3-2-1 JUMP (Day 45)

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Got up today as early as I have had to in a while on account of the canyoning trip I was taking part of. The group of the 18 adventure-seekers met outside the hostel at 8:30 with one of the guides for the day before heading two doors down to where their company was located. They breezed through the rules for the day which mostly came back to “Don’t be an idiot since we cannot be responsible for all of you”. Sound advice. They hooked us up with a wetsuit, boots and a helmet for the trip and we piled into vans for the ride out to the canyon which took about 45 minutes. As expected, another beautiful ride. I should mention that we did the 8 hour trip as they offer 6 and 3 hour trips as well but if you are going to do this you have to do the real thing which is the 8 hour one. You are only cheating yourself and your wallet if you opt for something else.

I should not even have to mention how beautiful the scenery was once we got to the starting point at the top of the river that slalomed through the canyon but for the last time, Switzerland is GORGEOUS. Our actual canyoning trip ended up lasting about 4 hours and it will probably be easier to just describe canyoning. The way I think of it is that it is doing whatever you need to do to get from the top of the river where the canyon begins to the bottom by the valley where the canyon ends. That includes repelling down cliffs, off waterfalls, shooting down slides and chutes where the water has eroded the rock and doing jumps off waterfalls into pools below. It’s an absolute blast and that is coming from someone who doesn’t do this often.

I thought I would be a little freaked out but it just happened so quickly. Five minutes into the trip I was standing on the edge of a waterfall with a pool about 30 feet below as one of our guides (Manu) quickly counted 1-2-3 before I jumped. Once you do one everything else is easy. Plus with the wetsuit and life vest on the impact with the water below is quite soft and you can enjoy the short free fall. The only bad thing about this is the water is ice cold and wakes you up pretty quick but what can you expect when you are out here. The wetsuit keeps you pretty warm but it does not help your hands so after our group of 9 people (split into 2 groups) had done our jump or slide or whatever we would be wading in the water with our hands above trying to keep warm. It looked like 9 people trying to screw in 18 light bulbs the way our hands thrashed and turned about above the icy water.

The slides or chutes were probably the scariest part. The part you slide on is quite smooth but you keep hitting the rocks to your side as you wind down so for each slide you are asked to hold your hands out in a different way to protect you and particularly your face from colliding with the canyon walls. You look like an idiot but it is quite necessary. After a long trip we had a nice little lunch (more Swiss cheese) before heading back to the hostel. The rest of the day I just hung out with some of the people from our trip around the hostel as we were all pretty beat from the canyoning excursion. I am so glad I did this though as I will likely not get a chance to do something similar for a while and this day will definitely stick out to me for the rest of the trip. Anyways, I think I just shattered my own record for longest blog so I will just leave you with a few highlights of the canyoning trip:

-the one girl who went on the trip deciding at the last second on this one waterfall not to jump and then half jumping so she pretty much just fell into a canyon wall and smacked her face but somehow did not get hurt
-some Kiwi guy trying a front flip off the same jump and face planting (“How’s your beak mate?”)
-the Swiss guys who ran the trip explaining we had to do a 180 degree jump into this canyon wall then slide down it. “Excuse me, WHAT!?”
-the guy who came on the trip and could not swim but didn’t tell people he couldn’t until he jumped into the first pool
-me trying to repel down a steep cliff and slipping on a wet spot and sliding down 20 feet of rock
-jumping off waterfalls and doing ridiculous poses for the cameraman
-pretty much everything, it was AWESOME

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Photos

jump
jump off a waterfall

canyoning
canyoning

slide
one of the many slides

2
another jump