Yileen Canyon

Rachel proved difficult to inspire to go canyoning at 7am, but by the time we met Duanne and Liz at Pierces Pass she was feeling a bit more up for it. There were a few others in the car park setting up for canyoning as well, and as we headed for Mt Wilson, we found another group readying to go to Yileen. Luckily we got in ahead of them all, and made our way along the track and into the creek. There was a bit of a walk along the creek to the junction, where it started to narrow and drop down a few tricky little drops. At the slide I managed to bridge at the bottom, and keep relatively dry getting across the pool.

A little further on we reached the first of the abseils. Duanne had a bit of a look and decided that it was fine to jump. The start was a bit awkward, but the landing area was quite large and the water deep. Liz and I followed him, while Rachel abseiled. The group behind us had caught us by this stage, so they used our rope to rig theirs up, as the sling around the tree was quite high up. There was a chain link on the tatty rope that hangs down, but the rope looks in pretty poor nick. This bit and the next 50m or so was the best section of canyon, quite dark and enclosed. Last time I did this we were trying to avoid swimming, so we climbed up and around the left and dropped down after it. Not a good move! There was another swim at the end of the section, although I found some ledges on the wall that turned it into a deep wade.

A bit more walking brought us to the next section of canyon. While I was rigging the abseil, Duanne found a way to scramble down the drop via the boulder jam. I followed him while Rachel and Liz did the abseil. From there it was a short walk to the final waterfall. Since there was a group right behind us, we did it as two drops, doing the last little bit of three metres separately. Liz had forgotten her glove so had her device rigged on high friction, which looked like it was a lot of work to abseil on! My worn Pitt Stop went pretty quickly although I was pretty wet by the bottom from the water being squeezed out of the rope.

We decided to have lunch back at Pierces Pass, which we reached in pretty good time. Then we did a quick trip out to Rigby Hill, looking for passes across the valley and watching the rock climbers on the various walls around.

A good day in the bush.