The main target of the present thesis was to introduce and analyse the special structural safety elements which are used as a protection along the climbing paths so called Via ferrates. There are three types of steel rope protection systems used in Europe today which are so called French, Tirol and prestressed system, where the last is used by the Slovenian mountaineering association in the Slovenian alps. The behaviour comparison and the impact on human body for all three different steel ropes protection systems have been tested in the traffic-structural laboratory at the Faculty of civil and geodetic engineering in Ljubljana. The test setup was prepared in 1:1 scale on the steel structure standing in the laboratory for all three types of steel rope systems. The load of 90 kg was applied dynamically with the free fall of specially designed log from different heights which approximately simulates the real situation in the mountain. Based on the conducted experiments and obtained results analysis we expressed adequacy of using each of the tested steel rope systems. Moreover, the entire acquiring process of all required documents of the safety steel ropes at Via ferrate climbing paths in Slovenia is introduced. The emphasis is also made on the used materials and equipment needed for safe ascending along the Via ferrate paths. We have surprisingly discovered that the carabiners did not break, which is in contradiction with the expected behaviour and with the test results obtained by other researchers in the past.