Greenstone Expedition day 3, Witlof Canyon

Its 6:59 on day three of our greenstone expedition. That means it's only a couple of seconds before every alarm in the hut's dorm will go off at the same time, just shortly before 6 or 7 headlights will turn on at full brightness, so that everyone who's not planning on an early start will be woken anyway.

After that it's cooking water, brushing your teeth, pouring said water into freeze-dried breakfast bags, not stirring said bags properly, and shoving at least one spoonful of freeze-dried dust down my throat.

Great, now our day can begin.

We start with an ultralight hike to where we dropped our gear, then onto the next canyon, which doesn't have a name yet, but Pepijn scouted it with his girlfriend already, and says it looked promising. The only reason they didn't do it when they scouted it is because the water level was a bit too high for Britt's liking.

When we get to the last waterfall, smiles appear on everybody's face. The water level is not as high as we hoped it would be, but we're looking at a decent stream coming out of a very narrow gorge.

The last waterfall when Pepijn scouted it with Britt

During the approach, we barely get any chance to look into the canyon due to how enclosed it is, which is exactly what we are looking for.

The top of the canyon looks like it's in the middle of the jungle, with a possible 3m toboggan as a little cherry on top.

We decided to try a new strategy to go through our first descents faster today, which is to have as many of us as possible go down on a human or natural anchor with a human back-up, whilst one of the drillers is still making the anchor, and when the anchor is finished, the rest of us go down on the freshly drilled bolts.

Erwan and Pepijn are manning the drills, and we're moving faster down the canyon than many teams do on classics.

Some of the team members even noted not being able to look around and enjoy the scenery because they had to hurry too much, which is of course a shame, but also quite an accomplishment for a still quite new team on a first descent.

Erwan bolting the next pitch

After about 45 minutes and 5 or 6 drops later, I'm in the front with Pepijn and Erwan, as we come to a 7m drop at about a 45-degree angle, after which the canyon bends around a corner.

I set up a rappel on a dead tree barricading the gorge to let Pepijn go down and drill holes on rappel for the next drop, whilst Erwan is drilling holes for the anchor for this one.

While this is happening, Kevin comes down to us, cursing about a strained shoulder, so Lisa takes over his rope and pack to go down to Pepijn's anchor.

Kevin tells me it's a recurring injury, and we should be able to fix it with some taping and massaging back in Queenstown, it's just the hike back he's not really looking forward to, but that's a problem for a later moment.

After Lisa goes down, I clean up my anchor since Erwan is done drilling and building his, and I go down to enter a dark cave section in which the stream follows an S-bend, which we climb over in order to make this passage possible in high flow as well.

If you were to go down through the flow in the S-bend, putting on a headlight would not be too bad of an idea.

From here on it's continually enclosed drops up to 50 meters, including a potential 15 m slide I would've loved to commit to, had it been possible to communicate the possiblity from down below.

When we got to the bottom of the canyon, everyone was delighted to find such a beauty on the first trip of the expedition.

Since the weather report for the day after was rapidly changing, we held a vote on whether to stay another day to explore its neighboring canyon as well.

It's at this moment we (some of us) decided Witlof is fitting, since Erwan really wanted to go see his new sweetheart, and Pepijn scouted it with his, and witlof is a vegetable almost exclusively eaten in the Netherlands and Belgium.

Since not everybody agrees yet this name is still pending though ;-)

Erik on the last drop of Witlof Canyon

Sponsors

This expedition would not be possible without the support of our sponsors.

CE4Y (Canyoning Equipment For You)

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CanyonZone

CanyonZone is a Dutch company where canyoneers from all over the world can find their equipment, whether you're just starting out or looking for something very specific. Behind CanyonZone is Gert Jan: a canyoneer and speleologist with a huge passion for the sport. This is where canyoning comes together.

https://www.canyonzone.com/

Tebylon

Tebylon is a Taiwanese company specializing in the development of expedition gear for canyoneers. Their focus is on (ultra) lightweight bolts, which are essentially indispensable for missions like ours.

TEBYLON canyoning equipment - from canyoner, for canyoners

The Canyoning School

The canyoning school is what connects most of us. It’s the place where we come together, can use equipment, and where the foundation of this expedition team was built. They organize canyoning meetups, trips, and courses, ensuring that knowledge, experience, and people continue to connect, even far beyond the canyon.