Looking for general information about the Dolomites. climibng, places to stay, etc.

I'm planning to go on a European vacation with my wife in the first two weeks of July and 4 of those days will be in the Dolomites. My wife doesn't climb but I want to commit at least one full day to climb a via ferrata route or find a partner to sport climb.  Does anyone have good recommendations on which villages to stay that would be nearest to some good climbing areas or via ferrata routes?  And do you recommend any particular via ferrata routes?  It doesn't have to be hard, but I would like some exposure, great views, and something not very crowded.  Any info would be great.  I'm having a hard time finding good info on the web and I'm not familiar with the area. Thanks.

Will you have a car?

What difficulty range are you looking for in sport climbing.

both VF and Sport climbing in the Dolomites have been discussed abundantly on various web forums.

The web is full multiple English-language descriptions for any Dolomites VF worth trying.

Ken

kenr wrote: Will you have a car?

What difficulty range are you looking for in sport climbing.

both VF and Sport climbing in the Dolomites have been discussed abundantly on various web forums.

The web is full multiple English-language descriptions for any Dolomites VF worth trying.

Ken

Yes, I plan on renting a car. I'm still relatively new to climbing but I can lead 5.10b/c outside, combined with nontechnical mountaineering routes in the Sierras. Do you recommend any forums or threads about the Dolomites?  I have searched for VF routes but almost all of them are websites for guides, and I was looking for some more objective descriptions.  I also don't know how popular the routes are.

How about these web search strings:

"Dolomites via ferrata site:mountainproject.com"
"sport climbing Dolomites site:mountainproject.com"

"Dolomites via ferrata site:ukclimbing.com"
"sport climbing Dolomites site:ukclimbing.com"

"via ferrata site:roberts-1.com"
"via ferrata site:alavigne.net"
. .. or . . .

<name of via ferrata> site:alavigne.net
<name of via ferrata> site:roberts-1.com

Cortina D'Ampezzo is probably the biggest "town" in the area to use as a jumping off point.
The VFs can be anywhere from relaxing to totally non trivial
It might not be worth it for 4 days, but the Rockfax Dolomites book does a good job including the VFs

We did VF Tomaselli and had a good time, but took all day (8h+ including a class 3/4 downclimb on another VF for the return, and sometimes head-scratching route finding). My partner has bigger feet than me and did not enjoy doing it in approach shoes but I was fine :) I also used rappel gloves on the cables to get a better grip at times.
You may want to consider renting a VF kit + rubber soled gloves if you don't have them- we rigged up something that probably would have hurt to fall on (even if not life threatening), and I think it added an additional scare factor for my partner...!

M J wrote: Cortina D'Ampezzo is probably the biggest "town" in the area to use as a jumping off point.
The VFs can be anywhere from relaxing to totally non trivial
It might not be worth it for 4 days, but the Rockfax Dolomites book does a good job including the VFs

We did VF Tomaselli and had a good time, but took all day (8h+ including a class 3/4 downclimb on another VF for the return, and sometimes head-scratching route finding). My partner has bigger feet than me and did not enjoy doing it in approach shoes but I was fine :) I also used rappel gloves on the cables to get a better grip at times.
You may want to consider renting a VF kit + rubber soled gloves if you don't have them- we rigged up something that probably would have hurt to fall on (even if not life threatening), and I think it added an additional scare factor for my partner...!

Thanks M J! I already ordered the book.  I'll probably rent or put together a real VF kit.  I read that they are better rigged for one good fall than putting together my own kit with climbing stuff.

Ethan Ayer wrote: Thanks M J! I already ordered the book.  I'll probably rent or put together a real VF kit.  I read that they are better rigged for one good fall than putting together my own kit with climbing stuff.

Since a FF 5 or greater is distinctly possible, a VF kit *must* be shock absorbing. Those forces can easily break biners otherwise.

M J wrote: the Rockfax Dolomites book does a good job including the Via Ferratas

No it does not do a "good job".

First it only has a small minority of the VF routes in the Dolomites.

