My first via ferrata: 760 metres up the Fürenalp wall

A via ferrata is a climbing route with the hard part bolted on: steel rungs, pegs, ladders and a cable you clip into with a harness, so that people who are not climbers can go up rock that would otherwise need ropes and skill. I had never done one. I am not good with heights. So when a friend who owned all the gear invited me along, I said yes before the sensible part of me could object.

The route was the Fürenwand at Fürenalp, above Engelberg in central Switzerland: 760 metres of height difference, much of it close to vertical, graded near the top of the Swiss scale.

The first hundred metres were the worst. It is steep at once, and every move up makes the question louder: are these metal things really strong enough to hold me? Then it gets worse, because the metal is not always there. Some stretches you hold the bare rock, slippery in places, and in one section a stream runs straight down over the holds. Turning back is tempting until you picture down-climbing what you have just come up, and suddenly up is the easier direction. A few times I stopped, breathed, and told myself out loud that I was clipped in.

Then it flipped. Once my body believed the cable, the fear drained out and what was left was joy: the valley opening below, the meadows and the barns very small, and enough calm to pull out my phone for pictures, hands still shaking.

The thing I had dreaded all the way up was a hanging ladder near the top. By the time I reached it, every section below felt like child's play, and I got up it the only way there is: one rung at a time, arguing with myself. When I saw sheep on the grass above, I knew it was over. One hour fifty-one, against a suggested three to four. I will not pretend I was not keen to finish.