Yileen Canyon
06/05/2017
Ed and me
Ed hadn’t done Yileen before and I thought it was good one for this time of year as its a nice trip and the swims are fairly short.
The walk in is a nice stroll down a ridge with great views out over the Grose Valley
And it’s not long before we reach the left branch of the creek with some of the clearest water you are likely to see.
There is a brief canyon in this section then the right branch joins and the creek opens out a bit before the canyon proper
We get to the first little drop. Apparently some people abseil it but it’s a fairly easy shimmy down a squeeze on the right or you can skirt along a high ledge on the left with one balancey move and then walk down just down stream. Some one has set up a hand line on the left that just looks dangerous.
What follows is a big abseil down to the back of the cliff line. This is one of the bigger canyon abseils in this part of the Blue Mtns
The usual method is to rap down to the big ledge then rebelay for the last 8m or so. As we had plenty of rope we did it in one drop.
For the first time ever I got a rope struck. I had carefully pulled the knot passed the vegetation at the top and then passed the lip on the ledge and thought it was all good, however as the end dropped down it threw a loop around a boulder at the back of the ledge….
Cheer to Ed who scampered up the sloping wall to the side of the drop to free the rope. No knots or tangles just the friction of the rope end looping around the rock.
All in all a pleasant day out in the bush
Party size: 2 both experienced
Time: 4hrs car to car relaxed pace
sleepwhenwearedead 