August 1/2022 Summer Climbing Adventure
Today are going to be doing something a little different. We at Mount Norquay, in Banff National Park and we will be climbing the Via Ferrata. Via Ferrata means Iron Road in Italian, and is an assisted climbing experience. We will be harnessed into the mountains steel cable pathway. I chose the Skyline tour which is 4.5 to 5 hour experience. The distance is 2.5km with an elevation gain of 290 meters.
I booked the tour online, and digitally signed the release form. Make sure you fill out this form as it will speed things up when you check in. After checking in we met our certified guide Brandon, and we suited up with a helmet, harness, and gloves. We then road the chairlift up to the Cliff House Bistro. Here Brandon showed us how to hook our lanyards into the steel cable, and we each gave it a try. Now we were ready to go.
We hiked a little bit before getting to our first climbing section. We hooked in our carabiners and started to climb. To film this I had a chest mounted Go Pro and a Go Pro Mounted to my wrist. This defiantly was my trickiest video to film. We had a quick break and then hiked onto the next section. Now we were really into it. We were climbing straight up cliffs, down cliffs and across cliffs on a series of rungs. We weren’t harnessed in all the time and hiked between climbing sections. We eventually made it to the ladder. Here you have to climb the ladder with your back to the cliff and you look straight across at Cascade Mountain, and a great view of Banff to your right. This really gets your heart pumping. We continued climbing and then came to the section where you are literally walking on a plank. We then continued working our way across and up the cliffs. Soon we arrived at the steel cable section, where we walked across a steel cable, and holding onto another steel cable. Again, your heart really starts pumping here. Eventually we made it to the bridge section. Here we crossed a long suspension bridge which definitely swings while you are crossing it. This bridge is 55 meters long. Now we continued climbing up to the top. At the summit we had awesome 360 views. Our elevation was 2388 meters. We spent about a half hour at the top having lunch and then started heading down. We hiked most of the way down, only hooking into the cable for a couple sections. Once at the Cliff House Bistro we then road the chairlift down.
Our total time was 4.5 hours, 2.8 kilometers and an elevation gain of 284 meters. One awesome thing that Brandon did was take pictures of us on various sections and he sent them to our phones. I was not expecting this. This was definitely a Bucket List experience for me. I highly recommend this if you are in the Banff area and want to try something different. If you have a fear of heights this is not for you. There are six different tours of varying levels and prices.
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Thank you,
Cary Mason
#hikingalberta #canadianrockies #travelalberta #banff
Email - liveonalberta@gmail.com
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