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The Belluno and Friuli Dolomites

These wild mountains fall largely within the national and regional parks around Belluno, on the quiet south-eastern edge of an otherwise busy mountain range. The unique, rugged Dolomite terrain is reproduced in the canyons here, which are frequently long, remote and technical in nature.

Carnia and the Julian Alps

The little-visited limestone mountains of north-east Italy offer an excellent introduction to alpine canyoning. The canyons are scattered throughout the Carnic Alps, the Julian Alps and the pre-Alps to the south, with a handful over the borders with Austria and Slovenia. Aside from one or two notable exceptions, their canyons remain within the reach of most cavers and climbers.

Canyoning – a brief history

The beginnings

Canyoning in its modern guise is a relatively recent sport, but its origins can be traced back a century or more to the exploits of a handful of French cavers and explorers. Armand Janet is usually credited with the first technical descent. In 1893 he made a partial descent of the Gorges d’Artuby, a tributary of the Verdon, armed with only a rope and a few planks of wood. In 1905 an expedition led by Édouard Alfred Martel, a man widely regarded as the father of modern speleology (caving), set off in boats to explore the Verdon Gorge itself. At over 20km long and up to 700m deep, it was a serious prospect, with few possibilities for escape or retreat. Janet, who was on his team, had already made an attempt on the gorge nine years earlier but had been pushed back by the Verdon’s considerable current, which was then many times what it is today. The current caused problems for Martel’s team too: