Climbing the NROCKS Via Ferrata in West Virginia! 🧗🏻‍♀️ (+ visiting Spruce Knob)

So far in West Virginia we have visited part of the northern and northeastern regions of the state. We've seen waterfalls, explored bear rocks in the Dolly Sods, tried local foods, and wandered around the historic town of Harper's Ferry. We've now moved down the eastern side of West Virginia near Seneca Rocks and today we're going to face our fears and do something totally out of our comfort zone. Climb a Via Ferrata. Via Ferrata is Italian for iron path so it's a climbing route with steel cables, rungs, and ladders that are fixed into the mountainside so the climber doesn't need any special skills or special equipment. All you have is a harness and two leashes that you lock in that prevents you from falling. So this originated in World War I and the Italian Dolomites which is one of our favorite places in the world to help troops move through the mountains and so there's over a thousand of these Via Ferrata's in the European Alps and most of them are in Italy and Austria. We've been staying with one of my best friends in Virginia who's actually joining us on this adventure and we're currently driving about three hours from where she lives close to D.C. to Circleville, West Virginia which is where Enrock's Outdoor Adventures is and today's Via Ferrata adventure is going to be about three and a half to five hours. We're going to gain about a thousand feet in elevation. We're going to cross a suspension bridge that's 150 feet tall, 200 feet long, and we're going to reach exposed heights of 280 feet. I really hate drop-offs and like the feeling of worrying that I might fall and Adam's not the biggest fan of heights so it's going to be pretty terrifying but a ton of fun. This is my beautiful bestie Liz. She's actually done this before like a year ago. Yeah. And when she told me she was doing this I thought she was absolutely crazy. I was like there's no way I'd ever do that but here we are. Here we are. You said like you you're like shaky at first. Yeah I yeah you go around a corner and like you take those first steps you're a little shaky but as you keep going it's totally worth it. And mom, she's still alive. We are all suited up. We have our helmet. We have our harness. Got my GoPro on. We took like a two-minute side-by-side. Is that what it's called? Yeah not even two minutes. Like a 30-second side-by-side ride to the base of the trailhead. Now we're hiking uphill to get to the start of the Via Ferrata. Gonna get a good workout in. Are you nervous? I'm actually I'm feeling pretty excited. Once I see it I think I'll be nervous. I'm excited. It just still hasn't hit me yet what we're about to do. It's gonna be so fun. Oh crap. Straight uphill or straight up rock. Most of the time you have two attached but even one is plenty strong to catch you if you fall. The biggest issue would be if you ever do what we call a double unclip and you take them both off what is there to catch you if you fall? Nothing. Nothing at all. So the way that works in practice is I climb up I have to switch to the next cable every few feet. What I want to do is whatever hand I do the first clip with I'm going to make sure to use that same hand for the second one and that makes it very difficult to accidentally unclip. They're all making me go first. Then you're gonna remember that arm drape technique. There you go. Oh my gosh. Oh god this is so scary. You got it. How are you feeling now? Oh my gosh. My legs were shaking so bad on the way up. That was definitely scarier than I thought it would be. I don't know they made me go first so I felt so nervous. I'm so impressed with her it's crazy. I'm like impressed with myself. Yeah everyone's crushing it. This is pretty hard. We've been told this is the hardest part though so I think the rest of it will be less scary. I was just trying to not look around and just focus on switching the clips and yeah not looking anywhere but straight ahead. Oh yeah we're doing great. Okay sorry mom you would hate every second of this. All right ready? Yeah. How'd you feel about that complete exposure right there? It was terrifying. Oh my gosh. We've gotten to the part of the climb where we go across a suspension bridge that I mentioned earlier in this vlog that's 150 feet tall and 200 feet long. It looks way longer from here I'm not gonna lie. It's so sketchy looking it's just wooden slats with these massive gaps between them and then you hold on to wire to get across. It looks so shaky. Yeah it looks super shaky just you know you can only have three people go across at a time but I think probably most people want to just go by themselves. Yeah. If you've ever seen Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom that's kind of what just exactly what this looks like. So it'll be a little scary but the views here are incredible. Yeah this is a lot of fun. This is a blast. I'm shaking less than I was before. I feel a lot more comfortable. I think we're past some of the well I say that now but I think it's gonna get even sketchier but it's fun. Here we go. Oh my gosh. All right here I go. It's gotten