Sensational New Via Ferrata!
We are proud to annouce that we can now take school groups as we are AALA approved
To BOOK VIA FERRATA click here!*
On Cumbria Tourism Go Lakes website E-shop
Priority booking on line is faster, more convenient and less expensive!
 Adults - 19.50 (18yrs & up)
Youth - 15.00 (16 - 17 yrs)
Child - 9.50 (under 16)
Family - 55.00 (2+ 2)
(minimum height 1.30m)
We have two Via Ferrata tours a day, every day departing at
11.00am & 13.00pm
(Additional times can be arranged for large groups - please call 017687 77714)
GIFT VOUCHERS AVAILABLE ON REQUEST!!
All equipment will be provided and all tours will be guided by our fully qualified staff.
You must arrive at Honister and sign in at least 30 minutes before departure. Failure to do so will result in your places being released and re-allocated. Re-booking will then be necessary!
'Honister's All Day Pass' Mine Tour, light lunch & Via Ferrata all included at a very special price!
Note: Bookings are non-refundable, however, you may change your booking to an alternate day within 24hours before the date of your arrival.jpg)
Honister 's Via Ferrata will allow the average person on the street the opportunity to go higher and further from the street than they ever imagined was possible!
Hugely popular in the Italian Dolomites and across Europe,
check out Google.
Via Ferrata is Italian for "Iron Way" and the system has been used in the Alps for more than a century. During World War One, they were used to ferry troups and equipment over mountainous terrain. At Honister, the Victorian Miners used an early and risky version to get home quickly after a day in the dark.
Honister's Via Ferrata is an adventure climbing system that uses a permanently fixed cable for safety and protection up the rock face of the old miners' route. You are attached to this system by a harness provided by Honister. Full safety instructions are provided and initially all tours will be guided.
 While different from traditional rock climbing, the sport of Via Ferrata can give the participant the sensation of being exposed on a rock face and the sense of freedom from ascending into spaces where only eagles fly. Unlike traditional rock climbing, a Via Ferrata participant is not attached to a belay but climbs independently using the installed system of iron rungs and supports.
Allowing access to areas not usually easily reached-e.g THE TOP OF FLEETWITH PIKE (2,126 feet high)
Via Ferrata on YouTube courtesy of Trail Magazine!
SEE AND HEAR WHAT OUR CUSTOMERS
THINK ABOUT THEIR EXPERIENCE ON VIA FERRATA! VIA FERRATA
"THE MOVIE!"
To view images and comments of the route up Via Ferrata (by David Hall) click here!
To view images and comments of the route up Via Ferrata
(by Andrew Leaney) click here!
Check out this super audio slideshow by Kevin Rushby as he climbs Englands 1st Via Ferrata in The Lake District - a precarious path miners had to negotiate every day,
just to get to work at the very top of this amazing mountain - Click here! (3 mins, 45 seconds)
Article from The Sunday Times Travel Newspaper 20th January 2008
The Winter Wall
The mission: Climb Cumbria's Via Ferrata
.jpg) I make a pact with God: let me live through this and I will never ever complain about my morning commute again.
I am currently on - just on - what must be Britain's most perilous route to work: 2,000ft up a sheer cliff, clinging to a wet rock on a "path" with an 80-degree gradient. The bit of slate on which my foot was resting has just broken off and shattered on the valley floor far beneath, with a noise that sounds a bit like someone saying, "That could be you next..."
All in a day's work, though, for the Victorian miners who manned the slate mine here on the Honister Pass, not far from Keswick, in the Lake District. Except, of course, that they weren't double-clipped onto a fail-safe metal cable like a big scaredy-baby - which I, obviously, am.
It's called a Via Ferrata, and it's England's first. They've had them in the Dolomites since the first world war, when a network of these "iron ways" was hammered into the hillsides to faciliate troop movements.
Now, they are used by tourists and amateur mountaineers who want the thrill of climbing without the trill of actually falling to probable death.
.jpg) The technique couldn't be simpler: you clip yourself onto the cable, then walk, scramble or climb your way upwards. The knowledge that it would be quite impossible to fall more than a foot doesn't altogether neutralise the natural adrenaline rush of getting so close to the edge.
At Honister, for your 19.50, you get your harness, an utterly unnecessary helmet and a guide. If you're lucky enough to land Michael, you'll also get an agreeably Cumbriacentric history lesson. The graphite mine, also here, used to have armed guards because the stuff was more valuable, pound for pound, than gold, he tells us.
.jpg) The Via Ferrata takes you up through the slate mine itself, the ghost town that was the miner's village, in about 45 pretty-much-anyone-can-do-it minutes. A further 20-minutes walk gets you to the summit of Fleetwith Pike and exhilarating views.
By Ed Grenby For a Via Ferrata downloadable poster click here!
To check out the amazing history behind Honister Via Ferrata click here!
To follow Richard Brownrigg's journey (aged 14 years) dated Monday 1st Jan 1928 on his trek from Seatoller to the top of Fleetwith Pike on his first day of work click here!
* VIA FERRATA FROM LATIN - BY METAL - CABLE & EQUIPMENT
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