Via ferrata Ivano Dibona

Exposure is constant here, and the protection is not. Several stretches carry no wire to clip into at all, and the rocky paths between the fixed sections are where care matters most. The climbing itself asks little — the moves are straightforward — but the ground is unstable in places and the upper pitches are steep. What makes the route hard is the clock: close to seven hours at the fast end, eleven through to the Ospitale hut. Then the cold. The summit has read 4°C on an August morning, hours before anything down in the valley warms up.

• Water: no springs on the ridge and no tap near the start — the whole day's supply goes up in the pack.
• Cold at the top: the summit has read 4°C on an August morning, so a warm layer travels even in high summer.
• Nothing at the trailhead: no toilets, no drinking water and no information point anywhere near the start.
• Loose ground: about 700 m of slope on small shifting pebbles before the route proper, and it eats close to two hours.
• Start in the morning: eleven hours through to the Ospitale hut is a real figure, and a late start runs out of day.

Nothing drives you to the cable. The road stops about three kilometres short of the route, and from there the way in climbs roughly 700 m of slope on small, shifting pebbles — reckon on close to two hours before the first rung. Car parks and the Passo Tre Croci bus stop sit at much the same distance, so however you arrive the walk in is identical and the clock starts on the road, not at the ladders.

Better: a full day begun in the morning, or two days split by a night in a rifugio.

Avoid: a late start, and any day with storms in the forecast.

The route sets the timetable rather than the season: close to seven hours at the fast end, eleven through to the Ospitale hut, with nearly two more on the gravel approach before that. On a ridge this exposed, weather that arrives mid-route finds you with hours still to go.