{"id":17809,"date":"2025-02-05T15:32:50","date_gmt":"2025-02-05T04:32:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/unswoc.org\/wordpress\/?p=17809"},"modified":"2025-02-05T17:54:35","modified_gmt":"2025-02-05T06:54:35","slug":"learning-the-ropes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unswoc.org\/wordpress\/2025\/02\/05\/learning-the-ropes\/","title":{"rendered":"Learning the Ropes – Canyoning Training"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Trip Leaders: Oliver, Jason
Attendees: Hugh, Mollie, Sudarshan, Rachel, Caity, Cornellius, Jonah, Johanna, Nic
Report by Sudarshan. Photos by Hugh, Oli, Caity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In early January, Oli and Jason took a group of enthusiastic folk out for a long weekend of learning canyoning - teaching us newbies all the skills right from \u201cwhat\u2019s a rope\u201d, through to putting us on our way to becoming Canyoning trip leaders. A report of the 4 day trip<\/a> is below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Visit our about page to see what canyoning actually is: About Canyoning \u2013 UNSWOC<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/span>Day 0:<\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s been a stormy past couple days. The forecast is slowly looking more and more grim. Our initial plans were to do Yileen Canyon on the first day, however after some weather assessment it was decided to change to Serendipity Canyon due to its relative safety in inclement weather.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For us Sydney folk this meant an extra half hour of sleep - our meeting time was still 9am, but at a bakery 30 minutes closer to Sydney.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/span>Day 1: Serendipity Canyon<\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Our meeting time is 9am, and Jason arrives 20 minutes before that (what a role model). Cars slowly continue arriving all the way upto 9:45, while we sort out some hired gear<\/a> and I buy some neoprene socks (This was probably my best decision of the weekend? They are an absolute game changer and meant that I was almost never annoyed at wet feet).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We set off to the carpark for our canyon and arrive at 10:45. We sort out more gear and by the time we set off, it\u2019s 11:30. Remember the extra sleep that we got? Maybe we shouldn\u2019t have\u2026 We arrive at the start after a short walk in (~45 minutes).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The aim of today is to familiarise ourselves with canyoning, watch our trip leaders make some decisions, and to try identify some basic things we don\u2019t know. They teach \/ refresh us on how to abseil and bottom belay and we\u2019re off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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After 3 dry abseils (one pictured above), we have a 45 minute creek walk (quite nice) until we get to the exciting section. The walls start to constrict and you get a pretty slot section, with 3 wet abseils to follow, and a bit of very cold swimming. We make our way down slowly, negotiating some funky abseil starts, and just as I start to get comfortable with the cold water, we\u2019re finished.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Rachel making her way down a funky abseil<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We make our way briefly up the Wollangambe River to our exit (and lunch) point, where our trip leaders teach us some basic drowning rescue skills, as well as how to identify some water hazards that may arise in high flow conditions. It\u2019s a short but steep walk back out to the car.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Total time: 6.5 hours.
Tom Brennan\u2019s recommended time<\/a>: 4-7 hours. Remember this for later\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/span>Day 2: Rope Skills<\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

A chill 10am start for our rope skills day. The aim of today is to familiarise ourselves and make us self-sufficient on the ropes. We head to some cliffs near Mt York for a full day of learning and practicing these in a relatively calm environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We first learn some abseiling technique, and how to tie Prusik knots (technically, a hitch). Prusiks are a type of knot which slide when directly pushed down by your hand, but lock up when weighted (good video showing it here<\/a>). We learn three types<\/a> of prusik knots and their applications, and practice using them as a backup when abseiling without someone directly belaying us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Oli and Jason teaching us the three types of Prusik knot<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We then cover some self rescue techniques - what to do if some part of our abseiling system gets jammed - and finally how to actually set up a rope and prepare it for abseiling (rigging).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Oli getting comfy while \u201cstuck\u201d on a rope and talking us through self rescue.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We finish a long day to a perfectly timed storm and accompanying rainbow, grab dinner outside, and make our way to Boyd River campground in the Kanangra-Boyd National Park. Kanangra is part of the Greater Blue Mountains area, and is known for its fairly untouched wilderness, some 2 hours drive beyond Mt York.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Is this a pot of gold???<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/span>Some more photos:<\/span><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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<\/span>Day 3: Practicing our skills<\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

We rose at 7 for a fairly relaxed start to the day, looking over the canyon map<\/a> and sorting out enough ropes and gear so that each of us could have a turn at setting up and managing abseils. The aim of today was to practice all the skills we learnt yesterday in an actual canyon environment, and reinforce our learning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Box Creek was picked for this activity as it is an open gorge unlike the slot canyon on Day 1, with the option to walk around the abseils if desired, and the added bonus of the warmth of the sun \ud83c\udf1e.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Box Creek Gorge<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I have a go at setting up the first abseil, and it\u2019s already a great learning experience. Learning where to thread the rope through, verifying your setup, tying all sorts of knots, verifying your setup, getting people to tie into the rope that you set up, verifying your setup - you get the idea. The first person down went to set up the next anchor, and the rest of the group slowly continued down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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An anchor<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As I was the one to set the abseil up, it\u2019s also my job to be the last one down and retrieve all of our gear. In our practice runs, the retrieval process was on dry land, standing up, with the bag in front of us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This time was different though, we complete the abseil into a deep pool. I did not realise this until I landed in<\/strong> the pool. A couple of very cold and wet minutes were spent thinking how I would work around this, before realising I could just swim out of the pool onto dry land\ud83e\udd26\ud83c\udffc\u200d\u2640\ufe0f\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Hugh and Mollie setting up an anchor, while I have a chat with Oli about something on the map.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s 6pm by the time we reach the bottom, so we pack up our stuff and start making our way back, stopping to look at some very cool sticks, and great views.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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View from the top<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n