My first Via Ferrata: Saillon Via Ferrata 5/22

 On Friday, the lab was supposed to receive a couple people from Huawei and would be occupied with everything that came with a reception so I decided to go with a couple of friends on a Via Ferrata in Saillon in the Bains region.

We took the 9:38 train from Renens VD, and went to Martingny and then onto Gare de Riddes and then took a bus from there to the office of tourism in Saillon, which was actually located in a pretty big hotel in Saillon. After leaving the hotel, we embarked on a 20 minute hike/walk to the start of the Via Ferrata, where we took a quick break and put our harnesses and double checked our safety equipment.

It was here when I pretty much learned everything about a Via Ferrata, although it was easy enough. Main thing was to have one clip on the entire time, and to alternate the direction in when you clip the carabiners.

The first section of the hike was a K3, and was more scary than physically demanding. There was two cable bridges that we crossed and that was the scariest part. I enjoyed the views and at one point, we climbed alongside a waterfall (although I thought this was scary because the rungs got really slippery).

After finishing the first section, we took a long lunch break and got some rest. One of our members took 2 quick naps because he was that tired, although he was the most experienced out of all of us. 

The 2nd section was the hardest by far and was rated at K4. It was also more scary than physically demanding though. Right after the initial start of the section, there was about 50 meters of climbing across a rock wall that had a vertical drop of 75 meters to the valley floor for the entire 50 meters. It made me really scared at the start but then I just dealt with it. We went through a little cave like passageway, and then started the 2nd half of this section. This section was pretty much like climbing a long ladder, although it didn't have the same scare factor as the others previously did. My arms were pretty tired at the end of this though. At the very end, there was a junction where we could continue to the 3rd part, which was a K5. I decided not to do it because I had no gloves and no arm strength left, but three other people in my group decided to push on, and completed it.