Via Ferrata at Torrent Falls

March is always a fun month. Not only do we see signs of spring and more daylight hours, but we also have two birthdays in our family to celebrate. Mine is on the 28th and my middle child is on the 29th. As I have gotten older and with kids, more focus of course has been on them. Last year, I decided I wanted to start a new tradition. Gather a few friends and go do. Last year we took a class at Suspend learning about aerials with trapeze and aerial hoop. This year I opted on Via Ferrata in the Red River Gorge area.

view from climbing up to the climbing area

 Via Ferrata at Torrent Falls describes it as "a way of climbing that consists of a steel cable that is attached to the rock face every 8-10ft.  Climbers are clipped into this cable with specialized via ferrata climbing lanyards.  Iron hand and foot rungs aid the climber as they ascend, traverse, and descend the course." This seemed like the perfect new experience to start my last year in my 30s. 

The company recommends reservations so I made one a few weeks in advanced. They just opened for climbing season at the beginning of March. Since there was just 4 in our group, we did not need to pay anything at the time of reservations. Their website was full of information on what to wear, bring etc. 

Our climbing adventure day arrived. My 3 friends and I packed the car with lunches and drinks and headed out for our 2 hour drive. It is just a few minutes down the road from Natural Bridge State Park in the Red River Gorge area. We arrived a few minutes early, but was able to sign the waivers and get checked in. We had about a 40 minute training session where we learned how to put our harnesses on, helmets, and practice on the training wall. Once we finished, the guides let us loose to climb.

section 2

section 2

 
There are 6 courses that you can climb ranging from easy to expert. You pay for an all day pass, so you can climb as many times as you want. They suggested Section 2 for us since it was our first time. This was harder than I expected even on the easiest one. I expected rebar for feet and hands all the time and the cable to not have so much wiggle room. There were always places for feet and hand grips, but it could be rock face, crevice. You were always attached to the cable, but for the first go around, definitely hard trusting the cable. 

We all made it through Section 2. My friend, Marian, and I opted for Section 3 after we all had lunch and debriefed about what we just did. Before we entered back into the climbing area, the guides checked all our equipment. Section 3 was intermediate level and went behind the waterfall. There were a few tricky sections such as climbing over a cliff to scale the rock face, but I always felt I had great hand or foot holds that made me feel more secure than section 2.

section 3 climbing over and scaling

 

 Next we tackled Section 1 which was more climbing up and down on the rock face. My last section I tried was the tight rope section. My arms were getting tired. I was also nervous not knowing the handhold on the remaining advanced courses, if I could complete them. The tight rope section you can climb to just that part, walk across and then climb back. The walking across was the easy part. Scaling back was more challenging considering I had to cross a gap between two rocks faces and I was getting fatigued. 

section 1

 

Tightrope

climbing back after the tight rope

Via Ferrata is for ages 10 and up. If you join their email, they send out discount coupon occassionally. They are open in all weather, but if storming, they wait it out. They sell gloves for climbing for $5. I brought cycling gloves, but felt they were too slick for me. I opted for no gloves. By the end of the day, my hands started to hurt from the death grips and knuckle scrapes. We arrived at Torrent Falls a little after 9am and left a little before 2pm

The via ferrata was a great experience. I loved the new challenge and experiencing it with friends. We each faced different fears, overcame, and met our limits. I would like to go back again and try the advanced sections.  Since we were so close, we stopped by Natural Bridge State Park for a short hike that ended up being 3 miles. I can't think of a better way to spend a day with some of my best gal pals.