Читать книгу Canyoning in the Alps. Graded routes in Northern Italy and Ticino, Austria, Slovenia and the Valais Alps онлайн

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The golden years of exploration

Over the next couple of decades exploration quietly continued, but was severely impaired by a lack of suitable equipment and clothing. Although climbing hardware became more sophisticated with each year, protection against the icy waters remained limited until the appearance of neoprene wetsuits in the mid-1960s. With these modern materials the 60s and 70s were a boom-time for canyon exploration, and with vertical caving techniques becoming more widely used caving clubs again led the way. The Sierra de Guara in northern Spain became a hive of activity, culminating in 1981 in the first true canyoning guidebook (Les Canyons de la Sierra de Guara by Jean-Paul Pontroué and Michel Ambit). The book helped popularise the sport among the wider public and ensured an explosion of interest throughout France, Spain and then Italy. By the beginning of the 90s, most canyoning areas of France and Spain were represented by topo-guides, along with a handful of areas along the length of Italy.