Mt Hay Canyon – 10 March 2013

Dave Williams had organised a trip to Mt Hay Canyon and had invited Su Li, Stacey and myself to join him.

Su Li abseiling off the chockstone

It was a beautiful day – perfect warm weather for canyoning. We quickly headed into the side gully that takes you down to Rocky Points Ravine and then entered the canyon proper. The first swim, the longest swim in the canyon was cold. It is always cold! A little lower down is the first abseil. This is a short drop, perhaps about 3m. Some people jump the drop by landing in a nearby deep pool. We abseiled.

This took us to the inner sanctum of the canyon. A very spectacular place indeed. Another party were just in front of us – and seemed to be making a mess of their rope setup. Eventually they abseiled down. I looked in concern as they started pulling down their rope. It had at least three knots in in! For some reason they had tied off extra loops in the rope. Knots are always susceptible to catching in some nook or cranny and jamming the rope as it is pulled down. The knots did make it down – but their rope didn’t! They had pulled it down into a crack and the end of the rope had caught. Lucky for them – Dave, who went first down the abseil was able to pull the end out from above for them.

The other party made good time down the next abseil – off the chockstone. This is just as well – it is not a place to hang around on.

Dave abseiling off the chockstone

The waterlevel in the canyon was quite nice. High enough to be quite exciting. I went down last so I could photograph the members of our party on this spectacular drop.

Stacey abseiling off the chockstone

After this – the canyon soon ends. We walked down the creek a few hundred metres to a small lower abseil and had lunch in the sun below.

Then it was a nice walk under the cliffs to the pass – and then we could enjoy great views from Butterbox Point before returning to the car.

More photos are on my website here.