The New Canyoning

Years and years ago – in this instance using the term decades while appearing hyperbolic is actually realistic – I did a bunch of Blue Mountains canyons. Some were commonly done (even back then), like Claustral or Wollongambe, while others saw only a few parties each year (like Thurat Rift). I had no special equipment, none of us had special equipment because there was no special equipment. I used a harness tied from webbing, a simple figure 8 and a locking carabiner. Our gear was carried in doubled garbage bags in regular bush-walking packs. We wore sneakers, had no helmets, wore cast off wet-suits that surfers had discarded as worn out at the local “op shop,” and packed a couple of sangers along with a litre of water. The most advanced piece of technological kit that any of us carried was a compass as navigating out always involved trekking through trackless bush.

Since returning to Australia after a quarter of a century living in the Canadian mountains, I go out every so often and do a canyon or two, but canyoning will never be my real passion sport. That is reserved for climbing. The thing about canyoning, which modern canyoners don’t really want you to know is that, unless you are doing very remote, wet and wild canyons, canyoning is basically a pretty simple sport. You walk to the canyon entrance, down-climb or abseil into the canyon and repeat – downclimb, abseil, walk, maybe swim - until the canyon runs out and then you walk/scramble back up to the top of the escarpment.

Given the simplicity of canyoning I am gob-smacked by the complexity which canyoners feel the need to imprint onto an uncomplicated sport. I saw a picture on a guiding site where some dude had posted an image of the kit he carries on his harness when canyoning.  The items were numbered 1 through 12, but there were actually 27 separate pieces of kit¹ carried on (I would assume) every canyon by this bloke. A fairly conservative cost estimate is $2,000. Yes, you could buy a car for that.  

If you are going to argue “but he is guiding,” hold tightly onto that thought. I’ve climbed beside/behind mountain guides taking clients up multi-pitch traditional routes in the Rocky Mountains of Canada who routinely carry less kit than that. If you need that much kit to walk, abseil, scramble, swim, there is either something serious going wrong or you have fallen into the trap of substituting pieces of equipment for ability.

Interestingly, at least to me, is the current “canyon grade”² for Thurat Rift canyon - V4a2VI. I kind of like that rating, although I think that if you dumped the 30 extra pieces of kit and were even remotely fit, it is possible to do Thurat Rift in a day (we did). Grade inflation is a wonderful thing and proves that “the older I get the better I was.”

One of my guide acquaintances in Canada used to tell a story of heading out at dark from the Abbott Pass Hut³ to rescue a group of climbers who were attempting Mount Victoria. The climbers were fitted out with excessive amounts of equipment (V threads, snow stakes, snow flukes, rock and ice climbing protection) and were moving so slowly and unsteadily that they were forced to turn around long before the summit (most competent climbers solo the standard southeast ridge route). I relate this long ago tale from another country because carrying about excessive pieces of kit has consequences, chief among them an overly slow pace.

It is a strange phenomenon in modern life, which seems over-complex already to the point of stress inducing (think about how many insurance policies the average person has) that some of us are compelled to complicate simple activities with needless and multiplicative bits of expensive equipment. I can’t work out whether people are trying to make simple activities seem complex in order to set themselves apart from others or have simply been hoodwinked by business interests using social proof as a marketing tool.

128 if you count a harness, 29 for rope bag, and 30 for helmet

2Another thing that did not exist back in the day, a canyon grading system.

3The Abbot Pass hut was destroyed in 2022.

Murramarang on a Birthday

Down here on the south coast, our birthday celebrations always involve some kind of outdoor activity. Sometimes, we get well and truly thrashed, one of my favourite activities, other times we just go out to have fun. With climbing out of the question again due to the incessant rain, we went out to have a bushwalk along the new Murramarang Coastal Track.

