Canyoning, the Swiss EXTREME adventure

Sliding down rocks, repelling down a mountainside, and jumping off cliffs. That was my adventure of canyoning this past week. It was amazing and scary at the same time. The amazing part was confronting your fears and doing this all, but the frightening part was not knowing if you could do it.

I was very proud of myself for completing every task. The only thing I avoided was jumping off of the highest cliff. I opted for the shorter cliff, which still felt like a two story jump into cold glacier water below! Whew! I was very impressed with my canyoning mates that took the higher jump.

The best part of this adventure, for me, was the repel and the zip line. After rock climbing at Bemdiji State (on the small wall), I feel very confident in my abilities to repel. Similiarly, I knew what to expect for the zipline after swinging through the rain forest of Costa Rica. On the zip line, they attach your harness to a rope and let you fly down the line. First, we went through a cave and secondly we went over fresh glacier water. We were encouraged to try to flip or somersault off the line. My lifeguard buddies would be very disappointed, after many attempts to swing my legs above my head, I fell into the water with a lame-o splat. Needless to say, it was a still fun! (An experience I may not do again… I guess time will tell).