Canyoning in the Swiss Alps

Interlaken, Switzerland is a breathtakingly gorgeous mountain village nestled between two lakes with views up to the mighty Jungfrau mountain.



Interlaken is also the home of extreme sports in central Europe, and therefore a huge draw for adventure-seeking backpackers. Typical activities include paragliding, sky diving, river rafting, rock climbing, and canyoning. We hadn't planned on partaking in these oh-so-cool, but rather expensive pursuits but we just couldn't help ourselves when we realised that taking the train to the summit of the Jungfrau would cost just as much as going canyoning for 6 hours.

Canyoning involves scrambling, climbing, jumping, abseiling, and/or swimming down a slippery mountain river canyon. In Switzerland, make that a very cold mountain river canyon where every drop of water saturating your multi-layered wet suit was unmelted snow or a glacier just scant hours earlier.

We went down the Grimsel canyon and had an amazing time. My personal accomplishment was to blindly leap off an 8m cliff into a frigid waterfall without my glasses on (which may explain my painful landing). We're both still bearing the bruises a few days later but it was great to push our limits.

Proud of us!

DM