Rock-climbing/repelling

[waiting2retire]

I would love to hear from anyone who has done the rock-climbing/repelling activity at Jaguar Paw Resort. My son and nephew (25 and 23) really want to do this next week, and I would feel better knowing a little more about it, but I haven't been able to find a review of it here. My daughter and niece and her husband are doing the cave tubing, but the boys think that's too tame for them :rolleyes:.

 

If they do it, I will post a review when I return for any others who are thinking about it.

 

Bonnie

[bqkali]

I would love to hear from anyone who has done the rock-climbing/repelling activity at Jaguar Paw Resort. My son and nephew (25 and 23) really want to do this next week, and I would feel better knowing a little more about it, but I haven't been able to find a review of it here. My daughter and niece and her husband are doing the cave tubing, but the boys think that's too tame for them :rolleyes:.

 

If they do it, I will post a review when I return for any others who are thinking about it.

 

Bonnie

 

Hi Bonnie -

 

We did the repelling at Jaguar Paw (but not the rock-climbing) on 12/19/08. It began with a short, but strenuous hike to the top of a cliff. I think the hike was about 20 minutes long, but pretty steep and slick from the rain. From the cliff, you geared up and began repelling down the side of the cliff to the mouth of the cave where the tubing begins. It is about a 180-foot drop. The first 15 feet or so are difficult because you have to go slowly and essentially climb down because of how the lines are clipped into the rocks, but after that it is mainly a free fall. From there, we jumped in some tubes and went cave-tubing back to the resort. I enjoyed it, but my sister who is scared of heights was very nervous about it.

 

There were just two of us doing the repelling, and two guides - one belaying from the top and one from the bottom. We never felt unsafe but I don't have anything to compare the safety precautions to since I've only ever rock climbed/repelled at an indoor gym.

 

We did this last minute since we were unable to zipline and the repelling was the substitution offered by Jaguar Paw, but if you sign up in advance, I would advise bringing hiking boots of some sort (we only had old sneakers) and also a full bottle of water - we were very hot by the end of the hike and there is no shade where you are gearing up to begin your repelling.

 

Also, I would not suggest going straight from the repelling to tubing because there is nowhere to change into a bathing suit or store your camera (or other items you might have from repelling but don't want to get wet while tubing). Instead, you could hike 15 minutes back to the resort to change, eat lunch, and get ready to tube if you choose to combine activities.