Gloomy Gorge!!! Mar 9-10

 

Gloomy Gorge is without a doubt one of the most awe inspiring and terrifying places I have ever had the joy of escaping from. For a couple years now it has been a dream of mine to enter it. For others it has been a dream for almost 15 years. I had thought it was one of those unobtainable dreams worth aspiring to, but not to expect to actually achieve. On top of that, I would have never imagined the situation would arise where I would be fortunate enough to be a part of the first full descent of Gloomy Gorge, currently New Zealand's highest volume and most committing canyon.

About a year ago I scouted the canyon from the bottom with Alain during exceptionally low flow. We climbed up the canyon as far as we could, carefully examining the hydraulics and other obstacles to try and get a sense of what the canyon was like and what it would take to successfully descend the canyon. We gained only about 60m elevation and 200m laterally to a 18m waterfall that roared out of a 2.5m wide slot canyon. This meant the remaining unexplored canyon dropped over 300m in about 600m of canyon...All we found in the very bottom of the canyon was large boulders, smooth bedrock and frothy whitewater. The absence of logs meant that finding anchors would probably be a significant issue. Our imagination ran wild with the possibilities: boulder sieves, sumps, inescapable pour-offs and eddies, nasty hydraulics, 100m waterfalls...all of these were possible if not likely and would mean bad news for an ill-prepared first descent. Not to mention the enormous glacier-fed catchment and the possibility of massive afternoon flood pulses as the sun hit the glacier.

        Just above the start

        First abseil. The point of no return...

A team of almost a dozen experienced French canyoners based themselves in the Makarora area to do first descents of canyons. After almost two weeks scouting and descending mostly low flow canyons that the Kiwis had not bothered with, they decided to up their game and give Gloomy Gorge a go. They were incredibly lucky to time their visit with one of the driest summers on record in the region. They were also probably the best equipped group of canyoners to step foot in New Zealand. If anyone could do it, it would be them, then. I was involved with the finishing touches of my PhD thesis, but waited anxiously for word of their progress. They spent five days tackling the canyon in stretches- fixing a rope above and below a section of canyon so that they had an entry and escape. In this fashion they cracked the canyon, piece by piece. In some cases one team would throw a guide rope to another team. However in the end they ran out of time and no one had made a full descent of the canyon. I tried to contain my excitement when I heard this- most of the hard work had been done, but the first descent was still up for grabs! Alain (who had been on the French team's trips and knew the canyon better than anyone) and Annette (super experienced former canyoning guide) were both keen to have a go at the first descent the following weekend if they could find a strong team of four. I enthusiastically threw my hand up at this once in a life opportunity and volunteered Neil as our fourth person. This would be Neil's third canyon...but I knew he was a strong caver with a background in whitewater kayaking, and besides, Alain said that caving skills would be more important than canyoning skills with this canyon due to the complex ropework required. Alain was cryptic with the details of the canyon so I was left to my imagination wondering for the entire week proceeding the trip. No major weather occurred in the week leading up to the trip and the weather outlook seemed stable.

Neil and I met Annette and Alain in Wanaka and walked up the valley on Friday afternoon, unfortunately still in the heat of the day. To go light I opted out of a tent, which meant an early morning wake-up call by sandflies. In the morning we carefully packed our gear and began the hike up the steep, but good, French Ridge trail. Once out of the trees we bashed our way through the scrub, having to abseil into the river just above the start of the canyon. It certainly seemed like a lot of water. We got just a few minutes of sun as we suited up and headed into the canyon. A downclimb underneath boulders led to the first abseil through a frothing, raging mess of water. We then skirted around the corner and swam down a comparatively calm stretch of river for about a hundred meters. Despite the pool-like nature of this stretch, I could still feel the water propelling me downstream with considerable force. I exited up a large boulder to bypass a dark horizon line of a waterfall. Once I got on top of the boulder I peered over the edge- what I saw surprised me. This was La Perte (in French this is when a river plunges into a cave). And indeed this was an accurate description. The surging sheets of whitewater dropped 20m into a dark hole beneath a boulder roof that emitted a strong spray (below). We absolutely did not want to go in there, and spent quite a bit of time carefully rigging our way around the hole on ledges so that we could reach the false floor and abseil down the other side of it. We were only 100m into the canyon and this was already the most impressive feature I have ever seen in a canyon!

        La Perte

The following abseil was a stunning free-hanging drop into the narrow defiles of the canyon below the hole. From here we had to swim down the fast moving flow and carefully exit on the right side of the next waterfall pour-off. We had to shift our weight just right onto a key rock at the edge of the falls otherwise the force of the falls would suck us over. We would be doing several of these delicate maneuvers by the end of the trip. Although we always used a safety line or belay, the consequences of a f-up were still very real.

        Photo by Neil Silverwood

We passed several obstacles, generally trying to avoid the water as much as possible. The white noise of the water was deafening throughout the entire canyon and would mentally wear us down. The features were big and scary, the canyon, seemingly endless. Time wore on as Neil's altimeter showed we still had over a hundred meters to go. The water level was higher than when the French team was in the canyon, which meant we had to be extra careful. More belays and safety lines slowed us down. Progress was hard won- obstacle by obstacle. Alain made a daring swim across a boiling pool of water to set up a guided rappel for the rest of us to use. We stopped for lunch at about 4pm. I asked the question pressing on my mind and Alain calmly answered it- we were only about halfway through the canyon. I was satisfied with what I had seen. I wanted out.

