Gleniffer Canyon
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| | Raps:15, max ↨230ft
Red Tape: Shuttle:Required | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Best season: | When river is low
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-30.3324, 152.8925
-30.3191, 152.8620
-30.3579, 152.9135
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Weather forecast
Waterflow
Introduction
Glennifer is one of the top canyons in Australia. It is technically challenging and spectacular.
The canyon is highly technical with hanging anchors, multipoint traverse lines and redirects across flow. It require competence and experience with contemporary single rope canyoning techniques. The ropework is demanding. All party members must have experience and are comfortable in v5a4 to v6a5.
There are no exits. Any external rescue will take many, many hours.
The canyon experiences regular flooding that damages and washes out anchors. Parties should be ready to replace nuts, hangers, and entire bolts, and re-equip redirects.
Water level
205019 Never Never at Old Crossing - WaterNSW WaterInsights
- <30 ML/d: v5a4 low water volume
- >30 ML/d - <80 ML/d: v5a4 high water volume
- 80 - 150: v6a5
- >150 = Stay home
Below 50 ML, the canyon is a "straightforward" high-level canyon. Above this gets very demanding. Highest known descent is 150 ML.
The catchment is 18 km² in a high rainfall area which floods regularly. The river can flash-flood. The sheer volume of water that can flow through this canyon necessitates that you take a drill and bolts in case exisiting anchors have been damaged (and they have in the past!)
Historical notable flow rate (non-comprehensive):
- ~33,700 ML/d recorded on 18 March 2017
- ~26,800 ML/d recorded on 15 January 2024
- ~22,700 ML/d recorded on 7 March 2025
The 205019 Never Never at Old Crossing river gauge is located at -30.38407, 152.89031 approximately 9km downstream of Gleniffer Canyon. It is considered a very good proxy gauge for water conditions in Gleniffer.
Approach
A car shuffle is 95% required. It is highly recommended/obligatory to place the bottom car/s the night before to optimise your time on the canyoning day. Park the bottom car at the shuttle coordinates, marked on Google Maps as "Never Never Creek Rd.". Suitable for all vehicles. If you have a high-clearance 4WD, you can shorten the walkout a bit by getting as far as you can to -30.34602, 152.90817 (the true closest road to the river walkout; roads not shown on any map).
It is possible to do the canyon without a car shuffle, as per the trace below.
Walk-in: Follow the GPX down the ridge from Mount Moombil (some forest scrub, some trail). Find an unmarked National Parks road (Whitneys Trail) in the saddle with Mount Goobergooberyam. Skirt northwards around Mount Goobergooberyam on the road. After the river crossing preceded by a locked barrier, cut up right/east (light forest scub) to intersect with a firetrail. Follow the firetrail south. At the end of the firetrail traverse the east slopes of Mt GGY (forest bushy, lawyer vines) to pick up the ridge running south-east towards the canyon start (easy walking ridge, tape marked). Follow the ridge to the Never Never river, to come out just above the falls. Don't try to drop in to the river early as it's slower walking along the creek than the ridge.
Descent
Notice and warning, April 2026: There was a substantial rockfall in early 2026 on river left above R10 and R11 that dumped tons of scree onto the slope and into the river. The rockfall damaged the R9/10/11 sequence. Single bolts are in place as alternatives. These need to be doubled up. At this stage it is not advisable to descend in the flow from R9 unless you are fully equipped to rebolt some of R10 and R11.
The abseil table below is authoritative, as it is updated more recently than the topo diagram. The topo is slowly going out of date as the river and bolts change.
| Rap | M | L/R | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 5 | CL | Jump into pool or scramble down RL |
| R1 | 10 | CR | XX |
| R2 | 10m | CR | XX |
| R3 | 38m | CC | Double waterfall with two arms. To find anchor abseil onto the boulder outcrop in the centre of the flow. Bolt is Canyon centre on the floor towards the left of the boulder. Abseil goes down dry wall in between two waterfalls |
| R4 | 20m | CL | Double bolt anchor. Climb out from end of R3 pool on CL onto a high ledge to get to anchor. |
| R5b | 40m | CL | X-XX Use approach bolt CL. Anchor is lower down, don't climb up |
| R5a | 40m | CR | XX Abseil puts you in full flow |
| R6 | 30m | CR | X-X-XX Multipoint traverse. Abseil from R6 onto the traverse bolt for R7 |
| R7 | 50m | CR | X-XX Stay CR, do not swing into flow. Use the deviation CR at 35m to keep CR. Abseil onto the double bolts CR.
Note, April 2026: Deviation degraded, needs plate and carabiner. |
| R8 | 10m | CL | From the double bolts CR, set a traverse line CR to single bolt up high. In higher flow, may be better to stay on rope from R7 and pendulum across. Maybe. |
| R9 | 25m | CL | X-XX Up near river after platform. Traverse line or just reach. Abseil goes from chockstone down into nice slot - can get pretty pumpy. There is a redirect out far left past the anchor you can use in high flow. See alternate below if R9 is too much.
