European Canyoning Holiday, Switzerland and Italy

For 3 weeks in August, we had an amazing canyoning holiday in Switzerland and Italy. Our Swiss friends Andy and George met a jet lagged pair of Kiwi's at Zurich, to show us round the city sights for the day. Following that, Andy organised a bunch of friends to go do a Kletterstieg (climbing path) in central Switzerland.

Diavolo Kletterstieg

The Kletterstieg was Pips first and she seemed to really enjoy the trip, despite it being a relatively tame route.

International Kletterstieg Team

NZ, France, Germany, Netherlands, Greece, Czeck Republic and Switzerland.

From the Kletterstieg, we took the train south, to the Italian speaking Swiss province of Ticino. There, in a small town called Claro, our Aussie friend Joe had booked a sweet little holiday house for us to base from. Comfortably sleeping 6, our team was rounded out by Tony from Australia, Enrique and Patricia from Spain.

Cresciano Inferiore v3a3II

Cresciano was a pretty open sort of canyon, where you would turn a corner to find rock pools lined with tourists! The rock was blinding white granite, with some fantastic jumps.

Combra v4a5II

Combra had a good amount of water in it, with some neat jumps and slides. The highlight was a 'fearsome' 20m tobboggan, where just at the last moment, the smooth slide changes direction and flings you horizontally, to skip accross the landing pool. This one had my eyes wide open, setting the scene for a few weeks of testing my tobbogganning boundaries...

Iragna Integrale v4a4V

Iragna is one of the 'big' canyons in the Ticino area, so we were stoked at being able to get in with good water levels. The Canyon is broken up into upper, middle and lower sections, each with its own character. The whole trip was an 7 hour canyoning marathon, with jump after slide after rappel after jump. The highlight for me was the amazing 17m slide in the lower section (pictured above). You rap 5 meters down a small chute, to where the water is all landing, with no visibility of the rest of the slide. On faith alone, you let go, rocket through the spray and find yourself going at warp speed towards a very narrow gap that you only just fit through sideways..

No fat canyoners allowed!

Val di Gei, Inferiore v4a4III

Val di Gei was a nice short canyon to have after our long day in Iragna. There were some great slides and large jumps into huge emerald pools. In places, the walls were really suitable for matrix jumps :)

Claro v5a4III

A more alpine style canyon, with more large waterfalls than enclosed narrows. We managed to core-shot 2 of our ropes during this trip, having to make an emergency exit about 2/3 the way through.

Corippo v4a4III

Another wonderful medium sized canyon! Corippo was very beautiful, with a wonderful mix of medium rappels, narrow technical rappels, narrow bedrock downclimbs, tobbogans and jumps. The highlight was the 20m pitch that Pip decided to slide. You get air about 2/3 the way down, landing in a small pool, narrowly missing rocks on the left side. Or if you are Joe, you whack your head and shoulder on the rock...

Malvaglia superiore v3a3III

Malvaglia looked quite beautiful in the guide book, but it appears that only the very best parts were photographed. There was lots of uninspiring boulder walking, with lots of slippery brown algae to contend with. There were some nice jumps off big chockstones however, so all was not lost. This canyon was one of the few where the reality was less impressive than the book.

Trummelbach Canyon, Interlaken

So, after a week of perfect weather and lots of canyoning, a huge storm hit much of western europe, dumping massive volumes of water into the mountains. Clearly canyoning was off the agenda, so Joe, Pip and I did a day trip to Interlaken to see what was there. We had a set of reasonable views over the Susten Pass and enjoyed the drive and change of scenery. At Interlaken, we visited the tourist galleries of Trummelbach. This canyon drains the glaciers of famous peaks like the Eiger and Jungfrau. The result is huge volumes of water (20 cumecs) roaring through a steep, narrow limestone slot. The swiss have installed a lift inside the mountain, with galleries and stairs that pop out over each of the 9 lower waterfalls. Quite an amazing experience. Apparently Trummelbach is descended in winter, when temperatures are cold enough to reduce the water flow from the glacier to within survivable limits!

Lodrino

On the way home from Trummelbach, we saw thousands of new waterfalls, smashing off every cliff in Ticino. Out of curiosity, we checked out the levels in Lodrino Canyon. In the middle of the picture, is a large rock that is half underwater. Normally, you walk out to that rock and stand on it to assess the water levels up canyon..... Sadly, this storm struck Lodrino and Pontirone canyons off our list for good. It would take more than a week to return to suitable levels...

