Moléson-sur-Gruyères, Via Ferrata
13th June 2009
We’d planned to do this for a while and Julie had a vacation today so with good weather it was ideal. Moléson are perfectly setup for all kinds of activities and seem to drain every bit of utility they can from the facilities they’ve got, it’s a real pleasure to go there and do things. I first went to Moléson as a ski station but it’s been a couple of years at least since I’ve actually ridden one of their lifts and skied down a piste, but we’ve been many times ski touring, snow shoeing, hiking and taking family sight seeing.
It’s a brisk walk up to the start from the top of the funicular railway and we’re already getting warm in the sunshine before we get onto the route. It kicks off with a short ascent followed by a traverse out to the arête. The ground is still slightly wet and our boots are a bit muddy to start with and slide on the metal and rock but soon dry on the traverse.
The route suddenly swings back to our right and takes off straight up the main face of the mountain with some dramatic exposure. Later when we ride down on the cable car some tourists catch sight of another party crossing the same section and there is a chorus of “aahs” and “wow”, it’s a dramatic postion from a distance as well.
Some slightly easier angled sections and I’m able to take a few photographs of Julie.
A final steep section just before the summit provides an enjoyable finish to the route.
From the top of the vertical sections the cable is still in place along the knife edge ridge which provides some security. When we arrive at the second summit there’s a group of school children who arrived by the cable car and foot path, I must have looked tired as one little boy offered me some of his crisps!
I’ve tried to draw on an approximation of the route we took. The ascent is just under 400m vertical and there’s 1310m of cable installed. It’s reckoned to take around 3 hours and I think we took about 2hrs 30m, good timing as we arrived just in time for lunch at the cafe at the top of the cable car.
June 13th, 2009 at Sat, 13 Jun 2009 14:48:07 +0000
Always suspected you were a bit mad. Now I know you are
Great photos
June 13th, 2009 at Sat, 13 Jun 2009 14:49:55 +0000
PS – don’t you have a tick box option to notify people who leave comments of any further replies in a blog?
June 13th, 2009 at Sat, 13 Jun 2009 14:54:44 +0000
I can’t see that option in Wordpress, there may be a plugin for it. I’m knee deep in maps for the next trip so I’ll put that one on the “To Do” list but I’ve three back to back trips now until Sept so it’ll not surface for a long time!
June 14th, 2009 at Sun, 14 Jun 2009 08:30:14 +0000
Wish I’d gone with Wordpress, Blogger leaves a lot to be desired.