I have mixed feelings about the upgraded walk. While I love bushwalking and think the more people who bushwalk the better we’ll all be, there is always an element of environmental damage that occurs whenever something gets easier and concurrently more popular. A few years ago, I walked the route of the new track but, as there was no track, I either walked through the bush (easy as it is quite open) or followed the shoreline. I hardly saw anyone except at the road accessible areas and there was really no garbage. The first thing, however, Doug and I encounter on a new section of the track is a big fire-pit full of broken liquor bottles. We cleaned this up as best we could and cursed a certain segment of society that leaves detritus behind them.

The track is really nice. Well situated and with good views along the way. Both the coast and the forest are beautiful and it is particularly lovely to be walking through forest that did not burn in the catastrophic fires of 2019 and 2020. We only covered the southern half, so I will have to go back and see how work is progressing on the northern half. Soon after we turned about, the thunderheads that had been amassing decided to loose their load of rain and we walked back with the sound of thunder crashing around us, sparking lightening and heavy rain. But, a birthday is also a good time to be uncomfortable.

Paddling From Patonga

First up the paddling which was on the Central Coast. I always have to look these things up when Australians use regional names, like the Sunshine Coast, or the Sapphire Coast or the Central Coast and expect you to understand where the f**k they are talking about. Somehow everyone has started to talk like a tourism advertisement as in visit the Central Coast: “a stones throw from Sydney, a million miles from a care in the world.” I don’t know about that. It was a congested drive up and back, there was noisy and polluting piston powered craft everywhere, the cafes were full of jostling people on the downward slide of their last sugar fix and some dude in the campsite had thumping music going all day and half the night. Other than that, I guess it was carefree.

The first day we paddled from Ettalong to Maitland Bay. I had borrowed the “other half’s” waterproof camera but somehow, at the start of the day, I managed to set it on super-macro so everything was blurry. Plus, I realised there was no float or string attached and I instantly became paranoid that I would drop the camera into the briny blue and lose not only a camera but a relationship. The end result being I have no photos at all. There might be some on NSW Sea Kayak Club Facebook page but I don’t have a Facebook account so I couldn’t tell you.

We launched from Ettalong Beach at the narrowest part of Brisbane Waters and I think it was exactly mid-tide as the tidal current was running in surprisingly fast. There was some instruction to “ferry glide” across but, judging by some of the approaches I witnessed, many sea kayakers may not actually understand the concept of the ferry glide; although a ferry glide is about the first thing that whitewater paddlers learn and is a useful skill for sea kayakers.

Once across to the east side of Broken Bay we followed the short sandstone cliffs of Little Box Head and then Box Head. There was a lot of rebound off Box Head and other paddlers told me it is hard to ever get in close although it would be grand if you could. We passed two beaches, Tallow and Putty, neither of which would have been an easy landing this day. The swell, I think, was in the 1.5 metre range but with a greater than 10 second period. It’s been a long time (last summer) since I practised rolling so I did not need any encouragement to stay well away from Maitland Bombora.

Apparently, back in 2008, there was a big “incident” at Maitland Bombora where three out of five kayakers ended up in the water after getting caught in a big wave on the bommie. As is often the case with these incidents, particularly in long standing tribal groups like clubs, the event has permeated group consciousness and become a shared memory even if you were not there on the day.

Maitland Bay is fairly well protected by the reef off Boudi Point and the bombora, so the landing was only difficult in that the swell was quite surgey (not actually a word according to my spell check) on a steep beach and there were 15 kayakers coming into land all trying to tuck into the most sheltered eastern corner. We had a long and social break with lots of laughing. I think everyone is really enjoying being able to socialise again after the mentally damaging lock-downs we’ve all lived through in the last couple of years. Hopefully that incendiary statement is not enough to get this blog banned but anything is possible in the era of “misinformation” (which is the leftie term for “alternative facts”).

After our break, I had a very civilised push/pull out from the men in the group. They tell me this is the way things are done on the Central Coast. I usually avoid any sort of assistance unless I absolutely require it as one really must be pretty self-sufficient to paddle on the open sea, but when in Rome, or on the Central Coast, and I certainly could get used to such treatment although I do not expect it back on the rough and tumble of the south coast.

