Via-ferrata Fortica
Fortica is a short and easy via-ferrata suitable for first timers and kids. It offers fantastic view over Cetina river estuary and Adriatic sea. It leads over western ridge of Fortica peak that dominates immediate landscape of eastern part of Omiš.
There are two ways to get to its start. One is directly from Omiš old town where the ferrata access path emerges from maze of streets and rises across house nearby gardens. There is one rocky threshold to scramble, the rest is a simple path. The other starts from parking lot behind carved in rock tunnel, looks like it require a bit of scrambling as well. This parking is a paid one and during my stay was full of cars, there’s a climbing garden nearby to the north so expect it packed during weekends. Both of these access paths take us to the start of wester pillar of Fortica peak.
Start of via-ferrata lies around 50m of over the sea level, we have roughly 250 vertical meters to climb. Protected path follows the ridge in the 90% of the stretch, there is also a bit of traversing and three vertical thresholds to climb. The rock is of decent quality for a limestone, I did not spot crumbly places. I don’t recall any particularly exposed places.
So we start with a walking over slabs which eventually gets steeper, then we traverse a bit on the left side (one tiny threshold here). Again we land back on the ridge that rises sharper and we come under a culmination that is traversed on the right side this time. That’s the most demanding part of the climb with a 5 meter vertical threshold protected with ladder steps - the hardest part of the route, maybe B difficulty. Back on ridge again and again on the right side we cut through another a bit bushy threshold. After that steepness levels off, protection disappears and we can already see the ruins of Fortica castle. The traverse to get inside is protected (we cut through ruin walls). Castle ruin offers some views into eastern direction which we did not get while climbing. In theory it costs 3.5 EUR to enter but the ticket booth was empty.
For descent, once again, there are two options and to describe them in one word - slower and faster. First one takes us back to the old town of Omiš, is longer, not that steep and more view- rewarding as we still look at the sea and bay. It runs in the eastern and then south - west direction. Maybe it is also nicer to walk, but is also directly exposed to sunlight. The faster one is steep, with lots of crumbliness along the way and cuts through a dense valley forest. Was pretty nasty to walk and required a bit of attention. The advantage is time, it took me 15minutes to get from the castle ruins to the sea level.
Warmluke temperatures for the middle of April, cold wind coming from Cetina gorge. Warmer on the ridge itself and in the sun, around 20 degrees.
Well protected, no crumble places. Rock is of decent quality. In spots of no protection there are red white trail markings. Only problematic thing might be finding the start of access path to ferrata as it located in the maze of Omiš old town streets.
No info.
Starting point reached by car, Omiš can be easily reached by bus from Split, bus stops.
Feratta is really easy, probably wouldn't make a dedicated destination for seasoned climbers. However it offers great overall experience in unique landscape and in combination with superb rock quality is still worth giving it a try. For me that was opening of the '25 season and a nice 'icebreaker' for holding some rock after winter.
For climbing this route and avoiding usage of any in-place via-ferrata protection the difficulty would be something like I st grade with only these thresholds being more difficult with maybe IV for the 5 meter one.
Even with people above us trip is generally safe. Thanks to ridge formation there is literally no risk of falling stones, especially that the rock is not crumbly. Might want to watch out for nose-horned vipers inbetween the rocks and in the grassy passages.
20L rucksack, helmet, via-ferrata set
