Yileen Canyon - track notes

• 19/02/2006 - report - photos
• 28/03/2004 - photos

Yileen Canyon is one of the better canyons on the south side of Bells Line of Road. It features couple of short, pleasant sections of canyon, finishing with an abseil of up to 60m into the Grose Valley. The name comes from an aboriginal word for dream.

Ideally, leave a car at the bottom picnic area at Pierces Pass. If not, you have a 3.5km walk back up to the top car park, and then along Bell's Line of Road at the end. Alternatively you can try and hitch a lift.

Drive to the Mt Wilson turnoff and leave the car there. Walk back east to the top of the hill, and SSW on a fire trail. After 800m, the fire trail swings around to the W, and a small track branches off south. Take this track, which swings SW after about 100m, and follow it off the end of the ridge (with the 1006 point on the Mt Wilson map). It then heads S between the two tributaries of the W branch of Yileen Gully, and joins the creek near that junction.

There are some canyon sections in the creek, before a 4m slide down a chute. With some difficulty, this can be scrambled down, and the pool at the bottom avoided.

The next drop is about 6m also into a pool. You can avoid this again with some difficulty by scrambling up above the canyon to the left and abseiling off a tree slightly downstream, and quite a way up the slope. A nice canyon section follows, with a final drop of about 10m (but the anchor is a long way back) before the canyon opens out.

Follow the creek down through boulders to the big drop. This can be done in a couple of stages, about 40m down to a huge boulder, and then 12m from a small tree on the right to the ground. Or combine into one abseil if the ropes reach.

There has apparently been a landslip recently that may make it difficult to do the final abseil in two pitches, so it is advisable to take 60m ropes just in case.

Head left under the cliff, down into Pierces Creek, and climb up the other side until you hit the Pierces Pass track (it's like a highway so you can't miss it). Turn left and follow the track back up to the car park where you left a car.

A nice canyon, possibly the best of the North Grose canyons, but not particularly deep or sustained. The last abseil is spectacular.

With some care and skill, it may be possible to avoid the swim, and just get away with a chest deep wade.