As yet only partially explored…
In March 2015, Dan Clearwater, Richard Bramley, Annette Phillips, Justin Venable and Neil Silverwood spent 3 days on this canyon.
They scouted the lower sections up to about 600m contour from the true left rim. There seemed to be long sections of continous waterfalls with steep gorge sides and true canyon sections. The canyon looks like it just keeps going all the way up to the upper flats..
The team spent 2 days descending a series of drops from about the 320m contour. No pitches were more than 60m. The waterfalls were reasonably sustained, almost no walking from one arrival pool to the top of the next pitch.
The weather hadn’t been settled prior to the exploration, so the flows were likely ‘normal’ compared to the ‘low’ conditions required for many Fiordland canyons.
Many of the waterfalls requried deviation bolts to remain out of the flow. The rock is serpentine, which is extremely hard and blunted several drill bits. Escape lines were set between sections, which the team used!
Thanks to Dan Clearwater for the info. Photos by Neil Silverwood
Decided to go take a look at this monster.
With the dry summer we were hoping it was lower, however a little rain several days before made a descent impossible.
We climbed the TL and dropped in just below the 400m contour. There is a super narrow section just up stream from here that looks amazing. Climbing out again we dropped in 2 more times between 300m and the last waterfall. It’s a very impressive steep series of drops that will be great to do one day when it’s low enough. Come on global warming!