Chockstone Forum

      Sponsored By
      ROCK
   HARDWARE

Chockstone Photography

Australian Landscape Prints

Chockstone Forum - General Discussion

General Climbing Discussion

Topic Date User

What's the scariest lead that you've ever done? 11-Apr-2009 At 8:44:05 AM TonyB

Message

My scariest route wasn't intended to be a climbing trip ... it was a lilo trip down the Cox River to Breakfast Creek that went wrong. After encountering a waterfall that wasn't on the map, one guy with a concussion and one guy who'd been caught by his leg and held upside down in a cascade, we made camp and decided to take a "short cut" out up Galong Creek. Back in those days when I was young and foolish, we carried no maps but Galong seemed to head in the right general direction.

There were 5 of us. It was drizzling rain and we were all wearing wetsuits and sandshoes, carrying packs. No ropes of course. Galong started as a pleasant valley but it quickly grew into a box canyon. We started encountering a succession of waterfalls, each one higher than the last. Very little water flow but of course very slippery. Big pools between the falls, some just a meter or so wide but some deep enough to have to swim.

We came around a bend and were confronted with the mother of all falls. We'd been going for hours and it was way too far to turn back. From memory the falls were about 20 m high, although memories do become embellished with the passed of so many years. I checked a map yesterday and it shows a section with a 100m rise over 200-300m so a step up of 20m is quite possible.

2 of the guys decided to climb the canyon walls ... not as steep as the falls but many times higher. The other 3 of us climbed the waterfall. The last move still sticks in my mind as scaring the absolute c**p out of me ... the lip just out of reach and a soggy dyno to the top. From there it was easy.