The trail was getting even steeper, which is pretty hard to imagine. It went in switchbacks just to somehow give the illusion of a walking route rather than alpine hiking. Here I should explain that walking in the mountains can be called different things depending on the difficulty. In general, any hikes are hiking, but if it's long and for many days, it's trekking or backpacking. In Switzerland, they use the SAC hiking scale, where T1 is a walk and T6 is practically mountaineering. We usually hiked a 1-2, but based on my feelings and the markings (white-red-white), this specific trail easily qualifies as a 3. You can imagine what a 4 and above is like, considering that even on this trail, closer to the peak, the slope was so steep that I sometimes grabbed on with my hands just to be safer.
Eventually, we reached a spot where the rock face went almost vertically upwards. I was pretty puzzled as to how we'd scramble further, seeing as we didn't have ropes and pitons. We walked a bit further, and massive concrete steps unexpectedly appeared out of the thick fog. A staircase! At such an angle that they were even cemented slightly sloped, rather than horizontal. Luckily, next to the steps there were the cables and chains of a via ferrata. These words mean "iron path". Essentially the same hiking, just of a high difficulty category. And most importantly — right next to you, there's a chain or cable you can hold onto for help. And if it's really tough, or you like safety, you can clip in the carabiner of your climbing harness for protection. The cables by the stairs were extremely handy. Even in the fog, I felt pretty spooked by the height.
Before long, we climbed up the stairs and found ourselves right on the ridge. Here the clouds parted for a minute, and an absolutely incredible view of the valley opened up before us . We were absolutely stunned, just sat there staring, letting out one-syllable exclamations. The contrast probably played its part. After all, before that, we had been scrambling through the fog for a long time and couldn't see further than five meters. And then, all of a sudden, such terrifying beauty!
Unfortunately, it was exactly there, on the ridge, that the damned half-meter-wide trail started, with sharp drops on the left and right. It feels like there wouldn't even be anything to catch onto if you went rolling down a slope like that.
How I survived this, you'll find out in the next episode.