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Between a Rock and Wet PlaceExploring remote canyons is dangerous fun, but expert advice will get you through it alive. Marc Peruzzi learns the ropes, deep in the Arizona backcountry. By Marc Peruzzi
This is canyoneering, or at least this is what canyoneering should be: more rigorous than hiking, less technical than mountaineering, with a healthy dose of swiftwater swimming thrown in. Exploring the best canyons, like the best caves, mountains, and wrecks, demands specialized skills, which is why I've signed up for a three-day technical course from the American Canyoneering Association. But the rewards are ample. If only because they are so perilous, canyons have remained slivers of delicate wilderness, cool oases in the generally brutal Southwest. And then there are the plunge pools: blue water cascading into perfect swimming holes carved into the polished bedrock. Wade from one to the next, or scramble along the sides and jump—ten, twenty, thirty feet. Relish that knot in your belly, embrace the electric charge on your skin as you whistle through the desert air.
By all accounts, canyoneering's popularity has boomed in recent years, and not just in Europe, where adventurous athletes have been canyoning, (as it's called there) for at least 60 years, but also in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Brazil, Mexico, and, more recently, in the canyon country of Arizona and Utah. My level-one ACA course was designed to make me a canyoneer, and fast, by covering the skills needed to navigate a Class 3 canyon: one that is exciting and technical with flowing water, but safe for anyone with a firm grasp of the basics.
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