Chili Schleire

When I signed up for Canyoning, I was legitimately nervous. Outdoor, Interlaken described the canyon that we wanted to do-which was the highest level one- for athletic people who do not have any fears of heights. As many of you know, I would not describe myself as the most athletically inclined person, but in the end I managed just fine. Canyoning is a must for any person that can muster the courage to do it. it is the most beautiful, thrilling, and eye opening experience that you can take advantage of in your life. The day started with a short hike out to the canyon. The very first thing they had us do was jump off of a 40 foot waterfall. That was what they called the point of no return. If we could not make that jump, we had to walk out...but if we did make that jump, it was impossible to walk out.

After plummeting, we went through a series of slides, jumps, and rappelled

off of some cliffs and waterfalls. Slides, are not always the traditional slides you imagine. While some of them were like rock water slides fueled by the river, others were nearly vertical drops that we would jump to and "slide down." The waterfalls we jumped off of had landing areas. Before each jump, our guide would tell

us where to jump and then would say..."if you jump too far to the left you will land on rocks, so don't do that eh?" The rappelling off of waterfalls was like normal rappelling except that if we lost our grip we could fall into a giant river haha. In one rappel we were lowered off of a cliff through a waterfall that was 100 feet high. That was crazy.

Some fun facts about the group-

We all had helmets with our name of the day. I was Starfish, and in the group we also had Precious, Peanut Butter, Wonder Woman, Skunk, Bambi, Single, Voodoo, Gumby, Cool, and Wild. Also, we went in at a really high water level. They measured some gauge at 4.5 cm. Usually they go when it is around 2 or 3...and the highest that the guide had ever been in, without a tour group, was 7. This made for all the more challenging experience. Here is a link to the promotional video for the canyon that we went in. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMZC5esoiUw