The most epic adventure ever for us wanna be rock climbers! Our group ranged in age from 33 to 62.
The Dolomites are spectacular, and clinging to the side of the mountains on the via ferrata in these mountains is a surreal experience. We loved the history in this region with the WW1 relics, the tunnels, barracks, and caves that we traveled through. The first day we were a bit in shock at what we had signed up for, but every day got better even as the via ferratas became slightly more difficult. Every vista was amazing. Our trip leader Hannes was patient, kind, knowledgable, had great humor, explained a lot of things, and seemed to know the trails intimately as he was always stayed at the tough spots (the scant D sections) to help us over them. The trip leaders confer every night as to the plan for the next day based on the weather conditions and the abilities of the groups. Hannes did escalate our trail difficulty to C++ (C is difficult, D is very difficult) for the last 2 climbs/hikes, but we managed to complete them and that is quite a feeling of accomplishment. We enjoyed our fellow hikers tremendously (group of 5 with Hannes), and the six of us (including Hannes) posted over 1000 pictures to the whatsapp chat! We were so fortunate to have almost perfect weather.
The base hotel Kirchenwirt, near Dobbiaco/Toblach, is a delight . It is family owned and run, and provides half board as a large breakfast buffet from which we also took some light provisions for lunch, and multicourse dinners. You will not leave hungry. The servers were kind and funny. The food is Tyrolean so more Austrian than Italian. They provide transport to and from the train station, and have an indoor pool, sauna, steam room (much appreciated the last few days after the hikes) . Our room was in the newer section and it was roomy with a nice large bathroom. And a bonus resident friendly Bernese Mountain dog Sisi (maybe Cece?), only 8 months old but already large. Compared to the usual mountain huts with sparse amenities when hiking, this hotel felt quite luxurious.
Hannes drove us to the hiking locations each day, 30-60 minutes away. This is reimbursed to him at a nominal cost of 30 euros pp for the week if you choose to use the guide transport. Those mountain roads are no joke to drive on so even those who had cars chose the guide transport.
I saw in a previous review that someone recommended bringing your own harness. The harnesses and via ferrata carabiners that the outfitter provided were the latest safety configuration, probably purchased this year or last. So no need to bring your own if you book with Utracks since the package includes the equipment.
The guides and trails also provided us a fun optional surprise or two along the way to add to the adventure. Thank you Hannes and Martin!
You should have some reasonable upper body strength and grip to do well on the via ferratas if you are not a climber. We had hiked Half Dome in Yosemite, and Angel's Landing in Zion, and these via ferratas make those seem like child's play. You should also be reasonable sure footed since there is also at least 2-3 hours of hiking there and back in addition to the climbing , sometime on rocky terrain with scree.
Highly recommend!
