 Alun Davies clips-on to follow in the footsteps of Julius Kugy, the pipe smoking big cheese of the Julian Alps.
We were 12 hours into a via ferrata that should have taken nine and still had a two hour walk to the nearest refuge. At a push we had about 30 minutes of day light left and with Tinsle – I'll explain the name later – still way up above moving slowly down a long, steep and very loose scree slope the question was....do we bivi or finish the route in darkness?
We had all the gear for a night under the stars; sleeping bags, bivi bags, warm cloths and there was a stream nearby and plenty of shelter in amongst the massive limestone boulders. Better still the setting was stunning – a narrow, remote valley encased by huge, vertical limestone cliffs glowing red in the fading sunlight. I laid back on a rock, rolled a cigarette and sat in silence enjoying the moment. Nothing, just nothing, could be better for the soul than a night biving here in the Julian Alps. But what was that noise.....
“Are yoo Meester Darvis?”
“Yes” ?
“My name is Renatto, I come to rescoo yoo”
9am in the Julian Alps and everything that moved was either shagged or being shagged. We were the knackered ones moving in on a highly charged chamois rutting session at Forc Mose, a high pass below the summit of Jof Fuart and the start of the Sent. Anita Goitan Via Ferrata. For us to reach the Ferrata meant coitus interuptus for the chamois and pretty aggrieved they were to. Before they ran away they kicked rocks down the steep slope in our direction, but there again who wouldn't have? Only one person perhaps, Julias Kugy.
Born in 1858 in Gorizia Austria, Julias Kugy came from a family of traders who moved from Arnoldstein to Trieste in Italy. As far as I can tell, from the day he was born, Kugy wore a hat, smoked a pipe, had a full face beard and spent all his time wandering around his beloved Julian Alps from Triglav in Slovenia to Montasio in Italy.
Never one for letting a day go by without discovering new paths, tracks and climbing routes young Julias evolved into an incurable romantic becoming known as the poet, writer and storyteller of the area and a man of wise council for those looking for pleasure and safety up in the mountains. “Our wisdom with regard to the mountains must be to go up and to come back down with happy smiles on our faces” rapped a young Jules before adding “Climb them to live and not so as to die”. Quite.
However, leaving aside Kugys remarkable ability to state the obvious by stating it, what was his advice on coitus interuptus and sex crazed chamois. Sadly, Jules failed to tackle these important issues head-on and therein lies my only criticism of the man. Nevertheless, so convincing was our Julias that he encouraged hoards of trekkers to explore the Julian Alps and even today, 50 years after his death, walkers and mountaineers can be heard singing “we're so happy its unbelievable” as they follow in the great mans pipe-smoke along the paths, ridges and ledges of his spiritual home.
Over the past few years an initiative started by Kugy enthusiasts has resulted in a 7 day long high altitude trail, inspirationally called The Ring of the Julian Alps, linking together some of the best of Jules routes. The trail takes you from refuge to refuge taking in high altitude passes, airy scary via ferrata and the shagging Chamois at Forc Mose which brings me nicely back to 9am on the second day of our trek and the start of the Sent. Anita Goitan Via Ferrata (SAG).
In the Brenta Dolomites cable cars take masses of lazy Ferrata fans to within a crampons throw of a clipped-on climax. In the Julian Alps you earn your pleasure with sweaty foreplay on punishing scree slopes and steep ascents before clipping on the iron. The routes tend to be longer, there are no English guide books and if our experience was anything to go by they cross over into a parallel time dimension where humans don't exist – we didn't pass one other person and were the first of the season to walk the route.
The SAG via ferrata starts just to the right of the 2271m Forc Mose, 400m above the Refugio Corsi and 1109m above the trail head village of Sella Nevea. A short traverse takes you to the site of old gun emplacements from the first world war, where the Italian and Austrian troops would shoot each other in the ass for control of the high ground, and the first wire ropes.
Normally this would have been an easy 20m stroll across a small scree gully, but with plenty of the heavy winter snows of 1998/9 still hanging around it was now a traverse across a small, steep snow gully. Kicking steps was easy enough and the snow compacted well underfoot but a slip would have been very nasty. It was also Tinsles first taste of serious exposure since experiencing a bad dose of vertigo in the Dolomites a year earlier and fair play to the man he handled it well.
Tinsle, by the way, is an old mate who's only experience of mountains, up until two yeas ago, was walking home up the hill from the pub and only if there were no taxis about. He's been called Tinsle for so long no one quite remembers the origin.
For those carrying big sacks – and we were – the first section of Ferrata is a tight squeeze up a narrow gully forcing you to lean uncomfortably out over a huge drop. It lead up onto a small ledge with an exposed scramble up and over unprotected rock. In the Dolomites, you find protection in most all exposed places, yet within 5 minutes were climbing up smooth convex rock over a massive void.Very exciting.
