This canyon was a first descent project from the fearless Frenchman canyoning guide Ben Buchy, whom I worked with at Queenstown Canyoning. It was a project that had been on his mind for over a year with many months of scouting and planning. Located several miles up the Dart Valley, it required several team members and three separate trips over several weeks to open the lower, middle, and upper sections.
For one of the days we took a jet boat up the Dart River for the approach and then clipped all our bags together and floated back down the river as our exit. Sounded better in theory than practice. It was quite bumpy.
The most memorable section was the upper. We got to the parking lot at 11pm, and had about a 6-7 hour approach to the top of the canyon. It was quite tiring. It was probably this tiredness that made me roll and break my ankle after the entry rappel. Whoops! Great timing! Only way is down. So Ben helped me put on an ankle brace and took a strong pain killer and we made our way down a banger of a first descent, me with a broken ankle. Big water, big walls, big rappels. Bedford was a beast and a beauty. But we eventually got out of the canyon and flipped on the emergency beacon. Ben went ahead to call and around 10pm at night as we were making our way down the mountain, a helicopter came and hoisted me out of there.
Spent a night in the hospital after being heli-vacced for over an hour, only a hairline fracture so no surgery, got placed in cast for a couple months and then a little PT, all for a grand total of $0. Gotta love NZ’s healthcare system.
All in all it was a pleasure to be a part of this project, despite doing a stupid oopsie on the last part of it. Thankful that I was with knowledgeable and helpful friends. So unique to experience these wild places and venture into areas never explored by another person.
Gus (who sadly passed early 2024) wrote a 3-part series of the descent that was published in Action Asia Magazine (a copy of which I randomly came across on my Great Barrier Reef liveaboard months later). You can read his account (and see much better photos) here
