First Descent, Toine Houtenbos and Rikki Brown, 4 May 2014.

Access:

Lake Head track, East of Lake Rotoiti, about 2hrs to bottom of canyon, (4.5km) Possibility of Water Taxi drop off. “Access is pretty rough. About 1.5hrs [from the lake], three wasp stings and a sketchy traverse later, we ended up in the upper reaches of the canyon.”

 Canyon

“Canoe Creek was nice up the top with 4 beautiful abseisl (between 1050-850m roughly) and just then a long scramble with ugly little abseils all the way down to the lake. Not really worth it I’d say. I took notes but stopped after about 30 downclimbs. The creek further north (not the next one but the one after that) looks quite good with a sizable waterfall around the 1100m mark.”

Link to photos from Toine Houtenbos on Facebook of the descent

Download reasearch sheet for Canoe Creek, (871 Canyon) Nelson Lakes