But that was nothing, looking over the other side of the ridge I couldn't believe my eyes and immediately run out of encouraging words for Tinsle. Yes there was a possible route by way of small foot and hand holds covered with scree but no protection and a huge, no make that HUGE, drop all around. No-way were we equipped for this we'd have to turn back. Turning around I helped Tinsle up the last meter and caught a glimpse of a wire rope back across the ledge leading up and over a steep section of rock. Only 5 minutes gone and we'd already taken a wrong turning thank gawd.
Going the wrong way was a main feature of the first section of the SAG with way markings few and far between, no discernible path to follow and with thick mist and cloud swirling we could have been heading for Cuba as far as I knew. But eventually, after a number of gully climbs, scree and snow traverses, we found the path leading off to the summit of the 2666m Jof Fuart, so we left out sacks behind a rock and headed up.
On a good day the views would have been breathtaking but on a day like today we saw mist and we saw cloud and then walked straight past our rucksacks on the way back down.
We now headed across another steeper and deeper snow and ice gully to the start of the Cengia degli Dei (CdD), that's “God's Ledge” to you and me. Having had the time of my life up on the narrow and massively exposed ledges of the Bocchette Centrale via ferrata in the Dolomites I'd been looking forward to this section. The CdD is a high level Ferrata that works its way around the huge rock faces of the Alta Madre, Torre della Madre dei Camosci, Innominata and Cima di Riofreddo via exposed ledges, ladders, stemples and very exposed loose scree gullies.
The start is easy enough along a wide natural rock ledge but soon narrows with a sheer 1500ft drop just a couple of feet away in places. The protection along the first section is good and in all the right places, most of the time. If Tinsle was going to perform vertigo 2 this is where it was going to happen as increasingly we came across exposed sections that required scrambling with no protection on offer. To put it into prospective; this was no rock climb and the scrambling was easy enough with good holds but the exposure was massive which in my book makes it very dangerous and extremely fatal if you fall.
Situations like this tend to focus the mind, which is just as well because we came across wire ropes broken away from their anchors, more snow gullies and very steep scree gullies with the common factor being exposure. By comparison, the Brenta were more visually dramatic but nowhere near as challenging and it has to be said that although we were having a great time some of the loose scree gullies were very, very scary where a slip or slide would have been very unpleasant to say the least.
On the approach to Innominata the route climbs up through a steep and very narrow chimney, so narrow we had to take off our sacks and haul them up by rope which was knackering due to their weight and because they jammed against every rock.
Once out of the chimney the track lead around the base of the final 200ft spire of limestone to meet a path on the left leading up to the summit. The views from the top are said to be incredible but once again all we saw was mist and cloud.
We were now nearing the end of “God's Ledge” with just a scree gully between Innominata and Cima di Riofreddo followed by a ledge across the face of CdR to negotiate before descending too the Forc di Riofreddo pass. From way up on Innominata I could just make out the ledge which looked to have very low roof in places and narrowed considerably over what was the most sheer exposure yet.
The scree gully was, yet again, very scary, although there was some protection, but nothing compared to what was to come next. From a distance the ledge had looked to be a low but a continuous indent around the rock face. Up close, and by close I mean 10 foot away, there was no ledge! There were two narrow foot holds and then nothing but fresh air except a short, bent metal peg sticking out of the cliff face below a bulging overhand. This meant that when a foot is placed on the peg to move around the overhang if the rope came loose it was flying lesson time. Bearing in mind we'd already come across a couple of loose ropes on this route but as you'll have gathered it was completely secure, or you'd not be reading this feature. So that was it, we'd done “God's Ledge” and were on the home straight heading towards the pass at Forc di Riofreddo.
Sitting at the top of the deep and narrow Forc di Riofreddo between the soaring walls of Cima di Riofreddo and Cima del Vallone we congratulated ourselves and shared a bar of chocolate. Looking down the twisting, narrow pass, we could see the scree and rock was steep enough to warrant its via Ferrata rating on the map. We went down the first 30 metres quickly and safety and then came to an abrupt halt. The wire rope disappeared under a deep bank of hard snow that covered the steep gully as far down as we could see.
Water running down the side of the Cima di Riofreddo had partly melted the snow on the left side making it a far safer line and the wire rope could be seen exposed in some places. I carefully traversed the gully with my ice axe poised and ready should I slip. Tinsle, bless him, sat down and waited until I'd crossed.
