CANYONING – NORTHERN WOLLEMI – JANUARY 2015 & APRIL 2015
I’ve done this canyon twice now, in the space of three months and both times it was a bit of an epic, yet it’s such an easy, half day canyon, now I’m going to have to go back and do it a third time to see if I can rig up the anchor properly!
After our Big Day Out in Execution Canyon back in January 2015, no-one other than Rod S, John G , Natalie and me were up for a canyon on the Sunday, they all went home (wusses!), so we decided that we’d do a nice short canyon, Slippery Log, that both John and Rod had done before, this turned out to be more of an adventure than expected but you know what they say, expect the unexpected!
Back in January, we set out around 9am and drove to the locked gate. It was a short walk down the fire trail and we dropped straight into the creek (how easy was that we thought). We walked downstream for maybe 50m and got to the first pitch, the anchor was very old and manky and up on the bank, almost strangling a small tree, so John climbed up and took out the old anchor and put in a new one and away we went. The next abseil was unremarkable but the next one was a bit of an issue. We’d already abseiled into a small pool (ankle – knee deep) and had pulled down the rope, not that it would have been any better if we hadn’t. There was no anchor to be seen anywhere, no logs, no bolts (didn’t expect any out there anyway) and the only possible anchor was a very small sappling on a small ledge up about 2m. John and Rod decided that we’d have to use that, although how were we going to get the rope around it, even John who’s one of the tallest men I know couldn’t reach it. So, he decides that he’ll climb up on Rod’s shoulders to reach the tree. This wouldn’t be a problem except there was this big sloping slab of rock that fell away to the waterfall and a 10m drop, I had visions of Rod dropping John and both of them ending up in the pool below, I just couldn’t watch, covered my eyes. I need not have stressed about it, John’s really capable and could climb anywhere so the rope was set and down we went into a deep pool.
We all abseiled the pitch and swam over to the bank on the far side, ready to pull down the rope. Nothing, it wouldn’t budge! What to do? no amount of trying to untwist the ropes worked and you don’t just leave a rope there so, someone had to go back up and see what the issue was.
I volunteered to prusik up (didn’t want to see Rod or Nat to do it, and John had been doing everything else both yesterday and today, it was unfair to expect him to do the prusik too). So, I swam across and, treading water, tied my prussic loops on and started the prussic up, which I might add, wasn’t that easy and it was a tad cold! I finally got up to the top and had a look, nothing was out of place, it was probably that one rope had just been across the other and we were pulling the wrong one. So, I set them up so that that wouldn’t happen again and abseiled back down. Once down, they tried again and the rope was cleanly pulled down, what a relief! The rest of the canyon and walk out were unremarkable.
I’d been thinking about that dodgy anchor on the 3rd abseil and because we were going up to the cabin over Easter, I decided that we’d go in and fix that anchor. I got an old tennis ball and had my dad drill a hole right through the middle of it. I got a long, long length of string and tied it onto the tennis ball and then had enough tube tape that I could pull it through with the string (after tossing the ball up and having it bounce to the other side of the sapling), and then tie it at head height. Sounded like a plan, didn’t it? Relatively straight forward, almost fail-safe.
So, after our trip down Midwinter Canyon the day before, Rod, Heather and I set out to do Slippery Log. The first and second abseils were a piece of cake, then we got to that third one. Rod said that his trip notes indicated that the anchor was actually in the pool of water (under the 3nd pitch) and was probably covered with sand. So, we looked around and dug through the sand but found nothing. So, we gave my tennis ball a go. I throw like a girl and the first throw wasn’t successful, so I didn’t put as much into the second throw and the tennis ball got up to the tree but then snagged on something, I gave it a bit of a pull and the string broke, now there’s a bloody tennis ball in the canyon, I feel bad about that! Someone’s going to find a tennis ball downstream and will be thinking WTF?
So, what to do. We hunted around for some sticks/logs, found a few and amazingly bunching them all together and tying my tube tape around them, we came up with a half-way decent stick anchor. I offered to be the first one over, I couldn’t really ask Heather, she’s a novice and if we sent Rod over (who weighs twice what I weigh) and if the sticks broke Heather and I would be stuffed, we’d have a back up rope (the other one would have fallen into the pool with Rod), but we wouldn’t have anything to attach it to, we’d have to jump into the pool and I sure didn’t like the idea of that! Being last, if the anchor broke, Rod would be ok, he’d just land in a pool of water deep enough to break his fall. Rod “backed up” the anchor (as a meat anchor) giving it a bit more oomph. I actually didn’t do a standard abseil but, to reduce the pressure on the sticks, I edged over the waterfall on my belly, not making any sudden moves. With some relief I got down to the pool and swam across. Heather was next and she had no issues. It was with my heart in my mouth that I watched Rod, those sticks were mighty small. But, he made it down, they held in place. Like when John G climbed up on Rod the first time, Rod wasn’t at all worried, but I’m a bit of a worry-wart in canyons, always trying to figure out what I’d do “if”.
We went on to do the fourth abseil, it’s a lovely big drop and whereas last time there was a dead roo in the water below, this time it was gone. This pitch is why they call it Slippery Log I think, there are heaps of logs at the bottom and they’re way slippery!
The walk out’s a piece of cake and we were back at the car by around 2pm. Now, I feel compelled to go back again and try to set up that anchor or at the very least, drop some big logs down into the pool so the anchor is more sturdy, any one up for the challenge?
(NB: If this were social media, I wouldn’t actually name the canyon that we did, but you’ll note that I wasn’t specific about how we get to where we went, we went to what we call an “unpublished” canyon and it is a canyoning ethic that we don’t publish these canyons or how to get to them on social media or the internet.)