Relax.
Easier said than done. My toes were hanging off the edge of the gondola's open door, the ground more than 600 feet below.

When Peter Balmer, a co-owner of Adventure World, asked if I'd like to bungee jump and try other of his adventure activities, I had figuratively jumped at the chance. Now it was time to, literally, jump.

Then gravity prevailed. In an instant my view was the rapidly enlarging valley floor. Time seemed to stand still even as my outstretched arms sliced the air and the hair on my head blew with the force of thousands of blow dryers. Jumpers reach speeds of up to 95 mph. And while a 594-foot fall takes only about 2.8 to 3.2 seconds, it seemed like hours.

Fear wasn't a consideration. Either the system -- a harness attached around my waist and chest, and bungee cord fixed by ankle straps -- worked, or it didn't.

A gentle tug and Whoosh! I propelled up, almost back to the gondola. A photographer, who makes a living hanging out of the gondola and taking pictures of the dive and upward rebound, had urged us to wave and smile on the first, most powerful rebound. I tried, but the speed, rush of wind and, I realized, falling rain made it hard to open my eyes. Like a yo-yo I reeled up and down in gradually smaller rebounds, trying to prolong the experience by pointing straight as an arrow on the dives and standing tall on the upthrusts. Touching the earth felt good. Now I could look up.

"Safety-wise," Balmer had assured me earlier, "the bungee jumping is the safest activity we have."

True words. As part of a special Triple Challenge package, I'd spent the morning canyoning and early afternoon river rafting. Accidents, from teeth slapped silly by wayward paddles to separated shoulders and broken feet, happen.

Potentially body damaging, yes, but the most dangerous activity this day was the drive from Adventure World's office to a gorge that carves its way through the Saxetene River.

Canyoning is an activity foreign to the lawyer-burdened, litigation-happy United States, but wildly popular in Switzerland and many areas of Europe. We were outfitted in full wet suits, helmets, spray and life jackets, harnesses and booties. We waddled downstream, working through waterfalls and rapids, sometimes by diving, jumping, swimming or sliding through narrow, spectacular gorges. Our guides tossed us into washing machine-like swirling waves, pushed us through exploding waterfalls into caves, and pointed to landing zones reached by jumping or diving over steep watery drops where the squeezed gorge was only a few feet wide.

The trip came in two parts. After several miles our armada pulled ashore. We carted and reloaded the rafts onto flatbed trailers and drove downstream, around life-threatening rapids and a fish hatchery, and unloaded and reboarded for the final several miles down the Lutschine to the shores of Brienz Lake.

Heights, obviously, don't bother Balmer. Growing up in a region surrounded by some of Switzerland's most spectacular Alps, he learned early on to be part of his environment. He's climbed difficult routes on the Eiger, Matterhorn and fabled peaks in Europe and South America. He also paraglides and thrives on water sports.

The variety is unending, and always changing. "We're always open to new things. One of our advantages here," he believes of the Jungfrau region, "is that in 15 minutes driving you can go canyoning, bungee jumping or rafting. Everything is very close. I don't think that many people around here realized all the things we could do."