16/01/2005 - report - photos - Empress Canyon track notes

Participants: Tom Brennan, David Noble, John McGrath, Nick Simpson, Rik Deveridge

After sitting around at Glen Davis in the morning moaning about the heat and looking less and less likely that we were going to climb a pass and investigate anything, we finally decided to go where the water was guaranteed to be cool and head for Empress Canyon.

We took a minimum of gear, mostly not bothering with wetsuits, and shot down the path to the start of the canyon. We passed a UTS group on the way out, and got to the start just as a commercial group was finishing suiting up. I recognised the leader as the girl I had met leading a group in Hole-in-the-Wall a couple of weeks earlier. Dave knew the assistant as the stepson of a friend of his. They kindly and luckily let us play through.

We almost jogged through the canyon, slipping into the pools and jumping all of the jumpable drops. Dave took some video footage of John, Rik and I jumping into the final deep pool, while I unsuccessfully tried to get some photos.

The abseil at the end was enjoyable and we sat around for a while at the bottom watching the commercial party complete the abseil with varying degrees of skill. Then it was up to the Grandview for dinner and drinks.