BLUE MOUNTAINS – 23 October 2021
Whilst we could travel to the Blue Mountains, anyone from Greater Sydney (Central Coast, Sydney, Wollongong and Blue Mountains) were not allowed to go further afield into Regional NSW. And, what do you know, the trip scheduled for this weekend was in Regional NSW. So, we came up with a Plan B.
Plan B, Pilcher & Grand Canyons on Saturday, wasn’t as enticing as Plan A, but Rod added Beauchamp Falls onto the Pilcher section, so I was really happy about doing this abseil that I’d spotted about a year ago.
Rod S was the leader of the group with John & Kathy G, Tim G, Kavita J, Jim C and myself, we had a nice civilised start of 9am.
MSS has a tradition – “Red sox trips” these are usually trips that are considered “easy”, four of us turned up in red sox, the rest of the group felt left out (lol).
This is the first abseil. Years ago we didn’t bother to abseil it, simply scrambling down, but it’s really wet and slippery now. This is considered one of the “optional” abseils, there are quite a few on this trip whichyou can either walk around or scramble around. I love the green ferns on the cliff face.
Tim on Abseil #2 – it’s a bit of a difficult abseil for novices – hard to get down to where Tim is, and then hard to get past the V part at the back.
John with his bloody long legs makes it look easy, I made it look way harder than it was.
Tim on Abseil #3.
Kavita on Abseil #3 – bit of an overhang where she is.
Kathy on abseil #4, easy start but somewhat challenging at the bottom.
The bottom of Abseil #4, Kavita walking around some narrow ledges to avoid a swim.
Jim went one ledge too far, the only one who chose the wet route.
Jim on Abseil #5, a lovely abseil.
After the last abseil, there’s a scramble down some rock ledges, there’s a hand-line, but if you lost traction, you’d hurt yourself. I elected to attach my safety to the hand-line, just in case.
Abseil #6 is usually on a ledge and is a dry abseil. There’s also an alternate wet route. To get to it, others probably scramble down through these logs, but we elected to abseil it or use a rope as a hand-line, the rocks are very slippery.
John on the wet route, he chose a different route to the rest of us and avoided a big pool at the bottom.
I wish I’d gone that way as I ended up struggling to avoid getting wet and in amongst a lot of slippery logs.
After the last abseil, it’s a short walk to Greaves Creek. We then followed a track down to Beauchamp Falls.
This is the top of Beauchamp Falls, a small cascade, people don’t bother with abseiling this part.
Kavita on the wet route, about 20m and very slippery.
Jim on the wet route.
Rod, Kathy and I chose he dry route and that was slippery enough!
The base of the Falls, lots of rocks ad close to the falls very slippery.
We found the faint path going back to the top of the falls (well, we passed them but no ways near them).
And then we came to the landslide which has taken out the track. Someone has put a hand-line in place for safety, but it was a bit scary. Then it was a simple walk up to Grand Canyon.
Rod and I decided to forego Grand but the others were up for it (where do they get the energy), I took a “death photo” incase we didn’t see them again, they all look very happy with themselves.
Rod and I took the Juggler exit track and took our time getting back to the cars. Great day out thanks Rod for putting it on the MSS calendar and thanks for the opportunity to “do” Beauchamp.