Did I Mention Canyoning Rocks?
Written at 10:08 AM, 9-17-06
I returned to the hostel for a little R&R after my hike up Harder Kulm. Returning to my room, I met a pair of guys, Jesse and John, who were from Seattle and had just finished law school. It turns out that they studied down at Willamette University (in Salem, Oregon), so they knew Oregon pretty well too. We went down to the common area to eat and have a couple beers, whereupon we met a whole gaggle of other people from the Northwest. There was a pair of cousins, one from Windfall, Washington and the other Seattle Washington. A guy from California (not really the Northwest, but we accepted him anyway), and a couple from somewhere in Seattle—don’t remember where.
The lawyers had just done a canyon jump that day and were planning to do canyoning the following day. It turned out that they were on the same trip that I was doing, which was cool. Of the two cousins, one was a girl who was moving to Prague to teach English (or do whatever she could getting a job doing). She was an English major and aspiring (nonfiction) writer, so we had lots to talk about.
Balmer’s Hostel has a bar under it and so shortly after that opened, people dispersed to get drinks and go hang out down there. I went down for a while, but the constant intake of smoke and loud music kind of put me off—not to mention it was like 80% guys and 20% girls. I’ve discovered a few things about Interlaken since arriving: (1) It is all Australians and Americans, probably because the “adventure sport” thing attracts them in particular. (2) There’s a disproportionate number of guys to girls, possibly for this same reason. (3) Because of the prior two observations, there’s a lot of drinking. Not that this is really an exclusive thing to Interlaken, Switzerland, or Europe. But the difference with Interlaken is that there aren’t very many bars, so basically all the young male Americans and Australians congregate in the bar in Balmers, the bar at the hostel, Funny Farm, or else in Hooters. Yes, they have a Hooters here.
I hung around with the two to-be lawyers and ended up meeting the rest of our dorm-mates: three crazy Austrlians (these guys were crazy even for Australians) and a pair of Irish guys. John or Jesse mentioned to the Australians that I was from Oregon, which they understood as Ireland, so for the rest of the night, I was Irish. Not that I had a problem with this.
A couple beers and jaegar shots later, I retreated from the bar scene to get a bit of writing done. Balmer’s is really big on “rules,” so there was only like two places to sit, the dining area or the movie room. I opted for the movie room, where I met a group of girls who were studying in Geneva. They were only in Interlaken for a two day holiday, but two of them were to go canyoning the next day in the same group I was in. We talked for a while, but eventually they retired and I was left in the room with this really weird guy. He seemed normal enough at first, but there was a kind of awkwardness in the things he said. This may be a bit ironic, as I’m about the most awkward-speaking person I know—read this sentence and go figure—but he just said things to me (and the girls before they left) that made even me cringe.
After a little longer he left and I was able to finish my writing. With that, headed for my room and for bed, looking forward to tomorrow’s adventures.
I slept in and it was glorious. Or rather, I slept in until 9:30. There seems to be an invisible barrier between 9 and 9:30 that I can’t surpass. Anyway, I wanted to get up for breakfast, sad as it was. The canyoning trip didn’t leave until 1:30 so I had some time to kill. The day was even more beautiful than the day before. The morning’s overcast burned off, sending bright rays of mountain sun streaming through the valley. The sun was actually pretty intense. I laid out and tried to read, but the sun proved a little too much so I alternated between sun and shade. I read The Life of Pi and made myself a fantastic (albeit typical) lunch of a cheese and salami sandwich.
The people from Balmer’s Hostel convened at 1:30 and were taken to a nearby place called The Hut, where we ended up waiting even more. There were three groups doing the half-day canyoning trip, so we had to wait until one of the groups had been gone for a while before suiting up.
Now let me tell you, canyoning was AWESOME! We suited up in an armor of warm, flotation materials. Helmet, body suit, jacket, climbing harness, boots, rubber booty cover (not sure what it was actually called, but that works), and of course a life jacket. Alone, one felt like an overstuffed hippopotamus, but together, we made up a virtual flotilla of hippopotami.
We took a winding, precarious road up one of the nearby mountains and after a ten minute drive, arrived at our destination. The views on the way up were beautiful, rivaled only by the beauty of the streambed and canyon. As we came to the river, I took the lead, anxious to get into the freezing glacial water and take my mind off how uncomfortable the armor was. The was, as far as I was concerned, wasn’t that cold. Yet that was probably on account of all that armor. The one major exposed part—my hands—quickly became red and numb.
It’s difficult to describe the canyoning experience with due accuracy. Words like “awesome,” “fantastic,” “tubular,” “bodacious,” “cool,” and “groovy” all come to mind, but these cannot do the adventure justice. In the beginning, we strolled down the stream bed, occasionally plunging into deeper parts of the stream that would raise the water to our ankles or thighs, yet soon we were in the midst of the rapids. Water shot through narrow rivulets in the canyoning, pooling in deep holes below. As I’d taken an early lead, I was the first to plunge down the smaller canyon shoots.
The first few were insignificant, but soon we were zooming down larger drops, plunging into the pools. At one point the guides told me to get on my back—which was typical—before correcting me that I should have my head in front of my feet. That was the first real outrageous canyoning slide. There’s nothing like hurtling toward a pool of icy water, head first.
