t matter what challenge he completed, he would always feel some degree of trepidation, above and beyond his basic survival instincts when it came to heights. All it had taught him, was how to push past his fears and complete the task at hand. It was all about learning how to fake it.
Although one might never completely allay an irrational fear, you could instill an ability to control it. Long before he ever joined the Corps, Sam discovered that skill. Life experience and its vicissitudes taught him to use his fear to heighten his awareness and narrow his focus on the task at hand, without permitting his fear to deter him from what he needed to accomplish.
After thirty one years of faking it, he’d learned to be very convincing, even to himself, at times.
He was waiting for Aliana on the far side of the bridge.
Sam glanced around at the walls of metamorphic rock, of which the Dolomites were predominantly composed. Fossils of ancient marine life could still be seen, embedded in the rock wall, the shells of long-extinct sea life formed the basis of the limestone, which, after many millennia of heat and pressure, had eventually metamorphosed into the shales, slates gneiss and schists comprising these mountains.
A horizontal set of iron steps ran along the mountain, as though someone had built a little pathway, high up in the mountain, but had neglected to complete it with railings. There were a multitude of ladders, iron chains, and rocky steps, which could be accessed along the way.
He wondered, which of these routes Aliana would take him on today.
Looking back at the bridge, he noticed that she walked along it as though she was on a simple footpath and nothing more.
“What direction are we going?” Sam asked, looking at the two paths which followed around the mountain.
“Now, we start going up.” Aliana pointed ahead at the third set of ladders, and said, “That one, over there.”
He followed her to the base of those ladders, where an iron sign, bolted into the rock face, read, “Via Capilano Con Grande.
“Are you ready for a workout?” she asked.
“You set the pace and I’ll follow,” he said, with a confidence that he was already starting to doubt. Sam calculated that he must be close to twice her weight. Although his physique was built of solid muscle, he knew that she was extremely athletic, and that her slim frame disguised the wiry muscles of a mountain climber.
They started to climb.
It was an almost entirely vertical climb for a while, followed later by a more diagonal approach across the mountain face. It took them all day to make their ascent.
By early afternoon, they finally reached the peak of the first mountain, which was the smallest of the four peaks they planned to traverse as part of this trip.
Each time Sam thought he was finally getting somewhere, he’d clip his carabiner into a new run, which extended further up the mountain. His thighs burned from the workout. As with rock climbing, his leg muscles bore the majority of the effort, rather than his arms.
Every time he saw Aliana slow down at a particularly difficult or technical section, he would begin to gain on her, but then she would pass it, and get ahead of him again, as if she was a mythical water nymph, acting like a mirage.
She was incredibly strong, he noticed, for someone with such a slim frame. Beneath which, he’d come to realize was an athletic, wiry machine, developed from a childhood spent climbing and exploring these very mountains.
By late that afternoon, the two of them reached the pinnacle of the smallest of the four mountains. At a height of 7,000 feet, its status as the smallest of the four mountains seemed irrelevant. Of the four, it was the only one which allowed a clear view of the entire Tyrol River, running between the mountains.
The panorama was stunningly beautiful.
“I was beginning to worry you would never make it!” Aliana said good naturedly.
“Yes, well… I was starting to doubt that you had any desire to allow me to make it to the top alive.”
“Do you drink beer?”
“Yes. It would be a great place to have one now, if we had any with us.” He then saw the expression on her face, and said, “There’s no way that you bothered to carry beer along all this way, is there?”
“No,” she laughed. “Of course not. I would never be so careless with the expenditure of my energy on a climb such as this.”
“I’ll buy you one when we get back,” Sam offered.