Jones Creek (29/12/2021)

With the Colo River up a bit, I had to reverse the route of the walk so that the Colo section was downstream, and advise the participants to be prepared to swim. That resulted in a couple of dropouts. In the end, just the three of us set off from Mountain Lagoon on the Saturday, and headed out on to what was quite a speccy, rocky ridge with typical Colo views. The ridge eventually dropped down, and after a wade through the Astrotricha floccosa (aka Coughing Plants!) we had a fairly straightforward descent to Tootie Creek. The section from there to the Colo River was fairly easy going, with some spectacular cascades and long rock slabs. I had a dip near the junction with the Colo.

The campsite was on a now-huge sandbank at the Tootie Creek junction. Another party was there, doing a rough reverse of our route, but there was so much space we could barely see them, let alone hear them!

The next day we headed down the bank a way before jumping into the river below one of the rapids, and floating down from there to one of our possible exit points. The float and swim was lovely, and we made easy time with the strong current. Patrick's pack started taking on water so he jumped out and walked the last half kilometre or so. It ended up being a fairly warm day on the Sunday, so rather than a ridge exit option, we took the creek to Spider Orchid Pass (Pass 34) and kept going. There were a few nice cascades and gorge sections to a creek junction where I had thought we might exit on the right. Jon suggested the left as it looked less scrubby - and it was pretty easy going, given that I had provided all sorts of warnings about possible scrub! One small cliffline to negotiate and we were up on top and back at the fire trail fairly quickly.

On the way out we debated whether the other party would be out - with bets both ways. As it turned out it was a bit of a tie - the other party turned up just as we were finished changing at the cars. A great weekend in this wilderness so close to Sydney.