Note, April 2026: R9 Redirect bolt needs to be re-equipped. Note, April 2026: R10 and R11 are in unknown condition due to the rockfall and scree. If you have the gear to redo them entirely, go for it. Otherwise take the bypass noted below. |
| R10 | 25m | CR | Double bolt. Old carabiner stuck on anchor - make sure you don’t clip into it. Abseil includes a fixed redirect on CL with a permanent sling and carabiner - this redirect is absolutely essential in higher flow! As the bottom pool is now filled with scree, it is possible to ignore the redirect in lower flow, abseil down CR and duck under the waterfall to CL. |
| R11 | CL | Originally a X-X-XX Multipoint traverse along a small ledge. Rock fall has now heavily impacted this pitch and the bolts have been damaged/buried. Until this has been rectified it is recommended to take the R9/10/11 bypass route. When originally intact there was two options for where to abseil to: | |
| R11a | 35m | CL | Exit on CL on a big ledge. If you don’t use redirect bolts, you have to do a small climb in the corner to get up onto the ledge. Ledge has bolt for a guided rappel. |
| R11b | 70m | CL | Full pitch the whole way down in full flow. Very low flow only. If you do this full pitch, you skip R12 and R13. |
| R9/10/11 bypass CL: | |||
| R9-a | 30m? | CL | XX Before the R9 traverse, from the platform scramble up CL left 5m to a second platform. Bolts on the far side. Abseil onto the scree CL. |
| R10-a | 50m? | CL | XX Shuffle down to bolts CL adjacent to the chockstone. Use this to abseil the R11a pitch, to get to the bottom of R11a. |
| R12 | 8m | CL. | X |
| R13 | 30m | CL | X. No jump, pool is full of scree. Pool at the bottom is difficult to exit in high flow - exit on CR |
| R14/15 | Creek splits into two branches - two options (a or b) for how to get down | ||
| R14a | 10m | CR | Double bolts. Difficult to get to anchor in high flow - have to jump into pool on left and then wade / bridge across flow to get to anchor |
| R15a | 25m | CR | Double bolts. Abseil all the way to rocks at the bottom of waterfall. Bleed the rope as there is a very sharp rock-V just before the bottom that is hard to avoid. |
| R14b | 30m | CC | Scooch along rock ridge on butt, out to double bolted chain anchor. |
| R15b | 35m | CL. | Drop is very sharp - bleed rope. Stay right of the waterfall - descend down to boulders |
Exit
End of abseils, now we have slow boulder creek walking. Initially go CR, stick to edge of rainforest and in the rainforest on CR, eventually walking above the river cliffs CR. At a CR sidegully drop down to the river (short abseil). Now walk along river. Use the GPX to exit the river CL, walk through easy rainforest to get to a road.
Red tape
Beta sites
Trip reports and media
(Click through the picture)
UNSW Outdoor Club 2 Feb 2020, 28 ML, "semi sporty".
https://unswoc.org/wordpress/2020/02/04/trip-report-whitewater-canyoning-on-the-mid-north-coast/
Glenniffer at 55 ML (Facebook link), "Good water level for never having done the canyon, did most of the full flow anchors, didn't need any of the redirect bolts"
Glenniffer at 150 ML (Facebook link), "Highest known descent yet"
Gleniffer Canyon at 35 ML
Gleniffer Canyon at 15.5 ML
Re-opening Descent
Mitchell Stewart - March 29 2019
Ryan Hunter, Alex O'Connor Mason and myself made a full descent of Gleniffer Falls canyon on Wednesday the 20th of February, 2019. This canyon is intimidating and steep and features some of the best waterfall abseils in Australia. This trip is one of the top three outdoor experiences I've ever had in Australia. The slot in the lower part of the falls terrifying yet spectacular!! We saw almost no evidence of previous descents, indicating that the waterway has the potential to pick up large amounts of rock and log debris destroying any anchor systems put in place. This was evident by the large logs that were seen high up on a ledge in the first large pool system. Our party has been canyoning in many countries around the world and we are very experienced in high flow canyons. We recognised many signs of what this canyon is capable of in the wrong (wet...) conditions. It is not recommended to enter this canyon before, during, or after rain and without the ability to replace bolted anchors (hammer drill and bolting kit is required).
After the 3rd abseil... you are totally committed to the descent, so be aware that there are no escape routes and you must be confident in your experience and ability to commit to a full descent. 80m ropes are ESSENTIAL and we recommend taking three ropes... be WELL prepared for an overnight stay with space blankets and food. Btw utmost respect to Dicky Baker, Andy Robb, Brian Cork, and Dan for their efforts involved with this tremendous canyon.
Background
First descent in 1994