Claustral Canyon

There was a rainfall of nearly 100mm over the weekend before the trip, but luckily during the week it was all perfect weather, and that has given lots of time for the water to drain. Claustral has large catchments and hazards can form with high water, especially with the keyhole abseil in the Black Hole of Calcutta. We picked an early starting time of 7am to help with avoiding the crowds during the long weekend, as traffic jams can form in the consecutive abseils in the Black Hole. I've booked a night at YHA Katoomba to help with the early start, checking in the evening before. At $50 a night, it's quite a lot compared to free camping in Mt Wilson, but at least I don't have to carry a bag of camping gear all the way to the mountains.  

It was the final 7 days of the old Blue Mountains trains as I took them up the mountains. A few trainspotters were spotted along the line through Springwood, Linden and so on, just as I took a few pictures and videos as well before they would all vanish. Exciting news for me, as there won't be stinky trains with clogged toilets anymore. Even on this train, the doors between carriages were broken, and I couldn't move to another carriage for the toilet. 

In Katoomba I went into Cattlefish for a takeaway dinner 15 minutes before they closed, checked into my YHA, and headed to the best dessert place in town- Woolworths supermarket. This time I'm keeping my coffee in my room and not the communal fridge- not having that stolen again. It was quite an interesting experience trying to sleep in my shared room, with someone on the other side of the room turning on their headtorches at 11pm trying to read a book, and the lady above me on the bunk bed doomscrolling and rolling around her bed the entire night. 

Adam picked me up at the hostel at 6 and we arrived at Claustral carpark at 6:30 am, much earlier than expected. It was just us in this barren, improvised parking spot just before Mt Bell. Walking in it was all well graded and felt more like an early morning stroll, having the entire canyon to ourselves. The track first started passing through a few rocks, looking like a good beginner abseiling induction spot, before we descended into the gully to the junction at Claustral Brook. 

We changed into our wetsuits at the junction and started our entry to the canyon. It started with some creek walking until the first abseil, a short 5m drop. A few short wades followed till a 2m jump into a deep pool. Down the canyon, it was mostly small scrambles and getting over fallen tree logs. We then got to a spot where it was a big slide from a big rock down to another one a few metres down. This is normally an abseil with the anchor to the left, but since we've gone quite far down to the right, we might as well continue down the same way. The slide was quite dodgy, but nothing too scary. 

Soon we reached the Black Hole of Calcutta, a series of 3 back-to-back abseils that takes us down to the most scenic part of Claustral. All the abseils are short, being only 10-15m tall, but the water flow does get progressively stronger, and the black hole gets darker and darker down the line. Adam set up the abseil and I went down first, spending a bit of time taking pictures while Adam came down.

I had the second abseil ready while Adam packed up the first one. It was similar except being a bit darker, with less light making it through. It's a really noisy environment in the black hole, and it felt quite stressful taking down the ropes- not that anything is difficult, just that you're being a bit overstimulated in this tiny space. 

The 3rd abseil (and the last abseil of the Black Hole series) is a really scenic sandstone slot that leads to a dark pool. The flow was pretty strong here, roughly twice the flow of Empress Canyon, something I hadn't expected. Retrieving the rope was easy until it got a bit stuck at the end. It unjammed easily with both of us pulling hard, and as we were looking through the rope trying to see why that happened, we saw an overhand knot at the end of the rope. Adam said he didn't tie an end knot, and we assumed it might have just come out of nowhere. 

Adam dragged the rope along the swim to a sand bank a few metres down, where it's a lot more comfortable to pack up the rope. As he was flaking the rope, a part of it got stuck, and I swam back to help with untangling the rope. A slight pull on the rope didn't work. It's very hard to pull while floating on water, so I bridged myself across the slot with my feet on the wall and my back against the other wall, trying to get a better footing for a stronger, more effective pull. A few attempts and I saw a few things move from the bottom of the pool, unjamming the rope. It's probably been stuck on a rock or a tree branch deep in the pool, which is quite common in canyons. 

Everything went well, except that half of my energy is gone with all this heavy exercise. We didn't lose our ropes, but Adam dropped his Petzl figure 8 in the pool as he was removing it from the rope, and that's likely gone forever in the darkness. All these efforts are totally worthwhile, as we were rewarded with the best canyon section in the country. It started with a dark, mysterious space with towering cliffs on both sides stretching all the way to the top. A bit of light diffused from the top, enriched by vapours and moisture lingering inside the canyon. It all felt so otherworldly, something you wouldn't normally expect in Australian canyons. 

The walk through the dark ends with a wall of ferns making their first appearance. I guess the pictures speak for themselves. On the train home I sent this to my friend, and at first glance he thought this was Minecraft, not something that actually exists in real life. 

Around the corner, the big wall of ferns turns into another extremely scenic slot, lined with even more ferns. I tried to take a few pictures of myself, but selfies in canyons don't tend to look good with poor lighting conditions. 

