Rachel Grindlay

The forecast was one of those 0-6mm meaningless ones which could give you anything. We woke at Cathedral Reserve after a bit of drizzle overnight to being completely fogged in. It felt like it would burn off (eventually) and so it proved. By the time we were at the top of our second or was it third climb of the day the sun was out. It was 17 years since our last visit to this canyon and I was really hoping we’d be a bit faster than the last time (7:40pm finish) – I’d like to think we’d learnt a few tricks in 17 years! (One thing’s for sure we don’t consider a 9:10am start “early” any more)

En route, as were about to cross a creek, I heard “is that Rachel? and is that Tom behind you?” I’m never sure when I bump into people in canyons who recognise me whether I know them – or whether they just recognise me from Tom’s photos. Once I got closer I was pretty sure I didn’t know either of the people who recognised me. But introductions were soon made – Neil and Kirsten a.k.a. Shoes On Your Feet. After much chatting we eventually decided we should get a move on so left them to it.

Tom had been muttering about whether to put on wetsuits early, but since I had carried in my neoprene booties with me, I figured I’d get changed as soon as we were going to get wet feet. It wasn’t too much after that we had a slightly uncontrolled slide into a pool and I was well and truly wet (neck deep).

The canyon was very attractive and the water stunningly clear (until we got into it of course!). Anchors were interesting at times.

On the drop in the picture below 17 years earlier we’d abseiled off a ‘large log which moved disconcertingly’. This time we abseiled off a medium log that moved a little 🙂 Possibly (but unlikely) the same log just with a different perspective!?

In the lower section we eschewed the obvious route, which other parties had taken, so that we didn’t miss any canyon. This left us with what we’d done as an ‘awkward climb down’ on our previous trip – but that was in drought times, and things were a bit more slick now. In the end Tom abseiled and I lowered our packs, before I squeezed down through a narrow, dark boulder-jam. Way more interesting than the ‘standard’ route.

We had lunch before we joined the main creek and then marvelled at the magnificent sections we swam through.

Arriving at our exit we found a large group – one of whom recognised me from giving him a stash of frisbees to take to Namibia in 2009 and Tom from doing some shared uni courses together 30 years earlier. We were very impressed with his memory until he then also admitted to using Tom’s website for track notes as well.

Fortunately it seemed we had learnt something in 17 years – making it back to the car by 4:30pm (only 3 hours earlier than our previous time).

We decided to have another night at Mt Wilson with the hope of doing some exploring the next day. But despite the forecast being much the same as the previous day, it poured down overnight and was still raining in the morning. With the floor of our tent being more puddle than groundsheet we decided to just chuck everything in the car and head home. The ‘scattered’ showers lasted the entire trip home!