Then we came to our first jump. At first, we hovered around the edge of the pool as the guide explained the procedures. Then he told us that if we didn’t want to jump from the ledge (which was already about twenty feet up), there was a log another ten feet up. To my surprise (and the guide’s, I think), everyone in our group opted for the higher jump. When I got up, I was all ready to just jump in but then the guide psyched me out by starting to count. I don’t need anyone to count to three! I thought. Well, after my false start, in which I scrambled on the log a bit, I got it right, dropping like a rock through the air and splashing into the ice waters below. My feet touched the bottom, ever so slightly, and it felt as though it took an eternity to reach the top. In time, though, I emerged, sputtering water and trying to clear my nose. I should also probably mention the enormous grin on my face.
The head-first slide and thirty-foot jump were the preamble to the real rapids. There was one slide that shot you under the water (and I should add, did a pretty good job at keeping you down there). I emerged once only to be pounded by the falling water. Eventually I fumbled my way around the less-frequented way out of the pool which took me behind the waterfall. The other really exciting place was another jump (I estimate forty feet, but I could be wrong). This one had a large deep pool at the bottom, as well as a slide. Everyone except me opted for the jump. I wanted to take the slide because that was really why I was there. I wanted to canyon. I could cliff drive or rock jump back at home. Oregon has plenty of pools, deeper and warmer. And I was glad that I did the slide. The slide took you down about halfway before shooting you out into the pool below. I emerged with another of those big grins on my face.
Three hours later, the canyoning concluded with a series of small, stair-step waterfalls. I idly wondered what sort of slides and jumps the full-day entailed. It seemed like it’d be a great experience, though perhaps not the best option when traveling on a budget. The half-day canyoning trip was relatively well-priced, and I’d decided before arriving at Interlaken that if I was to spend money doing one big thing, it would be canyoning. Having completed the canyon, I can easily say that I’m glad I did.
We returned to The Hut, or whatever it was called, and showed and warmed up. The service came with a free beer so we (the canyoning group) all gathered about and shared drinks and experiences. I forgot to mention that there was a photographer (also dressed in full wetsuit regalia) who was taking pictures before our jumps and in mid-flight or mid-slide. They had these set up on a slideshow for us after we got finished changing. And, not surprisingly, one could buy a cd with their pictures as well as a developed print of the group picture if he or she wanted to, for a mere 25 Francs. As much as I would have liked to have had some pictures, I didn’t think it was worth a night’s stay in a hostel. The memories are what’s important, and I feel I can capture the experience far better in words than in a handful of photographs (most of which I was making some odd face for because I was sputtering water or glancing nervously at the pools below.)
We returned to the hostel where I anxiously awaited happy hour in order that I could have a couple Heinekeins with my salami and cheese sandwich. I’ve noticed that all the beer sold in Europe comes in the big 16 or 18 oz cans (I think that’s how much, anyway). Needless to say, I like this. Not only do you feel like you’re getting more for your money (even if you’re not), but it just feels so much more impressive. All the beers here are the size of the Guinness cans, and I suppose I associate drinking cans of Guinness with the heavy, hard drinkers of Ireland. I suppose I can’t put my finger exactly on why I like these cans, only that they’re a hell of a lot cooler than our pansy little 12 oz. cans.
I met a couple of Australians in the movie room where I was eating. We were waiting for the movie to come on. And even though I’d seen the movie, Bruce Almighty, several times already, it was a good way to kill time between the hours of 6 and 9 when things around the hostel were kind of mellow. When the movie concluded, I was feeling pretty wiped out from canyoning (I discovered I was fostering a fancy bruise on my hip) and decided to take it easy for the rest of the night. I retreated to my hostel where I planned out my next destination. I had one day before I was do in Munich, so I decided to make the best of it and head to Freiburg in Germany in the hopes of tramping around the Black Forest a little bit. I also talked some with the Irish fellows, who were also planning a quieter night (though judging by how late them came in, I think they may have been unsuccessful). After my travel planning concluded, I set upon reading more Life of Pi before drifting into a restful (and earplug induced) sleep.
When the morning found me, it brought with it the dismal patter of rain and glare of a bright gray sky. I was undeterred, however, and set about getting breakfast and packing up to head to the train station. I’ve had almost perfect weather while I’ve been in Europe. Every time the rain seems to catch me, I escape via train. This happened in Nice and also Scotland. Since arriving in Europe, I’ve only actually had one day where the rain proved an inconvenience in my travels. (That was in Ireland, at the Cliffs of Moher, where according to the Irish guys “it always rains.”) I must admit that the ten-minute trek to the train station was not particularly delightful, though I was able to rest assured, once I was there, that I would be in warm, dry trains for the next four or five hours.
At the train station, I ran into a bit of a hitch. Despite wheedling a couple extra days out of my Eurail, I realized that I have more intended days of travel than I do on my pass. I had some extra Swiss Francs so I thought I would just use them to pay for the train ride to Basel. Bad idea. Two refunded tickets later, I decided to use my Eurail because just getting to Basel would have cost me 45 Francs and that was without considering the journey from Basel to Freiburg. I suppose I’ll wait until I find a cheaper train connection. Someone told me the trains in Italy were cheap, so maybe I’ll check out those. Otherwise, I’ll just see about trying to connive a few more extra days out of my pass.
Tags: Balmer's Hostel, canyoning, Europe, Interlaken, Switzerland, Travel, weather
gregbilsland
Leave a Reply