Teambuilding used to mean gentle country house retreats - then it got extreme. Tom Otley gets to grips with Alpine climbing trips.
I am clinging to the side of a wet and extremely cold rock face. My calves are cramped, my legs are trembling and I'm not sure how much longer I can hold on. To get here I've climbed down a metal ladder; now I'm standing on the bottom rung and either 50 or 100ft below (I'm too scared to look) there's a boulder-strewn canyon floor. To reach the top of the next ladder and continue the descent, I have to make my way along a tiny ledge to my right. I'm not convinced I can do it – no matter how many friends shout encouragement.Activities are what the Alps are big on and why many of us go there – in winter to ski, in summer to go walking or, in some cases, to climb. This is new to me: rock climbing without any ability or experience.
It's called Via ferrata, a deceptively seductive Italian name for a terrifying activity. I prefer the German version: klettersteig, almost onomatopoeic as it sounds like you've already fallen and are bouncing your way down the mountain. I find myself repeating it every time I slip. Klettersteig. It makes a great expletive.
Whichever language you choose, the translation is the same and means "iron way". That's what we're doing: climbing using fixed aids such as wire ropes, rungs, pegs, ladders, and bridges. At all times we are attached to something firmly riveted to the mountain, and so are safe. That is the beauty of Via ferrata. It allows people like me, with minimal fitness, no guts and no skill, to explore regions where only the truly brave and skilful should be allowed. Via ferrata is perfectly safe, I've been assured, which means the only thing I have to fear is fear itself. But as I'm terrified, that's no consolation at all.
When we'd been walking to the canyon from the car park, the harness had felt like a giant nappy, but now I love its reassuring snugness. Two karabiners (metal climbing clips) issue from it and are attached to the wire rope. These are my safety lines. Occasionally they have to be disengaged to negotiate some obstacle, but we've been advised to ensure we do this with only one safety line at a time.
Eventually, I relax, partly because being terrified is very tiring and, odd though it may sound, you get used to dangling over vertigo-inducing heights. The first death slide was alarming, but then comes the
Tarzan-style swing across the gorge and the instructor's five unsuccessful attempts to catch me. After that I was almost blasé. Then the final surprise – metal ladders tied together to form a bridge across the canyon, supported by dozens of thin wires. We were meant to walk along it, then abseil down to the canyon floor, but I had another idea: to organise a rebellion. This was a great success, with at least half the group refusing, and insisting there must be another way out of the canyon (there was – we walked). From below we watched our braver friends silhouetted against the sky then falling out of it as they abseiled down. What was astonishing, though, was that within a few hours, and after only a couple of beers, we were all wanting to get back up there.
Via Ferrata
Via ferrata came about at the end of the 19th century to reduce the difficulty of popular climbs, but it was during the two world wars that it was further developed by mountain soldiers who wanted to gain access to high, easily defendable ground – in some cases so that they could set off avalanches and rock falls. Today there are about 100 of them throughout the Dolomites and Alps, and no shortage of mountain guides to take you. Former military routes, such as the Alpini Way and the Bochette Way in the Dolomites, are famous among climbers who use them to shorten and ease the approaches to popular climbs, but it's for individuals like me that they offer the biggest adventure: to travel a route which previously would have needed considerable climbing skills.
Fact box
Inghams (www.Inghams.co.uk, tel 020 8780 4433) has seven nights in Saas-Fee at the four-star Hotel Saaserhof for £694 per person on a half board basis, including flights from Heathrow to Geneva with BA, plus resort transfers by rail. Direct flights are also available from Stansted, Cardiff, Bristol, Exeter, Glasgow, Birmingham, East Midlands, Manchester, Newcastle and Edinburgh with coach transfers. Half board accommodation only at the Saaserhof starts from £476. Active Dreams Weissmies climbing school offers guided tours to the Via ferrata Jagihorn every Tuesday costing E66 (reserve by the Sunday; tel 41 27 957 1444).