The directions for the Parking were wrong on one I tried, so I wasted a lot of time and effort that day.

Third, the author is not mainly interested in VF, so does not have suffficient _context_ for assessing quality.
So at least two of the VF routes in that book are (to my taste) way off on quality, arguably three.

One of the VFs in the book where the quality rating makes sense is VF Cesco Tomaselli . . . (but that's a small sample).

- - > so get a dedicated VF guidebook written by someone who loves Via Ferratas. The best I know is the German-language from AlpenVerlag. The mainstream Engish-language guidebook from Cicerone is rather old-fashioned and wastes a lot of page space and text-reading time.

Fourth - (seems odd for a climbing guidebook) - RockFax gives no serious assessment of the Protection quality of a VF in case a climber actually takes a _fall_.

Fifth - (seems odd for a climbing guidebook) - RockFax has no awareness of styles: climbing a VF route Free versus climbing it with Aid. Really for serious climbers there should be (at least) two diifficulty ratings: one for with AId, and the other for doing it Free.

Therefore . . .
To get more info on these last two points, when considering a VF route, try a search on:
* <name of VF route> site:roberts-1.com
or
* <name of VF route> kenr site:mountainproject.com
or
* <name of VF route> kenr site:ukclimbing.com

For quality and detailed descriptions and photos (assuming climb with the Aiding style).
* <name of VF route> kenr site:alavigne.net

Ken

If you have a rental car, then choosing a base that's near to VF or Sport climb is not relevant. Because . . .
There will be some VF roughly suitable for your party not too far away. And because . . .
half the point of anything you do in the Dolomites is seeing the wonderful views from the roads. Many (most?) of the European visitors carry out their main "challenge" activity ...  day after day ... no farther than a hundred feet from an asphalt road.

Key decision is whether to choose the primary-German-speaking or primary-Italian-speaking section of the Dolomites. Having tried several trips based in the Italian-speaking, Sharon and I now prefer the German-speaking (so then still make short visits to the Italian-speaking as desired).
For us the advantage of German-speaking are:
* better rainy-day options - (because it rains often in the Dolomites).
* better Sport climbing
* shorter driving-time access to other Italy and Euro cities + airports (other than Venice).
* shorter driving-time to other regions with great VF + Sport (when facing several days of rain in Dolomites).

Keep in mind there are lots of great VF routes _outside_ the main Dolomites (many of them newer + better than most Dolomites VF routes). So if it's raining there you could drive to some other region to try out climbing a VF route. Or there might be some great VF already in easy driving range of other place you'll be visiting on your larger trip.

Ken

kenr wrote: If you have a rental car, then choosing a base that's near to VF or Sport climb is not relevant. Because . . .
There will be some VF roughly suitable for your party not too far away. And because . . .
half the point of anything you do in the Dolomites is seeing the wonderful views from the roads. Many (most?) of the European visitors carry out their main "challenge" activity ...  day after day ... no farther than a hundred feet from an asphalt road.

Key decision is whether to choose the primary-German-speaking or primary-Italian-speaking section of the Dolomites. Having tried several trips based in the Italian-speaking, Sharon and I now prefer the German-speaking (so then still make short visits to the Italian-speaking as desired).
For us the advantage of German-speaking are:
* better rainy-day options - (because it rains often in the Dolomites).
* better Sport climbing
* shorter driving-time access to other Italy and Euro cities + airports (other than Venice).
* shorter driving-time to other regions with great VF + Sport (when facing several days of rain in Dolomites).

Keep in mind there are lots of great VF routes _outside_ the main Dolomites (many of them newer + better than most Dolomites VF routes). So if it's raining there you could drive to some other region to try out climbing a VF route. Or there might be some great VF already in easy driving range of other place you'll be visiting on your larger trip.

Ken

Thanks for all the beta Ken!  Oh and after my initial post, I found your older forum posts on the Dolomites on mountainproject. So much good info on those posts I will definitely go through them in greater detail.  We will likely stay in Cortina or Corvava and I will see which VF nearby I can get into for a full day.