Via ferratas and protected paths

Grades, gear and a little history

Via ferratas are older than most people assume: a protected route was built on the Dachstein as early as 1843, and one on the Marmolada in 1903. It was the First World War, however, that filled the Dolomites with ladders, ropes and tunnels to move troops and supplies to altitude, and many of today's routes are those military lines, restored after the Second World War with steel cable in place of rope. The grades on our pages follow the Schall scale, the most widely used in the Alps, which runs from A, easy, to E, extremely difficult: the B/C of the Zugspitze and the C/D of the Ferrata degli Alpini on the Col dei Bos describe sections that sit between two levels. In Switzerland the Hüsler scale, from K1 to K6, is also common, so it is worth checking which system the description in front of you is using.

The Italian Alpine Club (CAI) grades via ferratas as EEA, expert hikers with equipment, and expects a kit and a helmet. The kit has three parts, each with its own standard: a harness (EN 12277), a mountaineering helmet (EN 12492) and a via ferrata set with an energy absorber (EN 958), whose 2017 revision set a user weight range of roughly 40 to 120 kg and which was itself updated in 2024. This is not paperwork for its own sake, since manufacturers warn that a set used outside that range may not absorb the energy of a fall properly, and for the same reason it is wise to use a set whose history you know. The protected paths around Lake Como on this page, Monte Barro and the Via del Fiume in Val d'Era, are graded EE instead: cables and chains help, but the ground still asks for sure footing, and whether to bring a kit depends on conditions and on your own experience.