We are now experienced canyoneers

This morning we left our bed and breakfast in Kingussie and drove about 15 minutes north. There, in a small, humble little building hidden by highway construction, we met our guides for the day. We changed clothes.

They gave us wet suits. There were plenty of sizes to try. And they gave us shoes. And then we all loaded up into two vans, this merry band of adventurers who were small clumps of families in a larger group of 16 strangers. We traveled for, oh lets say two hours. Full wetsuits, feeling nice and cozy.

We were going canyoneering. Now, there are a few things you have to know here. Canyoneering is what it is called in the U.S. In Scotland it is canyoning. In the U.S. it is more about climbing and being in dry canyons. Here, there is plenty of water involved.

Here are some more things you need to know. That water is cold. Also, I am not as young as I once was. Oh, I’m still pretty much fearless, but what little agility I have left was obscured by wearing a 10 millimeter wetsuit and a giant life vest. Also, I don’t do well in cold water. And I’m nursing a sore ankle while walking and climbing around on slippery rocks.

It was so much fun.

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There goes The Yankee, sliding down a little waterfall.

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And it is funny how the river here can trick you, and then remind you in a flash, this water is impressively cold.

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Here’s my own example. One of our two guides — who were patient and fun and knew exactly what they were doing — took all of these pictures:

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Next you slide down this large rock, like you so often do.

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Sliding through a narrow little channel in the rocks:

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We’re having a great time …

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… and after a few seconds you can forget how cold it is, because the wet suits were doing their job. Until you put your hands in the water. So a lot of the time was spent floating around like you’d just scrubbed in for a surgery:

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There were two jumps. I’ve been off larger rocks. But this was a fairly shallow little pool, so it was about the right height.

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Now there was one lady who got up to the top of the first jump and she froze. And then she tried again and froze. She tried a third time, but no jump. Each time she was getting closer and closer, though. She’d been the last one and we were all waiting for her below and on the fourth time she finally let herself fly. We had a great cheer for her bravery. I hope her pictures turned out, she certainly earned it. She did not go off the second jump. She’d already proven herself.

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The rest of us, however, jumped again:

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This was taken just before the most embarrassing part of my day:

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We actually roped our way down this waterfall to conclude the adventure. It wasn’t actually rappelling, but it was close enough. And somehow I managed to be at the back of the group for this test. And somehow I managed to do something our guides said they’d never seen before. I managed to get sideways in the harness and then, somehow, upside down. Not supine, but feet up in the air, head nearest the rocks and the water. This isn’t a challenging descent. We, after, all were doing it with at least 45 seconds of being told how to use the rope and harness. And yet, there I was, having previously just narrowly avoided one disaster above this waterfall (I almost went over and, look at that photo, you don’t want to go over) and now I’m upside down and hoping I can get righted before someone up above dropped me on my noggin. It was not my best athletic display.

But it was such a great trip.

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Now if they’d just turn on the warm water faucet upstream … Photos via G2 on Facebook.

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