Climbers Rappelling down Empress Falls
Australia Travelog #28
Valley of the Waters, NSW - Fri, 29 Dec 2023, 11am
As we made our way back up the canyon past several waterfalls on the Valley of the Waters trail we saw an unusual sight: rock climbers rappelling down the face of Empress Falls!
At first we stopped and simply watched, thinking it might be just one daredevil. But then we saw there were a group of them, so I pulled out my phone to record video.
Link: Watch video on YouTube
After I recorded one video from the bottom I scrambled up around a knob halfway up the falls to get a better view. I got there just in time for the second climber's descent. Both are in the video above.
By the time we left the falls and climbed up around the ridge opposite it we saw that it wasn't just a few climbers but actually at least a dozen people coming out the narrow canyon above the falls. They had hiked down from the top of the canyon, not climbed up from the bottom (answering one questions we wondered about as we watched the first two climbers descend). Apparently there's an extreme outfitter that runs tour groups doing this.
Valley of the Waters, NSW - Fri, 29 Dec 2023, 11am
As we made our way back up the canyon past several waterfalls on the Valley of the Waters trail we saw an unusual sight: rock climbers rappelling down the face of Empress Falls!
At first we stopped and simply watched, thinking it might be just one daredevil. But then we saw there were a group of them, so I pulled out my phone to record video.
Click to viewLink: Watch video on YouTube
After I recorded one video from the bottom I scrambled up around a knob halfway up the falls to get a better view. I got there just in time for the second climber's descent. Both are in the video above.
By the time we left the falls and climbed up around the ridge opposite it we saw that it wasn't just a few climbers but actually at least a dozen people coming out the narrow canyon above the falls. They had hiked down from the top of the canyon, not climbed up from the bottom (answering one questions we wondered about as we watched the first two climbers descend). Apparently there's an extreme outfitter that runs tour groups doing this.