When he rose to his feet, he slipped and started to slide down the steep slope stopping with a jolt about 2 meters down – luckily he'd clipped on to the last section of wire rope before it disappeared under the snow – reminding us both how dangerous this all was. Keeping tight to the rock face I moved slowly, kicking deep, firm steps into the slope and clipping on to the wire rope when it was not buried under the snow.
After about 50 meters we reached a clear section of steep scree to the left of the snow bank below which was a ladder leading down to another steeper snow slope where the gully started to open out only this time there was no rope and no easy route other than straight down the middle. Looking down reminded me of the time I stood atop the ski jump in Innsbruck, we just couldn't make a mistake on this one.
Fortunately we'd borrowed a 60m length of rope from the mountain station in Sella Nevea and using the ladder as a belay tied in at both ends. I led down kicking deep steps for Tinsle to follow whilst he kept the rope firm from above. I'd spotted a break in the snow about 30 meters down, so the plan was make for it, secure myself as best as possible, and lower Tinsle down on the rope which would be hooked around the ladder rung. I hoped that my 30 meter guess was accurate otherwise the rope would run out with Tinsle 10 meters up above. It was and he arrived safely.
From this point on the snow was steep but broken with patches of loose fine scree for the next 50 yards or so and then a long, long loose scree slope to the valley floor. Having perfected my scree running technique I was down in no time and leaning back against a rock taking in the first rays of sun we'd seen all day. I looked back up the slope, Tinsle waived, he was moving slow but he was OK. I took out my tobacco and rolled a cigarette. Yeah this sure had been challenging and enjoyable day and what a better way to round it off than with a bivi right here in the Julian Alps.
“Are yoo Meester Darvis”?
“Yes”?
“My name is Renatto, I come to rescoo yoo”
But that story is for another day!
 What the hell's a via Ferrata
The Italian term “via Ferrata” means “iron ways”. They are high level mountain routes with fixed climbing aids – ladders, wire cables, pegs, bridges – which allow ordinary mortals to go where only accomplished rock climbers would otherwise dare. But they're far more than that, they're great fun, a great challenge and something all AT readers should try at least once, with the exception of vertigo sufferers. The one word that best describes what its like on a via ferrata is 'exposed'. You'll find yourself in situations and places that are simply mind-blowingly exposed but if you have the right equipment, attitude and a head for heights you'll be safe enough. In my opinion they're a grown up version of a kiddies adventure playground. Have fun viva ferrata.
The Route
The Ring of the Julian Alps
Day 1
Start: Sella Nevea
Finish: Rigugio Corsi
Max height gain: 860m
Approx. time: 4 Hours
Difficulty: No problems
Starting in Sella Nevea 1162m, take the old war-time path up through the trees behind the police station passing many old war ruins up to the Passo degli Scalini 2022m (The Pass of the Steps). From the pass, if the weathers good, its a fantastic view and you'll be able to pick out the Rifugio Corsi 1874m below the huge faces of the Campanile Ago Di Villaco and Jof Fuart massif. The track to the refuge is well worn, way marked and pretty darn obvious. Overall there's no technical difficulties and even allowing for plenty of stops and piccies you should take no longer than four hours.
Day 2
Start: Rifugio Corsi
Finish: Rifugio Pellarini
Max height gain: 792m
Approx. time: 9-10 hours (depending on the conditions)
Difficulty: Plenty of airy scary ferratas
Look above for the full description of this section
Day 3
Start: Rifugio Pellarini
Finish: Rifugio Grego
Max height gain: 1171m
Approx. time: 7-8 hours
Difficulty: High level path with some exposure and lots of big ups and big downs.
Starting at the Pellarini 1499m the path takes you below the huge north faces of the Jof Fuart massif, which for my money are the most impressive and awesome of the walk, and up a steep scree slope to the Sella Nabois pass at 1970m and the highest point of the day. From the pass you follow the high level “Carlos Chersi” pathway to the north of Jof Fuart where you can pick out the more vertical of Kugy's routes to the summit up its northern face. The route drops steeply into its northern face. The route drops steeply into the valley to pass the Bivouac Dario Mazzeni 1630m before descending further to 1148m only to ascend once more to the Bivouac Stuparich 1578m along a well worn but sometimes exposed path. From Stuparich the path descends to the Fossa di Carnizza and on to Rifugio Grego 1389m.
Day 4
Start: Rifugio Grego
Finish: Rifugio Di Brazza
Max height gain: 1453 (if you make it to the top of Montasio)
Approx. time: 9-10 hours
Difficulty: Plenty of airy scary vertical via ferrata and a massive ladder decent.
