Canyoning at Castellane (Verdon, France)

While this blog contains everything around my professional concerns, I would like to give some feedback in the language of Shakespeare about two smart guys, the type of people who mix fun with quality.

They are the "Bureau des guides de Canyoning" at Castellane (Verdon, France). Find here their web site and Facebook account. While twenty years ago, mountain climbing was the central fashionable activity in these gorges, today, there is a larger diversity of sports/activities proposed.

Agrandir le plan

Between the familly rafting and the steep cliff climbing, you can spend a half or full day in a ravine canyoning. As this is still a new activity, crazy people, without knowledge, could bring themselves, their friends or familly into a dangerous situation because they didn't evaluate the potential risks. As when making a simple trip in the mountain, without at least, reading the forecast, canyoning has several well known real diffuclties:

Canyoning picked-up material from climbing, but the water makes everything different. Abseiling under a waterfall is not like cliff abseiling. The weight of the water pulls the rope and if you don't take care you may stay stuck during your abseilling and worse drown in the waterfall.
Canyoning is not like a swimming pool: the foamy water at the bottom of the waterfall is a place where you cannot float. So going there is damn dangerous.

Now, if you practice canyoning with smart guides, nothing will happen because:

They know when a ravine is suitable. They know when the torrent flow is still at acceptable limit, and won't go there if the weather is stormy;
They have done the track in the ravine many times and check the fixed strap at the beginning of the season.
They know where the escape are in case of problems and know if there is a place where the there is no mobile phone signal.

In May, I went canyoning with the Bureau des Guides de Canyoning and we went to the Arbury ravine. Practicing this one is rare because these guys take you only if it is safe, meaning the water flow is correct, but high enough to be able to swim and jump in the pool.

Find here below, a summary of this day.

I tell you, if look for fun, go there.

Sources :
Wikipedia : Verdon Gorge

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