Here is the Geronimo Canyon video, followed by a trip report written by Rob Luikens:

Having wasted days and nights eating and drinking with family and friends to usher in the new year, it was high time we grabbed our gear and went off to do something fun. We hadn’t heard any first hand feedback on this canyon, but the book described Geronimo Canyon as a great canyon, and that’s more than enough for us.

We left our cars at the fire shed at about 10:30 and walked down to the Wollangambe. We missed our turn off and ended up a bit far downstream. Thankfully, it was fairly easy to find our way back to where we were meant to be. A short walk over a saddle and we were on the correct ridge. At 1:30, we made it to the first abseil. We stopped for a sandwich, and Shane made friends with an exceptionally inquisitive skink, who seemed to love tuna in sweet chilli sauce and was willing to risk life and limb to get some.

Then came the first abseil. I wasn’t anything too difficult, but you have to be careful recovering the rope. The start of the canyon is quite pretty, and has lots of little fish swimming in it. Excited, the group continued on. After about 10 minutes of high canyon walls and Lost World type scenery, we reached the jump in that gives the canyon its name. I abseiled down and checked it out. Once I’d cleared it Shane and Jake jumped down. Both came out screaming about how cold the water was. Even at this time of year it’s pretty chilly in there. A couple more minutes of swimming and scrambling and we were at the next abseil. It wasn’t what I’d call a difficult abseil, more like irritating. The rope got covered in mud making it slow going. The ground was mossy making it hard to get a good footing. After that, it was another fairly short walk and scramble until we hit the Wollangambe. We had a well earned soak in the river, got out of our wetsuits, and began the 2 hour odd stroll back to the car.

Not a bad day all in all. The canyon gets its grade 4 more from being slippery and sometimes tricky that extremely physically demanding. It’s nowhere near as demanding as say Claustral. I wouldn’t call it one of my all time greats, but it was a good, albeit rather short day.

Rob Luikens

See Also:

• Geronimo Canyon Guide Article
• Geronimo Canyon Photo Gallery

On the 31st of October 2007 Rob and I went for a walk through Grand Canyon, up near Blackheath in the Blue Mountains, NSW. Neither of us had done it before so we were flying blind for the most part, only know what the little ‘Canyons Near Sydney - 4th Edition’ handbook told us in its 17 lines of text on the canyon.

The walk in was pretty straight forward; its a well signposted tourist track which actually follows the entire canyon along from above. The natural tunnel that it goes through is pretty cool too. Shortly after the tunnel is the beginning of the canyon, however that isn’t the main entrance to the canyon. Instead, we continued following the tourist path until we found the abseil entrance.

The abseil entrance is really very cool. It is scenic, the abseil itself is really quite nice, dropping you down off an overhang into this gorgeous cavern of moss covered rocks and ferns. Unfortunately, the abseil was really the only exciting part of the canyon. There were a couple of swims, and the canyon was beautiful pretty much the whole way through, but after the abseil you are pretty much just bush walking in a very scenic stream. There were no real jump ins, no slides, no challenging bits or extra abseils. Basically you abseil in, then spend the next couple of hours walking down to the exit point.

I’ve probably made it sound really bad now, and that isn’t the case at all really. It is a nice canyon, and if you just want a short day wet canyon with beautiful scenery, then this is a perfect canyon for it. Almost impossible to get lost on your way in and back out, the walk is easy, and the whole thing can be completed in a few hours.

Shane Greenup

Links

Browse the Grand Canyon Photo Gallery

Read the Grand Canyon Guide