MOUNT WILSON – 2 November 2025
After my fall a few months ago, I haven’t had the opportunity or the inclination to get back on the horse so to speak. And in the back of my mind was David saying I should “reassess my life choices”, but with no abseiling trips on the calendar, there hadn’t been the need to do any reassessing. And then this trip came up, just a day, not too far to walk, and I’d done at least one of the canyons before.
I did waver but it didn’t take much for the leader and Cheryl to convince me it was a good idea. Maybe David was just talking about reassessing doing vertical caves?
So, justifying my decision, I figured Jimmy wouldn’t be too worried (after all if I hurt myself he wouldn’t have to look after me, as he lives 50k away), I’d confess to David after the fact, and if I hurt myself I’d go live with Christine, she could look after me, after all she is my fairy godmother. Having thought it through, I was confident that those I’d be on the adventure with would keep an eye on me to make sure I was safe.
Before we set off for the canyons, we did an abseil or two both checking that our descenders were suitable for Single Rope Technique and also to prussik up the rope to make sure our chest harness and ascenders were appropriate. Cheryl on the rope (photo Onni).
After this practice session we walked down a fire trail to the spot where we went off track to get to the start of Sleeper canyon.
Cheryl on our first 12 m abseil (photo John)
Walking downstream, we then came to the next abseil. Was a little daunting (Photo John).
Onni went first, crossing over to the anchor tree about 2m beyond him, he’s taking a traverse rope across, where he’ll attach it to the tree, and then we can put our safety carabiner on it and safely traverse the route moving from root to root (photo John)
Me crossing the traverse (you can’t see my cow’s tail, but I am attached, actually with 2 cow’s tails, I wasn’t taking any chances). Cannot tell you how pleased I was to get to the other side (photo: John).
Now that I’m on the rope and abseiling down I’m happy, but that traverse was nasty, not doing that again (photo Onni).
The top of the 13m abseil, we had traversed to this spot – me down the bottom (photo John).
After a 10-minute walk downstream, we then came to a part of the creek that we decided to circumvent, we crawled along a ledge bypassing the scrubby creek. At the end of this crawl, we were on a ledge where we had lunch. (photo: Onni)
Next was a 12m abseil down a hole (photo Onni)
The abseil down the hole from the bottom (photo: John)
After we’d done the final abseil in this creek we walked downstream for a 100m or so and then climbed up a pagoda at the end of a ridge, and then walked along the ridge to get to the spot where we’d abseil down into the canyon (photo: Onni)
Walking down the slope to the tree we’d be abseiling from to access Koombanda Canyon (Photo John).
The 40m abseil down into Koombanda canyon. I put on my wetsuit where we landed in anticipation of a few cold swims (everyone else just stayed in normal clothes – it was going to be cold for them with the swims LOL) (photo John).
This was a 7m abseil down into a “keeper pool”, that is, a pool of water that if you went into it, it would be hard to get out, so, John pulled me across (photo Onni).
Safely across the “keeper pool”, big thanks John (photo Onni).
On to the next abseil, about 13m, again, we had a safety line to attach to at the top of this exposed pitch.
Me on the abseil, this abseil avoided a “hole” that we used to abseil down in the old days (nasty start and difficult anchor to reach if you’re vertically challenged). (photo Onni)
Looking back to where we used to drop in to the creek in the old days, middle of the image towards the right, I think there’s a pool there that we landed in.
At the end of the last abseil, we found this log covered in fungus, it looked like a dragon lying down, you can see his snout, the eye and then the scales along his back (Photo: Onni).
The last challenge was this was a nasty 1 ½m drop into a pool of water (and a small swim), Onni made it easier for me to get down (by providing a meat anchor), Cheryl with her longer legs didn’t have the trouble that I would have had (Photo Onni).
We then walked downstream for about 200m and then headed up towards the cliff-line on the right where Onni had set up a rope for us to prussik out of the creek. This route avoided the Koombanda Ridge walk via Kamarah Gully that I had taken in the early days (about a 2k off track walk on the ridge and which involved a car shuffle), or, the other option, walking out via the Collery fire trail (3k walk up hill which also involved a car shuffle).
Onni on the 15 prussik, he had set up a traverse at the top of the pitch so that we could safely make our way to the upper cliff line.
As I hadn’t trained much over the past 3 months, the prussik was challenging to say the least, but I was able to have as many stops as I wanted to take to rest. We traversed around the cliff-line for 20m and then headed the gully to another handline that we used to climb up 6m of rockface, I attached my hand ascender and Croll for this as it made it safer for me with big stretches reaching up to the rope.
Once up on the ridge it was a kilometer or so to the cars (although it felt much longer). We were back at the cars by around 4.30pm – not too late, but it was a BIG day!
I was happy with my performance (yes, some of the challenges we had were a bit scary but that’s healthy – don’t want to be complacent) and I carried all my own gear which I’m happy with – don’t want to rely on others to carry my gear.
John, Cheryl and particularly Onni were watching me closely to ensure I was safe at all times and I was particularly thankful for the safety lines that Onni put in place for us – I doubt that other groups would go to those lengths. Thank you Onni for putting this on the calendar and encouraging me to join you!
You are amazing and a little bit crazy!!! Your idea of recovering from an injury and mind are a bit different!!! My advice is —- Don’t show your sons these pictures!!! 😂