festering - Canyoning Strubklamm
Honorata Bogusz
We went canyoning on a rest day. The "Strubklamm" canyon is located near Saltzburg, approximately 1h of driving from Bad Aussee. The canyon is graded V1A3 (vertical 1, aquatic 3). It's very aquatic, with many small jumps available and a 300m swimming passage. There are 2 bigger jumps: approx. 8m and 10m, both can be abseiled (topo can be found online).
The canyon is very easy to do without ropes if jumps up to 10m are acceptable. We did not use ropes and generally seemed over-prepared. There was another group in the canyon: a family of 5 (mom, dad, and 3 children aged below 10). They didn't have any equipment other than wetsuits and helmets, which seemed unreasonable in case the small children didn't want to do the big jumps.
The canyon had pre-rigged pitches and handlines, all of which were quite dodgy (e.g. rope close to breaking at the knot). The entire trip took us 3 hours with a 15 min snack break in the middle. We did half of the trip on an inflatable unicorn (taking turns).
The weather was good, sunny and hot. The canyon seemed quite dry, as though there was usually more water there (e.g. some slides were only drippy as opposed to full with water). The canyon has at least 2 escape routes.