super windy and cold all of a sudden but just making the bridge sway even more. Once you get up there it's pretty narrow but I mean there's room to sit or stand and the down climb the down climbing in general it's new to us and it can be a little scarier a little harder. The good news is you can tell they put a lot of footholds for the down climb so that alleviates some of the difficulty. Long story short what I like to say is if you've had any trouble at any point today this is a nice place to chill and rest for a little bit because we still got a ways to go. Otherwise if you thought it was all pretty easy this is a nice added challenge. All right here we go on the the optional part. Gets a bit more sketchy straight up vertical. Oh god this is scary. What you're gonna do is you have to follow the cable that way. Careful please. Oh my god. I was shaking so bad and I started to feel really nauseous. You did it. So he gave me a rope just to have extra safety. Wow this is nuts. I did it. And down we go. We're on some level ground where we can stand comfortably for a minute. Oh it feels so good. The hardest part's over. Yeah the top part I was so scared I won't lie. At the spine? Yeah yeah especially coming down I don't like because you have to look over to find your foothold your first foot. You're looking straight down. Yeah. Oh man but it has been so much fun. It's a lot of pushing us out of our comfort zone that's for sure. We have unhooked and now we're gonna hike up to a little summit. That's where we were earlier on top of that spine there. I've been obsessed with this meadow just in between the mountains the entire hike. There's just this beautiful light colored green grass. There's farms out there. There are cows and there's a tree that's half green half bright red. You can't really see it now and we need a zoom lens but yeah I've just been obsessed with it the whole time. We made it down in two pieces I guess one piece each but when we were sitting at the top I was pretty nervous. We sat up there for a while and you as you've either seen or you're gonna see the drone shots were freaking crazy but the more we sat up there the harder and like more nervous and kind of scared I was getting about getting down. I was like man I gotta get down off of this thing but we made it and it was exhilarating and epic and awesome and just we are just terrifying. We are mentally exhausted physically exhausted so but so so worth it to push ourselves out of our comfort zone. I'm so happy and glad we did this and proud of us actually. I said I would never do this so never say never guys because now I conquered the Via Ferrata. I seriously could have never imagined doing this in my life knowing my fears but I'm so glad we conquered it. It doesn't hurt. It's absolutely stunning around here so at least when you're like freaking out there's nice views to look at. In case you guys are curious how much this cost it was $280 for both of us and that includes tax and then plus we paid an additional tip because our guide was super awesome so it's not the cheapest activity but like Adam said so worth it so worth it such a fun thing you don't do this all the time so it's worth the extra cost but we are freaking hungry now starving we are starving we worked up such an appetite so I think we're gonna go to the closest restaurant there aren't a ton of options but anything will work at this point. All I wanted when I was very nervous and shaking and feeling very scared on the Via Ferrata were french fries so I got my french fries. We crushed our burgers at the Gateway Family Restaurant now we're gonna head up to the highest point in West Virginia Spruce Knob. Spruce Knob is only about 30 minutes from the Via Ferrata so it makes for a really great activity after you're done climbing and as Adam mentioned earlier it's the highest point in West Virginia at 4,863 feet. It's a beautiful about 12 or 13 mile drive up to the top of here and the best part after a long hiking or not hiking but climbing day is you just park and it's about a 900 foot walk to the observation. We're tired. That's a wrap on another day here in West Virginia. This one though was epic, awesome, amazing, exhilarating, intense, terrifying, adrenaline pumping, all of them so awesome. We can't say it enough just what a fun day it was just yeah mind-blowing and one of the things that's really just stood out to us while here in West Virginia is just how much nature there is here. We said in our first vlog it's the third most forested state and I was kind of like huh I would have never thought never thought that but now being here I totally believe it. You believe it for sure. This area especially when we're at the top of Spruce Knob it was just endless mountains everywhere you hardly could see any buildings houses anything it just feels so vast and remote and then where we were rock climbing earlier it's just mountains and all of a sudden these rocks are just jutting out that you can climb. There's just so many outdoor activities here it's just what a cool state. Do I look like an alien with this hood on? Edward Jack Irvinger. I want the apple pie.