Top Ten Spain Off-the-Beaten-Path Adventures

Squeeze into a wet suit, clip on your helmet, and launch yourself down the Barranco de Lapazosa. One of the most spectacular canyons in the Aragon Pyrenees, it's also, unlike its sisters, fairly easy to get to. But canyoning is a relatively new sport in Spain, so you won't have much company. Near the French frontier and an offshoot of the spectacular Ordesa y Monte Perdido National Park, it's near the summer activities center of Torla. Also free of major obstacles, it's a friendly gulch in which to cut your canyoning teeth. But it's never tame and, if you want to enhance the adrenaline rush, you can jump rather than rappel most of its steps. Splash, jump, rappel, and four-limb clamber your way downstream as the canyon cuts its way through upland pasture, then forest, to meet the languid Ara River after three to four hours.