Isorno Inferiore v4a4II

After getting flooded out of Ticino, we came up with a plan to escape to the Domodossolla region of Italy where the storm hadn't really had too much impact. Without a guidebook and relying only on patchy internet beta (written in spanish and italian) finding the canyon was a little tricky, but eventually we got into Isorno. The canyon is short, but very sweet, with a 100m long section that is up to 80m deep with almost no view of the sky. Extremely beautiful and carved.

Rio Rasiga v5a5V

Rasiga was definately a highlight of the canyon tour. 7hrs of never ending jumps and slides, with very little rope work required. This canyon is also known as the 'Canyon of 80 pools' though I lost count pretty early ;0) The upper section (above the water intake) was slightly intermittent slot, but with non stop waterfall action. After the intake, the canyon dropped into a very deep, very narrow and extremely beautiful slot.

Osogna v4a4II

After a very long day in Rasiga (including 2hrs drive each way) we were glad to only aim for a 3hr canyon just up the road. "Welcome to one of the most famous and beautiful canyons in Ticino" says the book and I was not dissapointed. Mostly there were back to back rappels in a reasonably narrow slot, with gorgeous rock strata. However, the highlight was the 50m waterfall, "one of the most spectacular aquatic descents in Ticino". The start was straight through the whole flow of the canyon, then the rest of the descent was totally out of sight of the top. As last down, discovering a core shot right in the middle of the nastiest whitewater section of the drop. No option to climb above and pass this knot in that amount of flow...

Barougia v3a3III

Whilst the others had a rest day, Joe, Pip and I made a quick afternoon trip through Barougia. The canyon was quite pretty and fun, but it ended just as it was starting to get challenging.

Valle de Salto v4a4IV

Valle del Salto was perhaps my favourite canyon of the whole Euro tour. After a good honest 1.5hr walk in, the canyon began slowly with a few nice jumps. But soon, the walls closed in with extremely beautiful sections of narrows and amazing pools. There were lots of jumps, slides up to 20m and lots of swimming through long deep narrow pools. There were very few absiels and all were very short.

The scenic highlight of Valle del Salto came in the last 300m in the form of a deep, dark and fantastically formed narrows. Just an incredible canyon, which I would repeat over and over.

Val Grande Inferiore v3a4III

(T28! 'Extremely Violent')

Our final Ticino canyon was one that Pip had been itching to do for the whole trip. Mainly because she was on an extreme Tobbogganing mission and Val Grande featured in the 'scary and violent' tobbogan selection in the guide book. A 28m slide, rated as one of the scariest and most violent in Ticino, plus a 26m one for the softies... Thankfully, the canyon had lots of other beautiful and exciting sections too. In the end, there was quite a bit of water and a reality check that convinced us to rig a rope about half way and only experience half of the violence... Check the photo above!

Mengasca v5a4IV

Settled into our new home in Civo, Sondrio, northern Italy, it was time to explore again. Tony was on rest day, and Enrique had to take Patricia to the airport, so it was Pip, Joe and me again. Yet again on vauge, incomplete beta (only in italian) we managed to find the bottom of the canyon.

Getting to the start of the canyon was a real mission; getting lost on the way in, struggling to find our way into the very steep valley, having to rappel 100m down loose dirt and slabs to the canyon, getting a rope stuck and a leg hit by falling rocks....

Once actually in the canyon, Mengasca was steep, rugged and continuous. The highlight was a 40m pitch into a deep slot, from a fantastically exposed hanging rappel station (pictured above).

Cormor v4a2V

Billed as 'a must add to any canyoning itinerary', Cormor was described in the beta sheet as a very dark canyon with amazing passages through blocks and underground sections. Cormor was better described simply as a Cave through trip. Caving wasn't something we'd bargained on, so with our feeble emergency head torches, we slowly made our way through this underground canyon. Didn't really enjoy this one unfortunately...

Bodengo 3 v5a5IV

Another highlight was the day in Bodengo 3. I first heard about this canyon whilst reading a Petzl Catalogue in which it featured. Bodengo 3 is home to the 'infamous' slide and as such has a big reputation. The infamous slide is 15m long, but ends in a twisting lip and 10m freefall into the pool below. Everyone who does the slide seems to get flicked and twisted in a random way, making it nearly impossible to control your orientation on landing. The result being a large number of injuries and infamy. Pip was another casualty to add to the list, suffering two chipped teeth, 3 cracked ribs and concussion. Pip tells me it was worth the pain, "but I probably wouldn't do it again"

Other than the infamous slide, Bodengo 3 had quite high water levels and lots of jumps into huge emerald pools. The gorge was incredible, with hundreds of meters of granite slab up to the roads and ridgetops above. There was a fair amount of scrambling to be done and lots of drops, but with our experienced spanish colleauges and lots of rope, we made it through in 6 hours. An amazing finale to an amazing holiday.