Fortress Canyon
Friday, December 21st, 2007
We were planning on doing Arethusa Canyon, but as soon as we arrived at Katoomba it was thrown into doubt. It was raining and quite cold at the time and we hadn’t done Arethusa before, so were unsure how the weather may afffect the water levels. We had to get some gear so we dropped into Mountain Designs and while there asked the guy behind the desk his opinion - he indicated that it had been raining pretty consistently for two weeks at this point, so we decided to back out.
However, there were 4 of us up in the mountains - we had driven this far, surely there was something else we could do. That was when I decided that Fortress was an option - I have done Fortress Canyon before, and when I did it, it was flooded (very dangerously actually), so basically the conditions couldn’t be worse than what I had already done, and I know how to survive it in adverse conditions. Everyone else was keen to go, so off down Mount Hay road we headed.
There was another car parked in the Fortress Canyon parking space, so we weren’t going to be alone. We walked to the Fortress Ridge walking track, and were about to drop down to the end of the 4WD track (the entry that I know, not the standard one apparently) when we saw two guys walking back towards us along Fortress Ridge. Turns out they (Trev and Jon) had spent all morning trying to find their way in to the canyon without luck (it was very foggy and this was their first time). So we adopted them and our group grew to 6.
We walked down to the end of 4WD track and headed off into the bushes down a path towards the large gully
which eventually takes us all the way to the canyon. The water was flowing reasonably well, but it was certainly not flooding the canyon, like the last time I did Fortress. So we were able to easily walk along the track which followed the canyon the whole way down, occasionally needing to cross over the creek, or walk in it for short periods of time.
The whole canyon is pretty straight forward really. Walk in the creek, walk beside the creek, scramble over and down rocks until you reach the first jump in. Jump in. Swim for a while. More walking then Jump 6m shortly before the end. Reach exit, but continue down canyon to the big waterfall at the end.
We got to that waterfall, but unfortunately the fog completely blocked any concept of a view. Looked more like the end of the world or something - just like that movie, The Gods Must Be Crazy 2 I think it was, where he threw the Coke bottle off the end of the world. Anyway, walking up the steep hill out of the canyon was a bit of a slog, but then, it always is when canyoning.
In the end it was another successful trip, even in inclement weather - no injuries, back in good time, and a good time had by all.
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