What is a via ferrata? A beginner's guide
A via ferrata is a climbing route with a steel cable fixed to the rock from start to finish. You wear a harness with two carabiners on short arms and keep them clipped to that cable, so you can climb steep, exposed rock without knowing how to use a climbing rope. The name is Italian for “iron road”. In German-speaking countries the same thing is called a Klettersteig, a climbing path.
What you find on the rock
The cable is the part that protects you. It’s a braided steel wire about as thick as a thumb, held off the rock by brackets bolted in every few metres. Where the rock is too steep or too smooth to climb on its own, the builders add iron rungs and staples glued into holes in the rock, pegs to stand on and short ladders. Some routes also have bridges or platforms. On Via Ferrata Piva there are steel grates sticking out over the river pools and a steel bench about 50 m up the final wall.
EN 16869, the European standard for building via ferratas, sets rules for their design, inspection and maintenance. Via Ferrata Piva, which opened in October 2024, was the first route in Montenegro built and certified to it.
How you stay attached
What connects you to the cable is called a via ferrata set. It’s a Y-shaped lanyard with two elastic arms, each ending in a large carabiner. The arms join at an energy absorber, which is tied to the belay loop of your harness. The absorber is a pack of sewn webbing that tears open in a fall and slows you down over a longer distance, which is why an ordinary sling can’t take its place.
Both carabiners ride on the cable. At each bracket you move them past one at a time, so one of them is always clipped. That rule and the rest of the kit are covered in via ferrata safety equipment explained.
Where via ferratas came from
In 1843 Friedrich Simony had a route on the Dachstein in Austria fitted with iron pins, hand hooks, carved footholds and ropes. Over the following decades fixed aids appeared on other Alpine peaks, such as a rope between the two summits of the Grossglockner in 1869 and fixed protection on the Zugspitze in 1873.
In the Dolomites, many routes go back to the First World War. From 1915 the Austro-Hungarian and Italian armies fought through the Dolomites, and both sides fixed cables and ladders to the rock to move soldiers and supplies at altitude. After the war climbers took the routes over, and after the Second World War the Italian and South Tyrolean Alpine clubs restored them. The Via delle Bocchette in the Brenta Dolomites, built from the 1930s, is usually seen as the point where via ferratas began to be built for their own sake. Commercial routes spread through the 1990s and 2000s.
Do you need climbing experience?
On a route graded for beginners, with a guide, you don’t. There are no knots or rope work to learn, because you only clip the two carabiners to the cable and move them along. What you do need is moderate fitness and enough arm strength to pull yourself up iron rungs where the rock is vertical.
Going without a guide is different. The Club Arc Alpin, the association of eight Alpine clubs, recommends training from qualified instructors for anyone who climbs via ferratas. A guided climb is the usual way to start. The guide brings the equipment, fits it, shows you how to clip and stays with the group.
At Via Ferrata Piva the climb takes one to two hours and nobody needs experience. Climbers have to be 12 to 60 years old and up to 120 kg. The first half, through the forest and along the river, is the easier part. The last 80 m go up a vertical wall on rungs, with a slight overhang near the top, and that’s where you use your arms. Is via ferrata safe? goes through what protects you on the route.
How difficult they are
Via ferratas are graded, and the scale depends on the country. Austria uses the Schall scale from A (easy) to E (extremely difficult), Switzerland mostly uses the Hüsler scale from K1 to K6, and France uses the alpine grades from F to ED. Via Ferrata Piva is B/C on the Schall scale. What each grade means, and what B/C feels like on the traverse and on the wall, is in via ferrata difficulty grades explained.
Via ferratas in Montenegro
Montenegro’s first via ferrata opened above Kotor in 2018, and one on Uvita Greda, by the Sedlo pass in Durmitor, was built the same year. Via Ferrata Piva followed in October 2024, and more have been built since, near Nikšić, on Lovćen and in Prokletije. Where each one is and who it suits is in via ferratas in Montenegro.
Trying rock climbing next
On a via ferrata the protection is fixed to the rock and you clip yourself to it. In rock climbing you climb the rock itself on a rope, and a partner or a guide holds the other end. If you finish a ferrata and want to try that, there’s a bolted sport-climbing crag at Plužine. Our partners Adventure Montenegro run guided sport climbing in Piva. Their beginner sessions assume no experience, and the rope, harness, helmet and shoes are provided.