{"id":18685,"date":"2025-07-20T15:10:04","date_gmt":"2025-07-20T05:10:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/unswoc.org\/wordpress\/?p=18685"},"modified":"2026-01-10T23:36:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T12:36:07","slug":"lindeman-pass","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unswoc.org\/wordpress\/2025\/07\/20\/lindeman-pass\/","title":{"rendered":"Lindeman Pass"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Party: Alex, Julian, Noah, Sudarshan.
Photos by Julian and Sudarshan.
Updated<\/a> Jan 2026, see below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The base of Bridal Veil Falls in Leura is a very popular spot, following the Amphitheatre Track down from the parking lot up on the road. The falls themselves look.. malformed? It\u2019s a very funny shaped rock when viewed from the bottom.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The base of Bridal Veil Falls<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

This Amphitheatre Track continues until the junction with Federal Pass, where a slightly less-travelled path then branches off to visit the base of Leura Falls.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The base of Leura Falls<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Last I was here, there was a lovely big warning sign noting the dangers of a \u201cLindeman Pass\u201d. Apparently it was \u201cRemote area, unmarked route, rough, hard to find\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I took this as a challenge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

***<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Lindeman Pass \u201cskirts the top of the talus slope through the Jamison valley, giving unobstructed, unique views of the valley\u201d. Due to a landslide in mid-2022, a portion of this trail has been closed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After posting a club trip<\/a> and only getting 4 signups (one of which fell sick), the remaining 4 of us met up at Leura at 10am to tackle the other half of the Lindeman Pass. We immediately faced more detours with the closure of Leura Cascades, before arriving at our first lookout over the valley.<\/p>\n\n\n

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A very cloudy Jamison Valley<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

This part of the walk is mostly tourist track meandering along the little gullies and cliff edges, proceeding down to the base of Bridal Veil Falls. Following the water leads you to a recently Instagram-famous location called the Infinity Pools. In summer, this place is overflowing with people waiting to get that perfect picture<\/em>. Thankfully we had it all to ourselves, being a July morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Instagram pools last December vs now<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The most ironic thing about the popularity of this pool however, is its history. The edge of the pool is very peculiarly made of concrete, and there are little access hatches on the way there...<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Constructed in 1934 and in use until the late 1990s, this was part of the Upper Blue Mountains sewage scheme whereby raw sewage from the area would be sent in a pipeline down all these waterfalls, to the South Katoomba Sewage Treatment Plant. The somewhat treated effluent would then be discharged into Coxs River, making its way through Warragamba Dam and into the Nepean River.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was problematic for several reasons: it looked ugly, could not cope with population, hard to maintain, poor quality of treatment. What stands out to me most though is the \u201cWarragamba Dam\u201d bit. Whatever happened to the old adage \u201cdon\u2019t poop where you eat\u201d?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n [Source: Water Board of NSW, 1990<\/a>. Warragamba Dam is Sydney\u2019s primary water supply.]\n<\/p><\/center>\n\n\n\n

Anyways, we hopped back onto the Amphitheatre track and followed the steep staircases down to the start of Lindeman Pass. The track started off well defined and fairly easy until the base of our next waterfall. Crossing the creek here required lots of care, with some extremely slippery rocks to negotiate. The next ~100m of the route had no real track, with the aim being to just get across the creek, and back up to the base of the cliffs to find the rest of the path.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The landslide warning<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The best part about this track is that it skirts the base of the cliffs the entire time - meaning that if you ever lose the track, you just have to go up<\/em>! Following that philosophy, we made it back onto the real Lindeman Pass. The route itself is very nice, giving a unique angle on all the classic Blue Mountains views.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Mt Solitary<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The \u201cunmaintained-ness\u201d of the track was definitely evident with several mini landslips, no track markers, lots of fallen trees and some narrow sections of washed away path. It is certainly not a path that gets daily visitors. That being said, the track was in significantly better condition than we had initially anticipated - a solid 90% of the route was very well trodden!<\/p>\n\n\n

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Micro landslips and fallen branches on the path occasionally<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Being at the bottom of a cliff, the route also enjoyed several tiny waterfalls spilling over the track. There was the odd beer bottle washed down from above, and even a cute 1m tall ladder repurposed to climb over a little boulder at one point.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Who needs an Instagram Infinity Pool when you can have the MySpace pools to yourself instead<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

After about an hour of heading east beneath the Leura cliffs came Gordon falls. A great place to stop for a snack and views. As a bonus, the track went behind<\/em> the waterfall!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Gordon Falls? I hope he's ok.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

From Gordon Falls, the track turns sharply south heading beneath the cliffs of Sublime Point. The track conditions were much the same for this portion of the route, but with a slightly varied environment. Significantly more ferns, and lots of wattles blooming as the elevation and tree cover changed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of our group members was in Sydney on exchange, and this was his first experience of the Blue Mountains. His first view of the iconic Three Sisters was definitely not the usual though \ud83d\ude06.<\/p>\n\n\n

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A non-standard view of the Three Sisters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

We stopped for lunch at 1pm at the bottom of Sublime Point to enjoy some truly sublime views before our next task - take Copeland Pass up Sublime Point, regaining 270m of elevation across the next 400m.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Your destination will be on the left<\/s> up.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The way was quite faint in places, but our motto for this section of the trip was \u201cjust go up\u201d. This worked well! There was significant rock scrambling involved, but thankfully there were a couple of fixed lines and ladders (staples?) to aid the worst bits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n