Canyoning

Some people in MUMC harbour bizarre and largely unfounded superstitions about the extreme dangers of canyoning. Just like when crossing the road, you need to be sensible and mistakes can have very nasty consequences, but canyoning is a lot more fun and far less risky than most people believe.

You get to visit marvellous and wild places, with steep and sculpted walls, resident glow-worms, spiralling waterfalls, and lush ferns. The first misconception is that all canyons are technical. Not so. There are some lovely canyons in the Blue Mountains that do not require ropes at all. In fact, canyoning did not evolve from climbing, but was invented by intrepid bushwalkers. They wanted to follow the mysterious twisting streamways to their conclusion, and hence came up with methods to safely negotiate drops, pools and waterfalls.

Getting Down (Abseiling)

Learning to abseil and set up abseils is straightforward common sense, and once you've learnt the basics, there is a smorgasboard of intermediate canyons to choose from. If you are worried about the commitment factor (often the only way out of a canyon is to continue down) a good strategy is to build confidence by starting off with a single-abseil canyon (e.g.Empress). With a bit of confidence and experience, you'll realise there is nothing to worry about and, you can progress to canyons with multiple abseils.

A list has been compiled in the Guides section which is a "recommended progression" of canyons. It's obviously biased, and there are other canyons we could have included, including some we really enjoyed at the time (four–five years ago!).

The canyons are roughly arranged in order of difficulty, and they require and represent a gradual progression of skills and techniques. Beginners should note that the first four don't require any abseiling, and as there are several more such canyons in the guidebook, it's possible to have a great first trip without even taking a rope.