There is a relatively new adventure sport called canyoning that started in France, has spread to all of Europe and I would imagine is also available in Denver and the Rockies. As one who enjoys water activities, (back in the day I won the water skiing award at camp), all the hot male staff worked there, but that was just an added bonus. When I heard of canyoning, I jumped at the chance– no pun intended.
The adventure started with leaping off cliffs to acclimate us to jumping– I presume. I didn’t feel the need to pay €65 to jump off cliffs, but I did appreciate wearing the borrowed jumpsuits as the water was cccc-old. We wore two sets of wet suits fully equipped with hoodies and so when fully dressed we looked like the human sperm in the beginning of Woody Allen’s movie “Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex”.
We entered the canyon wearing harnesses and were “abseiling”, a word common in Australia which means propelling downward. With the help of our trusty guides and a harness we “jumped” down the canyon amid a waterfall and landed in a shallow pool of water. Most pools with any decent insurance would never allow jumping at such a depth, think kitty pool with waterfall.
I am accustomed to being propelled downward after an intense rock-climbing excursion, but all we did was drive to the top of the canyon. It felt like cheating, like eating ice cream before dinner or in this case instead of dinner.The only exertion of energy was putting the sperm suits on, which was quite the challenge. As for the “sliding” down rocks, they were not 5 feet high so we didn’t slide for more than 4 seconds. My roommate who didn’t attend had more of an adventurous experience playing on the swing set at our cabin. In describing the experience to her, she accurately connected it to “sexo malo”, bad sex. A lot of preparation for four seconds and done.
Bottom line, canyoning is for chumps— and as a the chumpiest chump of them all, I would choose a water park over ‘can-yawning’ any day of the week. I would like to note, of the 12 “canyoners” I was the only one not impressed, but doesn’t every party need a party pooper?
We stayed in a small town in the Austrian Mountains called Kirchdorff the evening of their “big” summer nacht party! For the entrance of three euros there was a live band who played recognizable hits such as “Achy Breaky Heart”, stands selling fried bread, beer, fried donuts, beer, and lots adolescents. They had a homemade wheel of fortune type game where I won €20 euros, but also spent a good €8-10 on playing before winning. Whenever I lost, the three toothed Austrian man running the game said “bad luck” and offered me a kiss as a consolation prize, wouldn’t that be a prize for him?
