Participants: Rachel Grindlay, Gill Fowler, James Yorston, Naomi Brown
Gill, Tom & I has a leisurely start to the day having driven up the night before. We enjoyed the luxury of a "holiday house" in the mountains while we waited for the others to arrive. We made it down to the Dam Cliffs around 10am, where we left Tom with much of the gear to settle in with his book.
I hadn't paid too much attention to the canyon directions since I knew James & Gill had done it before. Soon after climbing down the ladder into the creek we were debating whether or not we should be dropping into the creek (and I was wondering whether I should have paid more attention!). After an aborted attempt to get into the creek we continued along the right hand bank. A more promising spot appeared and we waded in. Soon we heard expletives coming from Gill's mouth - she had come across a snake basking in the sun. It slunk off under a rock so we proceeded with caution past it. We then encountered a section of creek which clearly no one else had been through recently and we weren't keen to be the bulldozing party. Funnily enough there was a nice track running along the bank so we scrambled up to that and followed it past a crag. A clear track soon turned off and took us back into the creek. (mental note - just stick to this track the whole way next time!)
We wandered & rock-hopped our way through the creek. It was already a very warm day and it was pleasant walking in the water. I wondered whether this was just going to be more of a creek walk rather than a "real" canyon experience. However, I was soon rewarded with some excellent dark constrictions. We scrambled down a log into the dark cavern. After a short photo shoot we continued along the very sustained section of canyon. A few more photos later there was an unavoidable swim. Despite the warmth of the day none of it had penetrated this dark section of water. Having decided against wetsuits we were all gasping for breath from the cold by the end of the swim.
It was then we caught up to the group we had seen earlier in the day. They had stopped for lunch; and were keen to comment on James' pulling power to have a party of women with him. Gill, James and Naomi had a wedding to get to and we had left lunch with Tom so we headed out straight away. The handline coming down the waterfall looked in reasonable condition. Gill scrambled up first, while a member of the other group set himself up to watch us since "it would be a good laugh". We all made it up the waterfall with no trouble so I'm not sure he was too entertained. The next section of the exit was certainly unique. Gill, again, was first up the tree with it's numerous prongs sticking out. And we were out, well sort of. We didn't find a distinct track and again my lack of preparation didn't help. In the end we just scrambled up to the top of the ridge whichever way we could. We soon struck a clear path and so made our way back to Tom. We tucked into lunch and the others headed off to the wedding
I did a couple of climbs, but things were pretty busy and it was a hot day, so that didn't last too long before we were swimming. An excellent canyon especially when you are after a short day.