7:00 AM, Fall 2008

Well, we survived the night. Neither the wild pigs, nor the temperamental locals gave us trouble. Cristina and I are outside of Dorgali, Sardinia, Italy. My first trip to Europe, to visit the island Cristina's from. While there, I wanted to see the canyons. Canyoning is surprisingly popular on Sardinia. The island is, by all accounts, a large, cave ridden, wild place, with a limestone foundation.

Having done many canyons on the Colorado Plateau in southern Utah, I was unsure of what to expect on Sardinia. This area of the island is rugged, with jagged peaks and deep canyons. Wild pigs seem happy to wander the land in small groups looking for food. They appear harmless enough. Pier Paulo, a local who had planned on joining us for the trip until an a leg injury forced him to stay home, warned us to camp out of sight of the road to avoid problems with the police or locals. Camping in the wild is illegal, but we fortunately didn't run into any problems.

We had met with Pier several days earlier in his home. He had graciously offered to share canyoning information with us, even though he could not accompany us. Although he spoke no English, and I don't speak much Italian, maps provided an international language with Cristina translating to fill in the gaps. Seeing the passion of Pier and his friends about canyoning reminded me of the many nights I had spent pouring over maps with fellow canyoneers in Utah. A long evening, and fair amount of wine later, we had the information we needed. The canyon recommended was Codula Orbisi. Touted as one of the top two canyon on Sardinia, it met our time and available gear requirements. One thing stood out about Orbisis though: "8 meter marmitta, no arrampicata", which translates into 8 meter deep pothole you can't climb out of. There should be a fixed rope to ascend out of the pothole, but the thought of reaching an 8 meter deep pothole and finding the fixed rope gone weighs heavily on my mind.

Cristina and I had camped out of sight, away from the car, so quickly make the short walk back to the car, pack up, and drive an additional kilometer or two to the end of the road, and start of the hike. We notice a small hut one of the local ranchers occupies. It is an important landmark, Orbisi starts just on the other side of the hut. We drop into the wide drainage and begin hiking down canyon. It is wide and open at this point. I feel a bit tense, and suspect Cristina does as well, as we briefly debate if we are in the right canyon or not. 45 minutes of hiking takes us to the start of the technical part. Cristina recognizes the first rappel from pictures Pier showed us. Phew! Navigation is done! Now comes the fun part, the canyon.

The first rappel is relatively short, and drops into a large pothole. We suit up in wetsuits, and I head down first to make sure the pothole is not a keeper. It isn't, and Cristina soon joins me. She goes first down the next 2 rappels. The canyon at this point is 3 rappels immediately after each other. The third, and biggest, is over 30 meters. The 3rd rappel drops us down into a huge alcove like area. There are lots of animal prints here around the pool, so we could exit here if needed.

Pier had indicated that the marmita, or keeper pothole, was 2 short rappels below this rappel. I feel myself getting tense and I ponder if the fixed rope will be there or not. Because the 2 rappels before the keeper are short, and close together, we will fix the rope on these 2 drops to check the keeper. If the fixed rope is missing, we can ascend the fix ropes and exit on the animal trail to the pool.

The keeper is impressive! From the top of the rappel, I can see a fixed rope into the keeper, but it doesn't go all the way to the bottom. Rapping in, I find a bit of climbing gets me to the bottom of the rope, where I can batman out easily enough. Many shouts of joy ensue as I call back to Cristina to pull the rope and come join me. We rap down the other side of the keeper into a dark, narrow slot filled with crystal clear water. A short swim takes us to dry land, and a choice. We can either climb a short fixed rope ladder to finish the canyon, or Pier had recommended entering a cave on the right at this point for a more fantastic adventure.

We decided to go the cave route, dawn headlamps, and head in. Immediately there is swimming. The water is crystal clear, but even so, my headlamp cannot penetrate the water far enough to see the bottom. Just as I begin to wonder if we will ever reach land again, the water becomes shallow and we can see what appears to be a bit of sunlight filtering in way ahead of us. Immediately ahead of us, however, our headlamps illuminate a rappel. It is short, but ominous groaning and growling sounds are coming from the bottom of it. Being a gentleman, I send Cristina first to see if it's a monster or not. If it turns out to be some rare Sardinian cave monster, I assume an Italian has a better chance of dealing with it than I do. No, it turned out to be the way the water in the cave was sloshing about and echoing. No cave monster today.

The cave ends with a spectacular rappel out the side of the cliff, back into the land of sun and daylight. What an amazing section of canyon!

Somehow we had lost an important piece of Pier's information at this point. Apparently he had told us that after this rappel, we should exit the canyon on the left. Seeing another bolt down canyon though, I assumed we kept going. So, on we go! In the canyon so far, all anchors had been well placed bolts and chains. As we continue down though, the anchors begin getting worse and worse, and I begin to feel more like I'm back home in Utah. Rappeling of slung boulders, old pitons, and the like. 6 rappels later we finally reach the end of the canyon, where we can climb out on the left. What an adventure!

The hike out proved easy, and finding raspberry bushes in prime season added a sweet treat to the exit. Cristina and I had done our first Sardinian canyon. Beautiful and fun!

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