It was nice to head up the mountains with Bob and visit some canyons. It hasn’t been that hot so far this season, so we decided on Jugglers Canyon and then Grand Canyon.
We headed up to Medlow Bath and out to near the airport. Then it was a short walk along the fire road and track to the start of Jugglers Canyon. We soon descended the short hand over hand drop, and then made our way to the first abseil. Bobset up the rope and started off down the short drop.
I followed hime down and then got some photographs of him abseiling the nest drop.
After following home down, we scramble down the next short drop.
At the top of the last pitch, we could see no slings, so had to set up a belay point. I think many parties avoid this drop down the waterfall by using belay points on ledges to the left or right and then doing a long abseil. We prefer to travel with only a single short rope (40m) to save weight.
You have to be careful avoiding the logs, but its a nice drop.
We then reached the end of the creek, and crossed Greaves Creek and made our way upstream to the Grand Canyon Track. We climbed up and followed the track to the start of the canyon. Then abseiled in.
I had a camera and tripod with me, but the light was very poor for photography – too harsh in most places. Further down the canyon, in the deepest section, conditions were better.
The swim near the end of the canyon was typically quite bracing.
We then headed out via Murdo McLennan’s track back to Bob’s car. On the way we spotted a few nice orchids.
To finish off, we drove out to Point Pilcher for the view.
