Lac du Vouglans

Via ferrata or klettersteig is a mountain sport which is practiced by many people. The meaning of via ferrata is 'iron road' called after iron which is used for the trails. These trails are secured with a thick metal wire, rungs or ladders. Those are meant to secure yourself with special gear.
We bought the special equipment like a helmet, via ferrata set and a climbing harness. We took some fitness gloves with us, which turned out to be very handy.

Via ferrata routes are set around in different area's mostly where there are mountains.
On internet you have many website which explain about the routes and where you need to start. Make sure you know your own skills before you start a trail! The trails are classifeid in difficulties starting with A which is easy and E which is extremly difficult.

Lac du Vouglans is classified with C, so difficult. As this was the only most easy trail for us along the route we would drive down South to Rhone Alpes we decided to try this rout.

The route starts close to the restaurant La Regadoir in Moirans-en-Montagne.

There is a big parking lot and at this parking lot you can hire gear. From this parking lot you also have nice view over the beautiful colored lake.

The start of the via ferrata is about 10 minutes walk. Then the climbing began!

Lac du Vouglans via ferrata

We only did one via ferrata route ever. And that one was classified with and A as easy. This was something complete different. As I'm not afraid of heights, this could get you really scary. You are mostly 40/50 meters high, climbing on a straight wall. The iron rugs are firmly attached and you can either used them to stand on or to hold tight. Meanwhile, you have to us both carabiners for safety. There is a special steel cable to attach them.

The route takes about 2 hours, we needed almost 3 hours to complete the track. There are a few 'escapes' (when it gets to scary you can use them and they will skip a difficult part).

Halfway there was a ladder and here we could sit and relax a little. Overall the whole route is climbing from one to another steel step and rugs.

Then there was this monkey bridge. First time we did this and it freaked me out a little! Very high and wobbly! The last part was going around one big rocks and ending with a huge hanging bridge, which was really fun.

In the end I was proud we did it and even I was scared sometimes it was too much fun!

I only regret it, we didn't took our GoPro. On other routes we put the GoPro on our helmets and we could make nice video's and pictures.