The rest of this scenic section is essentially a variation of what we've had. Ferns, slots, creek walking, and scrambling around a few tree logs. 

More ferns. 

and even more ferns. Eventually, we've reached the junction with Thunder Canyon, where a section of it is commonly done as a side trip. Adding an hour to the entire trip, it leads up to more scenic canyon sections before ending at a glowworm cave. That was part of our plan for the day, but unfortunately, Adam has gotten quite cold and we decided to give it a miss. I'm sure that's something for another time. At this point, it's only about 9 am, with us clearing the black hole just after 8 am. 

After that, it's all mostly flat and straightforward. The canyon has widened up and while not being as scenic as the section before, it's still nicely lined with ferns and gives vibes closer to Wollangambe 1 or 2. The ropes became really heavy while we were scrambling through rocks, having no beginner we could enlist to carry ropes. It then led to a ledge with a drop of roughly 5m, and nowhere to continue walking. Normally, it would be a scramble on river left to bypass this, but as we were scouting around, we saw an anchor on river right and decided to use it. It's a green sling in the water, wrapped around a rock, with an autolocking carabiner left behind to run a rope through. 

From there, it's a short abseil of roughly 5m down the flow. Judging from the rocks around it, I was already anticipating a difficult rope retrieval. The actual retrieval turned out to be a lot more difficult, with the ropes getting jammed against the crack and only moving a few centimetres during each pull. I spent some time sorting out the strands and figuring out which one would be the easier one to pull. Adam, waiting at the pool after the abseil, thought I'd drowned under the waterfall and came to check out. It took both of us a few minutes and all our energy to get the rope off the abseil into our packs. 

Following that, it was a few scrambles and water slides until we reached another ledge. The scrambles were easy but felt like eternity, being exhausted from the rope pull, plus the heavy ropes in our packs. The last abseil was a lot easier with bolts on the wall. Following the last abseil was a 50m tunnel swim, which was really scenic and relaxing. 

More casually swims before we saw Rainbow Ravine Falls on the left side of the river, a hint that we're near the exit track. It's quite an obvious waterfall with a clear yellow sandstone slope. We reached the exit gully shortly after, where we changed back to our walking outfit and had our lunch. 

Adam opened his keg and realised that water had gone in. His lunch, a sandwich, now tastes like creek water. The exit gully looks really nice in its own right, being lined in layers of ferns. Adam had some unaffected Oreos while I had half my lunch, with pastries from a Korean bakery that opens till 10 pm. 

We navigated through the exit track mostly with Tom Brennan's canyoning guidebook, which Adam had it loaded on his phone. The track follows the gully for just a short distance before traversing on a ledge marked by a yellow arrow, then heading up parallel to Rainbow Ravine Falls. There were a few scrambles, some marked by handlines. The handlines weren't necessary, but a massive good to have when carrying packs of 10+ kg. The trek up is really nice and feels like a canyon by itself.

"Where the gully splits higher up, head up the left branch" (Brennan, 2023). We've gotten there, and I thought the gully split was higher up near Camel's Hump. I gambled on the left branch, and that turned out to be the right track. We continued to the top, where there's a tiny waterfall, and a few pine logs that had been dug into the ground as steps. Following Brennan (2023), "At the waterfall at the top, walk to the right along the ledge under a small cliffline to the other gully", everything else smoothes out and it was a clear track all the way up. Once past the clifflines everything becomes a lot more straightforward, and near Camel's Hump, we turned left towards the new exit track. 

A few tracks were developed for the exit- there's the old track, then the shortcut, then the shortcut of a shortcut. This new new track leads to an abseil of roughly 20m back into the junction where we started. There's a rebelay 10m down the pitch, and it can be done as two 10m abseils. Rope throw was quite tricky, with the pitch surrounded by several trees. My first throw had the rope land on the tree. The second throw was better, and that was fixed by Adam doing another throw at the rebelay, where the trees are out of the way.

Adam became really exhausted on the walk out, stopping every few minutes. That was more because he hadn't had lunch, I suppose. Coming out into Claustral Carpark at 3pm, we counted about 15-20 cars- guess it's a crowded day in the canyon. 

And that concludes me and Adam's first time in Claustral. It's often recommended that the first time in Claustral should be guided by someone who's been there before, as certain anchors can be difficult to locate, and that knowledge of where everything is gets passed on like a family ritual. That is true, as having that knowledge would've saved us a bit of time, but it's also a good experience coming in with no expectation and working everything out one step at a time, solving a puzzle instead of having the answer presented to you before you go in. I guess the main tricky bit is that many anchors have bolts located on the back of the rock, instead of being straight in front of you as you walk in. My main advice for doing it first time by yourself would be to be patient and take the time to scout around, bring proper wetsuits/extra thermals/rain jacket (Adam got cold in his 3mm suit), and explore alternative anchors and downclimbs before committing. Good teamwork and delegation of roles will also help with getting through the black hole efficiently, and make sure everyone has proper breakfast and lunch- a small yoghurt won't work.