Published in the Wall Street Journal
7 November 1997

MY TURN TO LEAP

by Paul Spencer Sochaczewski © 1997

Along the Salanfe River, SWITZERLAND

The waterfall's ledge was five meters above a small pool. "Go on, jump" urged Roland Deléz, our guide in the new sport of canyoning.

More to inspire David than to please Roland, I leapt. And survived.
David, my 20 year old son, proved that my achievement was kid's stuff by blithely somersaulting into the water. We exchanged high fives as we floated in the dark water. We glanced up at my friend Monique, who was standing on the ledge, shaking her head. She had just jumped off the three-meter ledge in the preceding section, a major victory for her. She had nothing more to prove and was content to watch the boys risk their necks.

Such daredevil leaps are among the tamer forms of a increasingly popular group of "extreme sports" that range from rock climbing to sky surfing to bungee jumping to downhill mountain biking. I appreciate the appeal that risking your neck can have to bored, over-lawyered, over-cosseted, under challenged desk-bound adults.

I too need the adrenaline buzz that comes with taking a physical risk. But for me an even more powerful drive was that waterfalls have always been my passion.

I've sought out waterfalls all over the world. I've seen the giants - Victoria, Iguasu, Niagara - and they hold little interest for me. Too big. Untouchable.

Instead I prefer human-sized waterfalls. I've wandered off alone in the middle of Borneo to scamper down seemingly endless cascades in the middle of the rainforest watershed between Indonesia and Malaysia. I've hiked all day on the Big Island of Hawaii to get battered and cleansed (why do the two so often go together?) in a waterfall that started out of sight on a cliff and which ended in a lush pool a few hundred meters below. I've slept on an isolated ledge next to a tall, multi-stepped waterfall near Malacca, Malaysia, and watched the stars. My role model, Alfred Russel Wallace, a Victorian explorer, naturalist, philosopher, and beetle-collector, probably rested on the very same ledge 140 years ago. That night I imagined he was with me and we talked about why guys have this in-born need to leave home and seek adventure.

Those waterfall experiences were largely spiritual exercizes, a way for me to express solitary passion. Some people say that waterfalls make you feel energized because they produce negative ions, as do waves crashing on a beach and thunderstorms. Maybe. I just like them because they're full of movement. They restore my spirit. In the tropics, waterfalls are populated by butterflies and devoid of nasty creatures like mosquitoes and blackflies. I like the idea that the tiny crystal clear rivulets high in the mountains change so dramatically during their lifetimes that they eventually wind up as vast, broad, often dirty rivers that flow into the sea. For me, waterfalls are a form of origin myth. They start small, but with passion, and life takes them through unplanned permutations until they wind up far, far away. Evolved.

My favorite waterfall is in the Catskill Mountains of New York State. My father, an adventurous man who could not swim, took me each summer to a secluded little waterfall, not more than three meters high. To reach our sanctuary we had to hike through fields and down a steep forest path, a tricky descent for a young boy. As if by magic, as soon as we left the sunlit meadow and entered the forest we could hear the waterfall. I longed to swim in the clear water among the trout we could clearly see. My father kept me on the pebbled beach, though, and taught me to skip flat rocks.

Roland Deléz, however, has made it easy for waterfall addicts to frolic in a cascade. Working out of his base at Les Marécottes, 1,000 meters above Martigny in the Swiss Alps, he has made the sport of canyoning relatively user-friendly. Before letting us loose on this tumbling stretch of the Salanfe River, he made sure we were properly dressed. Over our swimsuits we wore wet suits, wet suit jackets with hoods, nylon coveralls, helmets, rubber pads for our bums, life jackets, booties and solid rubber boots. We resembled amphibious Michelin Men and felt moderately invincible.

Invincible when jumping off a five meter high ledge.

Invincible when tobogganing (a glorified term for sliding on our backsides - now I know what the rubber bum pads are for) down the face of another six meter drop.

Invincible at the eight meter jump.

Actually I'm lying. Eight meters is real scary.

My son leaps first, as casually as catching a bus.

This is getting serious, I thought. If I jump will my son think I'm cool?

If I don't jump will he think I'm wise? Or will he think I'm stupid if I do, chicken if I don't? He is floating, calmly waiting for me at the far edge of the pool. It appears to be a very small target. "Try to avoid the rocks on the right," Roland says. What the hell. I've parachuted out of an airplane. I just turned 50. I've beaten the U.S. Marines at softball. I've written books. I've loved and won and loved and lost. Life really is a beer commercial - you're only sure of going around once, so go for the gusto. I sing as I step off the edge.

"Eleven meters?" Roland asks, pointing to a nearby ledge. I'm the first of the group. I know I shouldn't, but I hesitate at the top, and look down. The end seems miles away. "Just a small step," he says.

The fall takes about a second and a half. I float, self-satisfied, and look up at my son, perched on the ledge. "Your turn," I shout. But he's already airborne.