I just got back from a trip to the Swiss Alps where we did some hiking. We strongly considered doing a Via Ferrata hike while we were there. It cost about $50 each to do on our own (for equipment rental), or $125 each with a guide, and since this one isn’t considered that difficult, we thought we’d do it on our own. The Via Ferrata from Murren (the town where we were staying) to Gimmelwald (a 30 minute walk from there), takes about 2.5 hours and includes drops of 600 metres. Here’s a quick video that you should watch before you proceed so you understand what a Via Ferrata hike is:
Via Ferrata is an Italian phrase meaning Iron Path because these hikes have structured ladders, bridges, tightropes, and hand-holds built in. Because they are all at exposed heights with high risk of falling, climbers are supposed to secure themselves at all times with two carabiners. These paths exist all over the world, and there are more than 1000 today. One of the top climbs is in Ogden, UT. Here’s a list of the top 10, ranked.
Because we were considering this hike, I wanted to read up more on deaths that have occurred on Via Ferrata hikes to help me decide if this was a good bet or if I was fooling myself that we could handle this. I found an article that reviewed the reasons for failure and another thread where British hikers were discussing Via Ferrata fails they had seen, and as I read all of this semi-alarming information I thought “This list of reasons for failure pretty much applies to everything in life that goes wrong.”
Here are the reasons given for failure on Via Ferrata hikes:
- Ignorance
- Arrogance
- Unforeseen Circumstances
Let’s take a closer look at each of these reasons people don’t…let’s just say…successfully complete their Via Ferrata hike.
Ignorance was characterized by inexperienced hikers who just didn’t know what they were getting into. They hadn’t researched enough. They thought they would save money by cobbling together a non-standard climbing kit (that ended up being insufficient or shoddy). They didn’t get a guide when they really should have. They didn’t do enough research. They overestimated their experience or underestimate the danger or overestimated their own or their partner’s climbing ability or physical fitness. It’s interesting because these reasons sound a lot like the ones the author attributes to arrogance. I started to wonder if this was our situation. We are very experienced hikers, but we haven’t done rock climbing at all. We’ve done quite a bit of ziplining, including some unsupervised, but this is a very perilous height to be playing with.
The author considered it arrogance when a very experienced hiker had done these types of hikes before but never had any incident, so they were overconfident in their ability and level of control. They felt safe even when they weren’t safe. Examples of this were hikers who didn’t clip on both carabiners over a precipice and then slipped and fell on loose rocks. Surviving previous hikes without incident made them feel invincible, that they were lucky or skilled. They didn’t expect trouble because they had never had any to that point. They tempted fate by standing too close to the edge or trying to take a stupid selfie while acting like a jackass. Basically, I was worried that my husband wasn’t worried enough about the danger.
Unforeseen circumstances are just that. Rocks fall from above and hit you in the head or knock you out, but the most common issue here is equipment failure. Manufacturers of Via Ferrata kits are frequently recalling equipment to improve it after someone falls to their death. Harnesses or lanyards that get old or sun-damaged eventually fail. And this equipment has to hold not only the full weight of your body, but your body after falling for however many meters of cord you have if you fall. Because we would be renting equipment, this one made me nervous. You never know if you’ll be the one who gets it when it’s past its expiration date. I mean, I’m sure they test things and don’t want people to die, but I’d also hate to be wrong about it.
This sounds like I’m being all negative on hiking at 600 metres above the valley floor, but in reality I was on the fence–albeit with both carabiners firmly clipped on. I still thought it was a cool hike and wanted to go, but then the day before we were going to go I fell and twisted my knee, so I didn’t think I’d be 100% at my peak for the hike, so we didn’t go. Maybe we will later.
When I read up on these Via Ferrata failures, it occurred to me that these are a catch-all list of reasons that people screw up in life, not just why they fall to their death on a Via Ferrata hike. We bite off more than we can chew without really understanding the risks, or our previous success leads us to believe we deserve continued success, so we let our guard down, and of course, crap just sometimes happens. You get hit in the head with a rock, metaphorically, or your harness (or support system) fails, you are blind-sided by market changes or the actions of others. There are some things you just can’t prepare for.
I recently had a cancer diagnosis, one reason I was eager to do this trip and feeling a little bit carpe diem. It was a melanoma in situ, easily removed (I’m not saying it didn’t hurt), and I’m now cancer free again (yay!). In my case, the causes of my melanoma were a mixed bag of all three of these things: ignorance, arrogance, and unforeseen circumstances. It seems random-ish because I live in Arizona where melanoma is the state flower, and genetics and luck all have something to do with it, but it was also partly arrogance because I love to read by the pool on weekends to relax (although I always wear SPF 30-50), and I did this knowing that my grandmother died from melanoma. But there was ignorance at play as well because they say most adult melanomas come from exposure you had before age 12, and as a redhead I had a lot of fairly serious sunburns growing up. We used baby oil instead of sunscreen, for crying out loud! What were we thinking? We weren’t truly aware of the dangers, or we didn’t take them very seriously at any rate. The highest SPF I saw well into my 20s was an SPF 12 which seemed like paint primer to me at the time, like we were going overboard. Now I think SPF is like dark chocolate cocoa percentages–the higher, the better!
Life changes happen. Our circumstances get better or worse. We gain a false sense of confidence like we earned our good fortune, and sometimes we do earn some of it. Things go wrong, and we wonder what we could do to control it to avoid future problems or what we could have done differently. We regret choices, but can’t change them anyway, and who knows what would have happened down that other path? Life is supposed to be full of risk and unpredictable. After all, none of us will get out of it alive. Control is often an illusion. Life’s going to do what it does.
- Do you feel that you more often have setbacks due to ignorance, arrogance or unforeseen circumstances?
- Are you a risk taker? Does it pay off?
- How much control do you feel you have in your life? Do you sometimes feel your control is an illusion?
Discuss.