Trip to Mt Savage, Pinchgut Creek, Canoe Creek, Colo River, The Claw and Talon Ladder by S.T and the Bear
Following in the ways of Mark Allen’s ironman training technique of living in the Wild for a week with shaman Indians prior to his lead up to Hawaii (of which he won 6), last week I begun my build up to 6 Foot and TNF 100 in 2010 with a 3 day Wilderness expedition with Bear Grylls (not his real name) into the Wollemi NP.
Day 1: The trip begun with a walk down Canoe Creek from the Grassy Hill Fire trail onto the Colo river. We then found out that climbing up the vertical cliffs that characterise the Colo isn’t something that you attempt, albeit years ago I would of risked it. However as you get older, and I dare say wiser, you learn I believe to fear, or assess danger more appropriately. When I was 25 I would of attempted to climb a risky cliff, not now.
So, Bear and I took shoes off, and trudged downstream to find a bend in the Colo where we hoped enough relief in the contour lines would permit us to climb up Mt Savage. Apparently, according to David Noble (SUBW), the log book on the Summit of Mt Savage (now removed) only recorded approx 33 walkers having reached this peak since the 1960s’, and I now know why as the climb was a horrendous scramble on all fours up a small re-entrant.
Bam, we were up on the ridge with 4ks to the peak. Bear and I got the comms we were carrying out and took either side of the ridge as we individually scoured the sides for small caves that we were sure would unveil rare cave art.
Radio chat and banter followed as we searched and both called in coalition air strikes on each other’s position – “fire all available on bears position, over” and “repeat, repeat you are shelling my position, over” we were like kids with new CB radios annoying truckies.
Anyway, we found nothing. We then reached the summit and found a featureless camp site in the shrub with no views, by now we were down to 3 litres of water until we got down to a creek tomorrow. Bear then started the first formal lesson, how to make fire with 2 black boy stems, kangaroo poo and a shoe lace. We got smoke going and made the appropriate tools to do so, but no actual fire..... with where is my lighter? being the closing remark. Discussion then turned to stories of bears other life, very interesting stuff.
Day 2: Up at first light and downed brekky. I set off on Westerly bearing, Bear went due North with our RV being a notable creek Junction several Kms NW of our camp site..... whenever we got there. Again, we each found nothing, other than my first glimpse of the Tambo Creek system. Wow.
Upon reaching the RV, Bear was nowhere to be found and we were now out of line of sight - so radios were no use. OK, his not here, he can only be downstream looking for water, there is no point him walking up stream to me b/c this creek in bone motherless dry. 1hr later, I find Bear, shoes off, water bottles filled, resting for an hour, priceless.
As it was now over 30 degrees we found a cave and waited a few hours for it to cool. Hey that looks like a Yabbie in that rock pool? 6 BBQ’d yabbies later we were full, Bear telling me of the time he had to survive 4 days on nothing but catching yabbies in a dam.
At 2pm we charged back up Mt Savage to get our equipment, then turned around and headed off North East for the nights RV with a junction on Pinchgut Creek. Bam, we had water, heaps of food and a better spot to sleep, plus a fire to scare off the mossies. Bear hooked up his hammock in the trees; I curled up on the ground.
Day 3: Off downstream. Bam, we found some. A grinding pad on the creek very similar to many others I had seen. Locked it in the GPS position and we continued down an amazing creek with rock platforms, caves & dry water falls etc.
We then headed up Talons ladder (our name for it) and onto a limb called The Claw (our name for it too). An amazing climb up a direct route to another summit that places you almost directly 350m above the junction of Pinchgut Ck and the Colo. For sure this was the limb we would find the ancient rock art. Again, and you won’t believe this, nothing. After a common moment of dejection and photos high above the Colo we headed down for a swim 2hrs later in the river.
Time for the final climb up a nameless creek to the car. It was 2pm when we started this climb that ended up taking 2.5hrs to cover 3 or 4 ks all up hill. It was now over 35 degrees and we were in some fierce steep country with every sense focussing on the amount of energy spent vs water consumed divided by estimated time to go all raised to the power of 35 degrees. Anyway, someone’s great navigation (and lets forget earlier blunders) got us back precisely to the car to within in 100ms with 250mls of water left – well economised I thought.
Anyway, time to start training now.
