Fortress Canyon

Perfect, cloudless weather on Monday after a weekend of storms, so it felt good to cruise down the empty westbound carriageway of the motorway to the Blue Mountains watching all the people on the other side heading to work at 5 kmh.  Fortress Creek was the choice – another easy canyon to match my complete lack of fitness.

The new access path dropped us into the canyon right where we had to put on wetsuits, and immediately there is an unavoidable one-metre drop into a swim. A bit of a walk to the 2nd section of canyon where – as before – I tried to turn a 2m jump into a climbdown and – as before – failed completely. A sprained finger was the reward.  Some long swims through to the one abseil of the canyon, and then some rock-hopping to get to the slippery end platform where the stream goes over the edge and drops 150m straight down.

The walkout starts with a steep slog back up to the ridge top and then an easy walk through the open heath.  At one point we could see all the way to the Sydney skyscrapers 82km away.  Back to the car 4.5 hours after setting off, having seen no one else all day.  An excellent day and a much more interesting canyon than I remembered from the last time through back in Nov 2009.