Waterfalls

You might think that the title of this journal entry is intended to be a metaphor.
Let me tell you.
It's not.

Last weekend, I did something a little crazy. I went canyoning. Not to be confused with canoeing, canyoning involves sliding down a freezing cold river and jumping off waterfalls - with no other protection than a helmet and wetsuit.

Did I mention I am afraid of heights? I didn't really predict this to be a problem, but only because I don't think I ever really THOUGHT about what I was going to do before I did it. Nothing like a 20 meter free fall to bring about reality!

But I get ahead of myself.

I actually signed up for this event a month ago with little idea of what it was. It sounded exciting, so I signed up. Period. I took a train to Minakami, about 1 1/2 hours away, where I met up with 12 other Gunma ALTs, some JETs included. A bus took us to the base where we would get ready. We had two guides, both Australian, who took us around and gave us our wetsuits, with instructions on how to put them on ("This is a shirt. You know how to put on a shirt? Well first..." quite a funny-man). They warned us ahead of time that they were going to give us small wetsuits, to guarantee that we would be as warm as possible.

Despite this warning, I don't think any of us took the threat of the wetsuit quite seriously until we actually tried to get it on. It was like...trying to force yourself into a tire. I cannot even begin to express how difficult it was to put these things on. We literally all managed to get the first piece up to our thighs before we would have sworn on the life of our pet goldfishes that it was going to go no further. Talk about a team bonding experience, we were literally shoehorning each other into these blasted things. When we were not strong enough to help each other, we waddled out to the deck, where one of the guides would literally would pick us up by our pants.
...
Actually, I have to laugh just reliving that moment. Standing out on the desk, one slender muscular Australian guy watching, trying not to laugh, while another huge Australian guy is jerking me off my feet by my pants like it's a pillowcase and I'm a recalcitrant pillow.

Needless to say, we were all quite exhausted before we ever made it onto the river. The wetsuits were so thick and stiff that we literally had to waddle, penguin style, to walk easily; Effecting a normal gait was quite a workout.

We took another bus to the river. On the bank, out guides gave us instruction. Of course, we didn't quite expect him to suddenly say, "okay, everyone lay on your face." Although they had the slightly bored air of well-practiced professionals , there is no way they could not have been amused by our pitiful struggle to perform such a simple act. Soon, he had us rolling around on the ground, and we had been downgraded from penguins to beached whales. Affectionately (I like to imagine), our guide berated us for not being quite as quick as some touristing Marines had, the previous week.

Afterward, we took a picture ("possible the last!" he warned us with a laugh):

I am on the bottom right.
Next, we headed down the river:

While it may look like I am just floating there, as if in a swimming pool, I was actually moving steadily forward, head first, toward a small outcrop of whitewater and rocks. Yay.

As it turned out, the first waterfall of the day was also the biggest. Quite a thing, to be floating along, and suddenly have the current pick up and have no real way to stop yourself from hurdling over the edge. I am being dramatic, however, for our guides took good care to keep us from falling - yet. I was second in line, and as I was peering over the edge, unable to see the bottom, I was definitely wondering WTF I had been thinking in signing up for this. "Holy s**t," doesn't quite cover it.

To mark the occasion, our photographer took one last photo, second before being pushed over the edge:

The smile you see was strictly for the camera; it was preceded and follow by a look of abject fear. The guide and cameraman had to continually persuade me to move closer to the edge, I am not embarrassed to admit. I have no idea exactly how big the waterfall was, but at least a three story fall. One of the guides lowered us halfway, or so, sliding us down the vertical rockface by a rope. The water was intense and completely overwhelmed me, blinding me, blocking out everything else, and trying to push my body away from the wall. Then, the rope was released, and I plummeted the rest of the way down, crashing into the water below.

Fortunately, rubber floats. and I was wearing quite a lot of it. So, I was spared the trouble of swimming while initially trying to get my breath back.

The rest of the trip went similarly. We floated/swam along, going down small rocky inclines headfirst, feetfirst, and backwards headfirst as the occasion called for it. The water was so cold. Even with two inches of rubber on, some of my fellows had violently chattering teeth. We didn't see any more waterfalls as big as the first, none requiring ropes. Instead, on the next one, I slid off headfirst, got pulled into a whirlpool (loving called the "washing machine"), tugged out of the whirlpool, and made to shimmy between rockface and waterfall to escape. On this same waterfall, we were given the option to climb back up and go again. I have to tell you, wetsuits, or at least ours, made the absolute WORST climbing gear imaginable. What a workout! Not only fighting gravity, but the very movement of your arms and legs! Gods, it was exhausting. This time, at the top, we were told to jump off the cliff of the waterfall, rather than slide down the water. Waaaah, it was so much scarier to jump than it was to slide. Looking down, all you can see are the rocks, and it seems impossible that you will clear them and make it to the water.

It was at this point that I realized bungee jumping was probably not for me.

On the last waterfall, the smallest one, went down headfirst and backwards, reclining as one would watching Sunday morning cartoons, before slipping over the edge.

All and all, it was quite an experience! I was glad to have done it, but... don't think I will do it again. For one thing, it was quite a lot of money for a short period of time. Mostly though, I think I am just not an adrenaline junky. Next time, I want to try white-water rafting.

Cheers,

adventure Baer