It was a pleasant paddle back, slower than on the way out as is usual with groups, but I don’t think anyone felt in any kind of rush. The “million miles from a care in the world” was definitely missing when we got back to Ettalong Beach which was packed out with jet skis driven dangerously, ferry traffic, and sundry power boats surging past. The Central Coast is a lot busier than the south coast.

Next day we launched from Patonga Beach opposite the pub/cafe. This was a busy location. I am pretty convinced the reason most Australians leave home is simply to go eat at a cafe or pub somewhere as the place was certainly hopping with cars cruising up and down hoping to park exactly across the road. If you think about it, this explains the shape of 70% of Australians which is under-muscled and over-fat. Don’t get mad, get fit, these are real statistics.

Two of the women on the trip had actually followed my old ‘gramme account which I deleted a couple of years ago when I purged the last of my social media accounts. I feel a healthier person for it. Social media seems to be mostly about comparison (remember that quote about comparison being the thief of joy) and commercialisation. I do not miss it.

We paddled over to Lion Island, which has a small beach but landing is prohibited. Around the north side past some more sandstone cliffs and then south across Broken Bay to Barrenjoey Head. I would like to walk around on Barrenjoey Head, I think there may even be some rock climbing up there. The headland is connected to the mainland only by a narrow isthmus of sand (although there are roads and structures built on the isthmus) which you have to think will wash away one day in a big east coast low. That will be something to see and a delightful reminder that man is impermanent.

There were a few Australian Long Nosed Fur Seals (isn’t Duck Duck Go a wonderful thing) laying about on rocks on the western end of Barrenjoey Head as we crossed over to West Head which is in Ku-ring Gai Chase National Park. We pottered along heading west to a little beach called Hungry Beach for morning tea. From Hungry Beach it was only a couple of kilometres back to Patonga Beach with the group slowing down again.

I had a long drive back to the southern side of Sydney looming over me but I had also spent a lot of time in the last couple of days either sitting in a car or sitting in a kayak, so I put my sneakers on and walked east from the parking lot – still people trying to find parking spots exactly opposite the cafe – to Dark Corner Track (a bit of a weird name for a track uphill through some woods) to Warrah Lookout and Warrah Trig. This is part of the Great North Walk and is one of those absurdities that National Parks appears to find completely normal whereby some tracks are pretty much completely paved and others, like those in the Budawangs, never see a scrap of maintenance and disappear after major bushfires. Lovely views from Warrah Lookout and along the track and on the way back I passed a group of folks at the base of the Dark Corner Track reading bible scripture. Perhaps the track name is in reference to Satan. I don’t know, but that statement also is probably liable to result in some kind of censorship.

Man Splaining Inspiration

There is no such thing as inspiration. Sure, there are memes and bill-boards, and influencers, and even professionals whose entire raison d'etre is inspiration but in the real world of getting shit done, inspiration is virtually worthless. The only things that matter are grit and enough inner desire to work hard and sacrifice. Inspiration is as transient as a fart in an elevator.

Why am I writing – yet again – about inspiration? It’s not the first time, unlikely to be the last; last night I was on a Zoom call with four men. Count them up, four humans with the XY sex chromosomes and one (me) with the XX chromosomes. We were talking about speakers/instructors for an upcoming event. There was a lot of talk about inspiration. Best thing you can do when someone starts talking about inspiration is simply let it wash over you like waves in the surf. Duck your head when the talk gets really turbulent, come back up into the green smooth conversation on the other side. People who believe in inspiration are generally kind hearted souls but don’t really understand that inspiration does not get you up at 4.30 am to carry a monstrous pack up into the mountains across sketchy terrain or send you out onto the dark ocean on a 70 kilometre crossing.

