La Via Ferrata Farinet

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Plaque describing Farinet

For a week or two in April the weather was nice but since then the weather has been bad. We had new snow, high winds and rain. Yesterday rain was announced yet again for parts of Switzerland but luckily only clouds were announced for Saillon where the Via Farinetta is. I expected it to be cold and grey but practicable.

We had moments of sunshine and the weather was even pleasant. As a result of all the rain and snow the waterfalls were full of water, to the point of growing with water and spraying the first part of the Via Ferrata.

A large volume of water filling the waterfall

As this Via Ferrata is in a gorge communicating with the people you are climbing with requires speaking loudly. Now is a good time to see the waterfalls and gorge when they are nicely filled with water.

As I have written about this via Ferrata before I will not go on. What is interesting is that there are now four or five Via Ferrata groups, of which three for those living between Switzerland and France. You have the Via Ferrata Suisse Romand Group, the Via Ferrata Geneve/Annemasse group, the Via Ferrata de France group and the Via Ferrata d'Europe group.

This is excellent because it means that we are now a community of hundreds of enthusiasts connected by Facebook groups and this can be extended to Whatsapp groups. It means that if you have a desire to climb you can suggest a time and place and people can say "yes" or stay silent. ;-). Sometimes they say "nope, some of us have jobs" but not to me as I haven't asked to do things during the week.

What's more, this community is not English speaking "expats". It is made up of locals and migrants. For years social media was about having conversations online but not being able to meet in person unless one caught the train, plane or went on a road trip. Facebook and other social networks have now reached critical mass, at last. This means that we can say "I want to climb" and then you do.

It makes meeting people possible once again. So far I've met two new people via the Via Ferrata group and I want to meet many more. It's nice to be part of a nice big, open community once again. This summer I expect to participate in a few activities with these groups, as soon as the mediocre weather gives way to nice weather.