At the heart of the Alpes-Maritimes

At the heart of the Alpes-Maritimes

Apart from very few anglers, no one here thought a few years to venture into the rivers of the steeper middle and high country, where a relief deterrent wish repelled attempts at all.

Yet, against all odds, a new sport would gradually emerge from the depths of these canyons and dark yesterday where nobody dared set foot.

Already the cavers of Audibergue or Marguareis had coaxed the deep, while "falling" the last major climbing routes Mercantour, but the canyons themselves, kept all their mystery and wild beauty remained unknown.

Until the early 1980's ... Until the early 1980s, a few adventurers who have no proper equipment may be some mad descent into a landscape without landmarks, only haunted by wildlife wild.

Since then, the playfulness of activity adding to the spice of discovery, all the most secret valleys, waterfalls the highest or most parades are tightened regularly crisscrossed by canyons enthusiasts from all over Europe and seduced by these spellbinding journey where you almost forget the earthly world to blend into the ambient fluid.

The purity of rocks smoothed by the waves thousands of white limestone with red mudstones through calcifications wildest where the plant world is stone, so many wonders that amazed the eye of the neophyte quickly learns to love.

But the real miracle, now that a specific material, a pledge of comfort and security, has appeared on the market, the movement of water, its whims and its turbulence we owe: A captures the heady weightlessness chute river, or canyon clue, instilling in him that communicative frenzy of jumps, slides and other stunts.

Make no mistake about it, before a game, canyoning mints its charms and some have unfortunately paid a heavy price for bad luck, culpable negligence or faulty supervision. The key word in the matter, the caution is therefore necessary before embarking on this adventure of the late twentieth century.

Esteron of the Roya through the Var, Cian, Vésubie, Bévéra and their innumerable tributaries, a kaleidoscope of sensations awaits the canyons: exhilarating slides, jumps harbingers of adrenaline, recalls the bold tufa, moss green or under waterfalls, swim in the swirling foam, will accompany the progression of a relief accomplice.

But we must not forget that in this clash of passion that lasts a long descent, the water element deified by the Greeks in the person of Silenus, God springs and rivers, keeps reminding the man to rule The most basic modesty.