        Crossing the river above a boulder sieve

        Photo by Neil Silverwood

We pressed on. Again obstacle by obstacle. We worked our way around and through. Of course the photos I managed to take do not even show the trickiest bits where I was preoccupied with survival instead of photography. One particularly memorable obstacle was the pool at the base of one of the biggest waterfalls in the canyon. We had to cross this carefully on a guideline. The force of the waves pummeled us and towered over us. If we came off the rope we would quickly get swept into a corner where the water endlessly recirculated- we would not be able to get out without someone throwing us a safety rope and pulling us out. Grimly, we began to look for bivy options, desperate places we could spend the night. Below this we carefully rock-hopped our way through the rapids and then ferried packs. We reached a spot above the river where the French cavers had formerly jumped into the flow of water and swam across a pool. Alain and I looked at this carefully before reaching the same conclusion- the water was higher and was probably unsafe. If we could not swim strong enough across the flow, it would carry us straight into an inescapable corner. We had to find another way. Alain led a bold traverse of over 30 meters to safely bypass this pool. This took considerable time. For two hours perhaps I hung off an anchor just 3 meters away from the loud white foamy death of the river, alone. The spray of the glacial waters was chilling and I fought off shivers. I was not hypothermic, but I did wonder how much longer that would take. I thought of where I wanted to be- in a warm, safe bed, but at this point I would take anything out in the land of the living. I was only hundreds of meters away from my sleeping bag, but I knew instinctively just how far away that was. I looked at the blades of grass growing out of a crack in the rock in front of me. I watched a spider the size of a pinhead scurry across the rock and into the crack. Life is amazing. I decided there were some places man was never intended to go, and that I was most certainly in one of them.

        A pool we had to cross...

        Photo by Neil Silverwood

And then it got dark...we all moved by headlamp. I periodically stared up at the beautiful stars beyond the narrow slit of sky overhead. There were even a few extreme glowworms eking out what I imagine is a grim living. Glowworms that no man should ever have to see.

Annette tragically dropped her headlamp into the water below and was moving by Neil's light beam. This could have been a real game changer for us but fortunately Alain had a spare headlamp which saved the day and allowed us to continue progress. The progress was painfully slow but psychologically necessary. I think it was a very good decision to keep moving. If we huddled on some grim ledge and waited all night the result would be that we would get little to no sleep, be hungry, cold and physically exhausted. We were still all those things but every step was progress and kept us warmer. The waters looked no less terrifying by headlamp and the noise no less deafening. We hoped the water would drop now that it was night and the glacier should not be melting- it did not seem to drop at all. Spray danced and raced past the lens of my light. Alain reassured us by listing the obstacles in front of us. I craved to get to the part of the canyon Alain and I had climbed up to before. From there it would be relatively straightforward and I would be in known territory for me.

Slowly we ticked down the obstacles until we were at that last waterfall I saw with Alain over a year ago. Once down I realized that, yes, the water was much higher than when we last were here. This meant the last bit of canyon would still take some time but I felt safe now, in terra cognita. I could see the faint light of dawn on the horizon. A few more obstacles and we were out! We stumbled out of the canyon and back to our camp just as the first golden light of day hit the peak of Mt Tyndall.  There was no overwhelming yelps of joy between us four, but rather a quiet calm as each of us prioritized our basic needs: Neil went right to sleep, Alain and Annette had a quick snack and crashed in their tent, I drank about 700mL of water, ate half of a dehydrated meal, and then crawled into my sleeping bag with a shirt carefully covering the opening so that I could breathe but keep the sandflies out.

We slept until early afternoon when we decided to pack and make the slow crawl of beaten men and woman back down the valley to the trailhead. I felt sick and weak. We must have been quite a sight. Some old trampers kindly offered us cups of tea and a bed in their hut but we refused. We wanted out. When I finally reached the car I had a weird feeling of time pass over me. Like I had just aged a year and was just now returning to my car. It was certainly a lot of life to feel in a very short amount of time.

 

My body acted strangely for the next several days and I am convinced it took me a full week to recover from the trip. What we thought would have taken us 8 hours ended up taking 20 hours straight. Drained but satisfied, Alain, Annette, Neil and I had successfully completed the first full descent of New Zealand's biggest canyon (although deserved credit goes to the French team before us). It was an incredible experience for me.

While I was in the canyon, all I wanted to do in the second half on the canyon was make it out alive. I wanted to drive straight back to Dunedin, call loved ones and live a boring life in my office for the next few days. But it is funny and disturbing how quickly these rational thoughts of self-preservation and comfort wear off. It only took a couple days out of the canyon to crave it again- its raw, pure, elemental beauty that thrills, terrifies and defines the very core of what exploration means to me. A trip I hope never to forget. Thanks to all those involved.

Photos/video by Nic Barth, Edited by Michael Barth
Song excerpted from "Last Known Surroundings" by Explosions in the Sky

Note that this descent was at the end of the driest summer the area has seen in something like 70 years. Also note that what you are seeing is generally from the least exciting bits (where I felt safe enough to video) and does not include anything from the last third of the canyon, which was dark at the time...

Gloomy Gorge (v6a6VI***):
Equipped by members of the French Aotearoa 2013 Expedition
February 26 - March 2, 2013

First full descent by Alain Rohr, Annette Phillips, Nic Barth, Neil Silverwood
March 9-10, 2013