Canyoning

What canyoning is, precisely

You are put in at the top of a steep gorge and you descend it by whatever means the gorge allows: abseiling down the face of waterfalls, sliding natural rock chutes, jumping into plunge pools, swimming the flat sections and scrambling between them.

The essential point is that there is no path and no way out sideways. Once you commit at the top, the only direction is down and through. That is what separates it from a waterfall walk.

Where it runs in Nepal

Jalbire, near Chitwan on the Kathmandu–Pokhara road, is the most accessible and the usual introduction — a series of drops up to around 45 m in a narrow forested canyon, doable in a half day from the highway.

Sundarijal, on the edge of the Kathmandu valley, is close enough to be a morning trip from the city.

The Bhote Koshi tributaries near the Tibetan border have the steepest and most committing descents, run from the same base as the bungee and the hard whitewater.

What it demands of you

No abseiling experience. Guides rig every drop, attach you, and control the rope from below on the harder pitches — your job is to lean back and walk down, which is counterintuitive for about the first three metres.

You do need to be able to swim, and you need to be comfortable with cold water and with committing to a drop you cannot see the bottom of. That last one is the real filter, and it is not correlated with fitness.

Wetsuit, helmet, harness and specialised footwear are supplied. Bring nothing you mind soaking.

The season is inverted

This is the useful thing about canyoning in Nepal and the reason to know it exists. Most activities here are at their worst in the wet months. Canyoning needs water in the canyon, so it is at its best from late spring into early autumn — through the tail of the pre-monsoon and into September.

In the depths of winter, flows in the smaller canyons drop to the point where the descent becomes a scramble and the water is painfully cold. In peak monsoon, flash flooding makes the steeper canyons genuinely dangerous and responsible operators close them.

The judgement about whether a canyon is running safely on a given day is the whole job. An operator who will run any canyon on any date is not making that judgement.

Safety, plainly

Canyoning has a worse safety record worldwide than most adventure activities, almost entirely because of water level. Ask what the rainfall has been upstream in the last 24 hours, how many guides are on your group, and whether they carry a throw bag and a first aid kit. We will answer all three without being asked.