(unless otherwise credited)
Reconsidering canyoning ethics
Canyoning is my favourite outdoor pursuit. They’re exquisite places, canyons. But they’re also incredibly sensitive environments. And with more people—not just in Australia, but internationally—discovering canyoning’s rewards, it’s imperative—possibly now more than ever—that we revisit the discourse around how to canyon ethically, both in terms of environmental protection and personal safety.
But it’s not just the number of people canyoning that, for me, has brought to the fore the question of what’s considered ethical; on a personal level, a canyoning experience—while in a relatively remote part of the Blue Mountains—led me to re-evaluate the approach to canyoning that my wife and I take. At the time, we’d been canyoning regularly for a number of years, usually in more popular and easily accessible canyons, but gradually transitioning into more remote trips. This particular trip was to an infrequently visited canyon system, where—after making our own route to the canyon’s head—we were soon overlooking, from a ledge fifteen metres above, an upper constriction. In the interest of safety, we set up a bomber new sling with a rap ring off a sturdy tree, with a clear line down to the canyon floor. Sweet as! Down into the canyon we went, and we didn’t think any more of it.
Until later. Upon reflection, I wondered: Was that the best decision we could’ve made? Safe? Yes. Ethical? Probably not. The chances of another party—of which there’d probably only be a handful each year—finding that same tree and using the same anchor were slim. Yet we’d left a big lump of plastic and metal there just so we could feel safer abseiling. Was our personal safety more important than minimising our environmental footprint?
While canyoning definitions and experiences vary depending on context, in the area we most frequently visit—NSW’s Greater Blue Mountains—canyoning most often involves traversing narrow, deep and dark slot-like chasms, commonly