You start by going back the way you came to the Bivouac Stuparich under the north face of Jof Di Montasio the highest peak in the Italian Julian Alps. The route then skirts around a semi-permanent snow field before heading vertically up the Via Amalia via ferrata. Its another route not suited to the skywards to the Bivouac Suringa 2430 on a ledge below and to the west of the summit. The route passes over the summit and follows a high level ridge to Forca Verde 2587 and the pippan ladder descent – the ladders can be bypassed but if you've got this far I'm sure you'll not want to miss the fun. The path crosses over the Altipiano Del Montasio plateux finishing at the Rifugio Di Brazza.
Day 5
Start: Rifugio Di Brazza
Finish: Sella Nevea
Approx. time: 2 Hours
Difficulty: Easy descent down tracks and roads to town.
Optional extras and add-ons
Day 6
Mt. Canin – A cable car whips you from Sella Nevea to the Rigudio Gilberti 1850m the starting point for the ascent of Mt. Canin 2587m. The path is mostly well worn and waymarked, crossing the Ghiacciaio del Canin (Canin Glacier) before ascending the Juliato via ferrata. As an optional descent you can follow the high level ridge to reach the Via della Cenge (The Way of the Ledges) to return to the glacier and retrace your steps. In total it'll take about 8 hours and its pretty airy and scary in parts.
Day 7
Mt. Mangart – You'll have noticed Mt. Mangart many times – its the big pointy lump on the Slovenian border. To reach Mangart you'll need to head back down the valley from Sella Nevea to Tarvisio and take a right towards the Slovenian border. Just before the border crossing there will be sign posts to the Parco Naturale Di Fusine the start of the walk in to Mangart and its surrounding peaks. The Rifugio Zacchi 1380m in a 3 hour walk and your base for the area. Which ever route you take from here whether its up Mangart or one of the other peaks will involve a via ferrata some of which have some very exposed vertical climbs. NB – Some of the ferrata in the Mangart area are equipped with extra thick wire rope which will not fit through the gate of a normal karabiner so make sure you pack a wide gate if you intend any ascents. Mangart is a tough climb and many people choose to spend the night at the Bivouac Tarvisio high up on the Mangart ridge where the views are awesome looking east to Slovenia, north to Austria and west to the Dolomites.
How do I get to the Julian Alps?
The Julian Alps are in the north east corner of Italy and the north west corner of Slovenia. The nearest airports are Trieste, Venice, Verona in Italy and Ljubjana in Slovenia. There are scheduled flights to all these destinations from London with some services operating from Birmingham, Glasgow and Manchester.
When is the best time to go?
In a 'normal' year you can walk in the Julian Alps from May to October, but there is a good chance the some snow will still be around during May and June and the weather will be more unpredictable in October. Therefore the best time is late June to the end of September during which all the rifgio will definitely be open.
Where do we sleep?
Camping is not allowed in the mountains so it has to be the Refugio.
Are there any decent guide books and maps?
The short answers are no to books and yes to maps. Don't even bother looking for an English guide book for the area what little is available is just not worth the money. Maps are a different story with the best being the excellent Tabacco 1:25000 series. The map you need is number 019 – Alpi Giulie Occidentali Tarvisiano. You can pick one up at the Tarvisio Tourist Office or you could try one of the better map shops like Stanfords of London. There's also the Wanderkarte 1:50000 number 141 at £5.50 for Cordee Books and Maps in Leicester. The mainstream guidebooks, Lonely Planet, Rough Guide etc. are absolutely useless for the north east corner of Italy and you'd be wasting your money buying one if you only intend staying in the Julian Alps and the surrounding area.
How much dosh do I need?
Budget on £25 per day for food, drink and a bed
Do I need to be a rock climber?
The answer is no but you will need to be a confident scrambler with a good head for heights. In general I found the via ferrata in the Julian Alps far more demanding than those in the Brenta Dolomites with far more exposed scrambling, less climbing aids and less protection.
Is it dangerous?
Yes it can be. Wire rope protection is available in more exposed situations however some readers may want to take along a climbing rope for comfort and security on some of the high loose scree gullies and in the event of any steep snow still being present. If you have all the right gear, take your time and don't do anything stupid, you will be safe enough and you'll have a fantastic experience.
Useful Contacts
Tourist Office
Turistica Del Tarvisiano, Via Roma 10, 33018, Tarvisio, UD, Italy
Tel (39) 0428 2135
Tourist office with superb walking and mountain biking guides written in English. If you want extra info on the area its worth giving them a call as they speak good English.
Alpine Guides
Enzio Rizzotti, Rifugio Grego.
Tel (39) 0428 60111
Apart from being the 'gestione' of the Rigugio Grego, Enzio is the big cheese in these parts if your looking for an offical alpine guide. Guides are available for all routes covered in AT.
Hotel inTarvisio
Edelhof, 33018 Tarvisio, UD, Italy
Tel (39) 0428 644025
A new hotel that's good value and serves great beer and food.
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