Crystal Creek and bottom falls

Crystal Creek and bottom falls 24^th January 2016

The natives were restless or there was lot of Christmas pudding to be worn off, good weather forecast and very little recent rain, so two walks were organised for Sunday 24^th January. One walk would be easy, the other an ‘exploratory difficult’ walk into the unknown.

For some time some of us have been eying off getting to the bottom of Crystal Creek falls and exploring the creek below, half hearted attempts proving futile with steep cliffs and or thick jungle barring the way. Last late year a group of men abseiled down the falls into the creek below, explored downstream along the creek until blocked by a gorge. Silly us ole bushwalkers, we thought we could do better !

Saturday night sitting around a camp fire we even cut back on the port rations, ready for a big day. Kinda discussed plans a bit, maybe we can get to junction of Gold creek tomorrow. See what terrain we stumble into. A misty Sunday dawned in Paluma, and with eagerness two intrepid explorers set off into the unknown. An ominous start, a tree had fallen over Paluma Ewan road, nothing a quick chainsaw could not fix.

Starting at Paluma dam at 8 am, standard hike along the track towards Crystal Falls. At junction with the Paluma track, head down that track over False Creek to ridgeline between it and Stinky Creek. Let the fun begin. Leaving the track we head easterly along a forested ridgeline, easy going, and the ridgeline starts to descend gently to the junction of False and Stinky creeks. Near here the jungle gets thicker so jungle bushbashing required. Wilfred asks about the GPS – ‘I didn’t bring it’ I reply. ‘How will we know where we have been and how far we travelled?’ ‘Not important’ I reply. Cross Stinky creek and walk along creek bank on slippery rocks, slow going, in some spots foot and hand holds were tenuous in slippery conditions. Surely one of us will end up in the water I thought. Creek very mossy and nice looking.

After an hour the creek gets bouldery and rougher, and starts to have drop offs with many small cascades. This area is bit more open and rocks drier, so bit easier. Then we get to steep drops offs that we cannot negotiate due to the drop or wet rocks below, so thick jungle bashing for a bit. Back to the creek, it drops a lot now, but we can see open sky ahead so must be close. More clambering and we are at the bottom of Crystal Falls at 11:45 am, in a large boulder field with the bottom falls towering above, a grand sight. We cannot see the top tier falls. The bottom falls are a longer drop than the top tier. What takes 20 minutes on the track to top falls, has taken us similar distance 2.5 hrs along Stinky creek. Us ole blokes must be slow uh !

Decide time for a snack break. This turns into a lunch break.  We gaze up at the falls, and decide in drier conditions that climbing the right side of the bottom falls looks doable – albeit whether that gets us to the middle platform or there is a blockage up there we could not tell.  More future ideas fermenting.

Discuss what to do now, we decide we will explore downstream for an hour, then explore around the falls for an hour, then find an easier way home up a ridgeline. I confidently say ‘the creek will open up and be easy now with Stinky and Crystal joining, all be good’. I know my geography – not. Off we set, 50 metres we lasted – blocked by a gorge ! Gorge has T junction with sheer drops above and below, so we stand on an edge looking up, down, and along, forlornly. About 100 metres downstream past the gorge it appears to open up, but no way through this gorge for us. Discuss ideas, maybe roping down into the pool below and swim down a bit is the only way. Not today. We discuss one way is to try (another day, no time today) a different ridgeline south side of Stinky and by pass the gorge. Decide time to go home, we will be finished before the ‘easy’ day walkers though - or so we thought.

Let’s try a closer ridgeline up, has to be easier than the creek. We spy a potential ridgeline at junction of the creeks, and up we go. A thin steep razor ridgeline, crumbly loose surface, cannot trust any rocks (they crumble and or dislodge upon touch) and most trees are rotten, but a few sturdy saplings interspersed just enough for handholds, cutting and bashing through vines, ascending rapidly. This tests out the climbing fitness in humid conditions. Vines tripping our feet, a cautious ascent. I enthuse about great views of the waterfall as we go up, Wilfred is more intent on the climb up. ¾ up, we get to a cliff rockface, decide we should be able to get around the base of it then up – Wilfred says ‘stay where you are, I will check it’. Happily I do so, catching my breath. But bit concerned when I see Wilfred above me saying things like ‘this is scary’ !! I look around but there is no other option. Retreat is sounded. But Wilfred comes back to me a different way, I say ‘are you sure you want to come down there, that is not a good option?’ He replies ‘no choice, other way scary’. ‘um, you can’t see what is here though, this is not good either!’. ‘get out of the road in case I come down quick !’. Then ‘um, can you come up under me and see what foot holds there, can’t see from here’. So I move closer but suddenly he slides down the rock face to land wide eyed with a thump next me ! Ok – that worked. Now we try along the cliff face base in opposite direction towards the falls to see if can get to middle platform of falls. A towering cliff above us, then we are blocked by sheer drop. We have no choice, back down to the junction of the creeks, long way steeply below us.

I lead for a bit now, but miss the ridgeline we came up on, and we are on another one closer to the falls, which means crossing a landslide area. Delicate crossing of loose friable soil surface on a steeply sloping surface, sturdy small trees that can just be reached for support with a lot of stretching to reach across, make sure of foothold on the loose soil, we scramble back down to the bottom. Phew, that took a lot of time, hard yakka, about 2 hrs, to go nowhere. And it knackered me.

3 pm, next plan – scramble up Stinky Creek until it levels out, then find a easy ridgeline up there to avoid the upper wet slippery parts of the creek. 45 minutes clambering up the creek, we spy a potential ridgeline, and use that, nice easy steady climb though forest. Sky is overcast and sun not discernable through the forest canopy so using sun to navigate is useless. We discuss where we think west and north are, and decide keep climbing the ridge is good, it seemed to be north west heading ( we almost got the compass out, but decide to trust our judgement). We continue in the forest climbing and finally get to the Crystal falls track at 4:14 pm. That was a much easier way to use for future reference and avoids the wet slippery parts of the upper creek – plus over an hour quicker. Four minutes later we are at the junction of the Paluma - Crystal falls tracks.  Then it is the uphill track slog back to the dam – last thing we needed was uphill, even if on track ! Wilfred asks if I want to detour via the Rock Garden, to look at the newly concreted junction post – NO. ‘it can wait!’. He seems disappointed in my lack of enthusiasm to view his pride and joy. Arrive back at the dam at 5:40, where we were delayed by three groups of people asking what we had been doing – we looked a mess, and some had seen us go out at 8am so they were curious ‘where have you been?’. An opportunity to promote the club. Finally got away at 6:30 pm, back to Paluma for sticky buns and the best cup of piping hot tea I have ever had. It was a great day.

Discussed with Suzanne, Chris, Jennifer and Ian what the ‘easy’ walkers did, they had a good day – apparently Phil was a greyhound coming up the old H track, and Glenys behaved all day. Their route was down to Cloudy Creek, along to Ethel Falls, back over Paluma Ewan Rd down to Mine Creek and the Blue Gum circuit track. Very well attended with 14 walkers, including 6 visitors.

Well whilst a successful exploratory outing, we have unfinished business in Crystal Creek below the falls. It is rugged terrain, and more to explore. We have a few ideas for variations to try. That bucket list just keeps growing.