The men all thought that getting a female instructor would be great. A human with XX chromosomes to connect with the other XX chromosomes and inspire them to be better at the sport, to try harder, to do great things. I had my head down because, as I said above, the most sensible thing to do when the inspirators get going is to put your head down, don’t come up until the discussion has moved on to more concrete plans. At some point, I thought, maybe the men would ask the woman for her opinion. Of course, I have an opinion, I’ve written about my pink era, and my view, despite hearing the same arguments multiple times has not changed. Chromosomes in this matter are unimportant. Inspiration does not work.

Comfort Creep

Over the last few days (it’s a long podcast) I listened to this podcastabout “The Comfort Crisis,” which, if you give it any thought is kind of a funny title in the “crisis” times in which we live. The original death and taxes quote is from Benjamin Franklin – “in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes” – should be amended to add crises. There is always another apocalypse coming right along.

Getting uncomfortable in the Budawangs

It’s not a bad podcast, probably nothing anyone with a couple of functioning neurons does not know. We have modified our environment so completely that most of us have completely lost the ability to suffer mere discomfort.  

The other type of fun, bushbashing in 30C 

up a 90 degree slope with a mountaineering pack

Comfort is such a funny thing. Virtually everywhere you look someone is exhorting us to “break out of our comfort zone,” or “do something difficult.” Most of these exhortations are pretty lame: is trying a new recipe really taking you out of your “comfort zone?” If it is, you need more help than that offered by feel good media posts.

The thing about comfort is that humans appear to be evolutionary programmed to seek comfort out. You’ve got to admit, avoiding hunger, fatigue, cold, wet, thirst, pursuit by a mastodon, is a pretty good way to stay alive and pass on your genes. But comfort is such a creeping thing and if you really want to keep expanding the zone in which you can function, you can’t just do some difficult thing and then call it good. Because over time, a pretty short period of time considering, the thing that you did that made you uncomfortable becomes quite comfortable as your skill improves.

A pretty comfortable camp on glacial debris

The first time I paddled my sea kayak on the open sea I was modestly fearful. Keep doing that for a few months or a year, and soon you have to go out of your way to find conditions that will introduce the same level of fear. And that is actually hard to do, because you’ve got comfortable.

Enjoying some quality comfort, pulling a sled and carrying a pack

The best illustration of this comes at the end of the podcast where the host (Peter Attia) and the book author (Michael Easter) are talking about rucking. Rucking is the new fitness thing on the block but rucking is simply bush-walking, hiking, scrambling, walking to the grocery store and carrying your shopping home, things we’ve all been doing for most of our lives: walking about carrying extra weight. Again, I am not denigrating “rucking” but bro’ it ain’t new.

Betsy doing some old school rucking in the Rocky Mountains

The irony of the discussion (start at around 1:54), the two podcasters talk about rucking and how you really should buy a particular pack specifically designed for rucking, because, when you drill down to the essence of this, a specific “ruck pack” makes rucking more comfortable.

A Problem To Be Solved

2022 has not been a great rock climbing year for me. A combination of factors: the rain (it’s raining again today), my age, two long multi-week sea kayak trips which necessitated a lot of kayak training in addition to the trips themselves, and then, the rain. Oh, and did I mention the rain?

In 2022, I never got back to the climbing peak I had at the end of 2021, and, unless the weather pattern changes significantly in the next little while, I can’t see that changing in the last couple of months of 2022.

At least as you get older, but for younger folks too, climbing is not a sport you can pick up, drop, and then return to your previous level without a bit of work; or even a lot of work for senior climbers. In addition to being a highly skill based sport, there is a requirement for strength, power, flexibility and mobility (flexibility and mobility are not the same).

We got out climbing yesterday for the first time in about nine weeks (not strictly true we went bouldering the day before that) and, of course, I expected to suck. Nine weeks of mostly catabolic endurance work is hardly offset by a couple of strength training sessions per week.

I guess when you aim low, you get to be pleasantly surprised, but I did not suck.