Waikoko Canyon, Kaimanawa Foothills

Our little group of three arrived just before lunch to the road end in glorious sunshine. Only a short drive from the Desert Rd, the area has several promising feeder streams that lead into the death trap of the main Tongarirro River Gorge. The real trick was to ensure that we’d have a viable way to get out of the watercourse before it tumbled us into the Tongarirro and its associated death hydraulics..

Scouting around from the Rd bridge and the exit point, we spied an easy out on canyon right, so it was game on!

Whilst Steve had done some ‘kloofing’ in South Africa, this was to be Andrea’s first canyon experience. We’d spent several hours the previous evening at the abseil wall practicing rappelling systems and methods to ensure we were all on the same page. Both my partners are experienced rock climbers and picked up the Canyoning specific rope techniques very quickly.

As we waddled down the 50m from the car to the river, a gentleman and his daughter sidled over with raised eyebrows.. “You guys going Canyoning?” he asked… Instantly he had my attention. Turns out this gentleman (whose name I forget) had done a number of the gorges in the area and was just scouting the entrance to Waikoko. I told him all about Kiwi Canyons and he’s hopefully going to be able to share his knowledge with us in the near future.

The stream had sufficiently low volume that I was feeling happy about the descent. We had a bag full of pitons, nuts, mallions, ibis hooks, sling plus 3 ropes. The plan was to always have an escape, weather it was upstream via prussik or sideways via a gully or climbable cliff. If we couldn’t keep our escape, we’d bail and come in from the bottom and then the sides until all the obstacles could be scouted and evaluated.

Immeadiately the stream enters the soft volcanic canyon. We downclimbed a 3m fall which could have been jumped safely. Only 40m or so further through the 4m wide and 10m deep canyon we arrived at the first major obstacle.

I used a massive wedged tree about 15m back from the lip to set up a self belay to check out the falls. Having heard that this might have once been done commercially, I scanned around for an anchor. Finding none, I set about building one at the lip.

One knifeblade piton was driven home quickly at chest height on canyon left, whilst I struggled to find a second point for the anchor. There was a nice stopper crack, but the stoppers I’d brought along were just too large for it. In the end, I set up the self belay line as a back up to the piton anchor. I’d get Steve and Andrea to clip into the self belay, make their way to the lip and rappel on the set up. If the piton held both of them safely, I’d remove the safety and rap on the piton.. If not, then I’d sling the big wedged tree and recover the piton.

The fall was quite powerful, and the geometry of the chute/lip didn’t give you any chance to rappel out of the fall line. Steve was confident in the Contingency anchor system we’d practiced the night before, so showed little hesitation going over the edge. He completely disappeared from view in the falls, and I was just about to break the munter-mule to lower him when I felt the line go slack. Soon he came into view, swimming out and giving me the I’m ok signal..

As pre arranged, Steve began scouting down canyon to check out escapes. He quickly found one about 50m down stream on Canyon right, so I called Andrea up to the anchor. She looked a bit worried as she edged her way to the lip. I told her that the flow is going to be scary and directed right in her face for the first little bit; the best way is to take a deep breath and go quickly…

She took my advice to the nth degree and literally threw herself off the fall.. Did the trick though, she was down in only a few seconds.

Well, if the piton can withstand that abuse, it should be sweet for me rappelling carefully….

Downstream of the 15m fall, the canyon momentarily opened up before restricting again.

There were no further obstacles in the canyon and before we knew it we were at the pre-scouted canyon right escape point. We edged over to peer into the main gorge and shuddered.. Any slip or fall here would be either ultimately terrifying or fatal…

The escape was easy to make, but we concentrated till we were safe. Strolling down on the volcanic formation of the Tongarirro on canyon right, all that remained was a 5m jump from a ledge into a massive and incredibly deep pool before swimming and exiting canyon left.

It took us 3 hours car to car, but would probably be closer to 2 hours on subsequent descents.