Piz da Lech (or Where’s the View?)

With the weather not looking rainy for our last via ferrata we decided on Piz da Lech – graded 3B with 350m of ascent. One of its attractive features was that you can get to the start quite easily by catching a funicular then a chairlift. Both of these are normally used by skiers but are opened over summer so people can take in the views – or do the via ferrata. The funicular takes around 15 minutes and goes up a long way providing views over Corvara and the Sassenhof that overlooks it. The chairlift takes you to what is obviously the top of some ski runs and the start of some walks. From there is was a 15 minute easy walk to the start.

People with too much time on their hands had made words out of stones in the valley approaching the climb. You can see them behind Sylvia at the start of the via ferrata.

Turns out that probably the hardest part of the whole climb was the move off the ground. Didn’t fill us with a lot of confidence given that yesterday’s via ferrata was also graded 3B but there was nothing that hard.

The higher we got the foggier it got – or perhaps we were just hitting the low cloud layer. For a time the fog hid the last part of the via ferrata from Anni. This consisted of two ladders up a sheer face of rock, the second of which has a reputation for pushing you backwards as the exit is over a bulge. It was also a bit disconcerting to see two people being belayed up the ladders We caught up to them later to discover that they were two Americans being guided but one of them had an artificial leg. We saw him struggling over the bulge but maybe he had an excuse. (That’s them in the background of our group shot.)

After the ladders it is a steep walk to the top of Piz da Lech. It was while doing this walk that Anni threw a “hissy fit”. Went something like:

Anni: How much ascent was on this climb?
Frank: 350m
Anni: But I’ve already walked 200m and there is no sign of the top!
Frank: But we have only ascended 250m since we started
Anni: I’m sorry but I have walked 250m up here and 100m will not get me to the top!!
Frank: The 350m is measured vertically
Anni: So you’re telling me that the 350m is not how far we have to walk!! Well why don’t they tell you that it is more than 350m walking!!!
Frank: Because that is not important, it is how high you have to climb…

…and so on! I swear that she stamped her feet in there somewhere too. I guess we can forgive her because yesterday was quite a big walk – or perhaps the rarified atmosphere at 3,000m made her delirious.

Apparently the view from the top is quite impressive, even down to the rifugio we finished at yesterday. As you can see the weather managed to beat us (again) and the fog never lifted.

The walk down from the cross back to where we started was not too long at all, around an hour or so, and much less strenuous than yesterday. It was shades of the Coast to Coast again while we were on the chairlift as it started raining when we were five minutes from the transfer to the funicular – got wet 30 minutes from the end!

Another great climb that, although graded the same as yesterday’s, is definitely more technical from a rock climbing perspective. There were a number of moves that required techniques learnt while rock climbing – especially the one off the ground!