When I first moved to Vietnam, one of the first places I went was an amusement park on top of a nearby mountain. The amusement park was fine, and it was fun to go to because you had to take a cable car to get up to it. And while the park is fun, I was always drawn to what appears just beneath it as you leave the station- a 30′ falls cutting into the bedrock, with a dark, foreboding narrows hidden in the jungle above it. Interested, I looked at it on Google Earth for hours, and wondered just what lay in the crack in the earth upstream, and told myself one day I would find out.
waterfall taken from the Ba Na Hills cable car July 2012
Fast forward to earlier this year, when I received an email from a friendly guy from the canyoning community who was living in Laos for a spell helping with a ropes course for a tourist resort, telling me he and his girlfriend would be in my neighborhood soon and was wondering if there was any canyons worth checking out. Eventually, over many emails, plans came together and in time they appeared in Da Nang and we set out to get it done!
Thanks to my scouting, I was able to find a route into our canyon via some logging roads. So, we parked at the amusement park base, with free, covered, safe parking and started hiking. A quick 50 minute hike of about 2 kilometers got us to a road about 30 meters above the river. We dropped down and thrashed through the bush, fighting with banana trees and bamboo and something kinda like bamboo until we hit the water.
our canyon and our road in, from the hike – JJ Damin photo
hiking in on logging roads – JJ Damin photo
in the middle of our bushwhacking section – JJ Damin photo
The canyon turned out to be a real gem. We weren’t sure of rappels or not, so we brought a 60 m rope, about 100′ of webbing, and the basic rack of gear in case we needed to do something. In the end, we were able to downclimb everything. There were numerous pools, and numerous places to jump in. A few small waterfalls to play in, some slides to play on, and lots of fun to be had. I brought a cheap innertube and my kayaking pfd and was happier than a pig in the mud.
innertube champion – JJ Damin photo
The canyon started flat, but soon we got to the first bedrock section, where there was a nice section of pools between drops. We stopped and swam a bit. The canyon flattened back out a bit before dropping into another bedrock section with some more large pools. This one had a bit more gradient to it, including some small falls and cascades we downclimbed just fine. The crux (and also highlight) of the canyon was a beautiful chamber that was guarded by a small cascade above and below, that was separated (also by a cascade) into two huge, deep pools between vertical rock walls, with jungle towering overhead. Below here there was some more small cascades, and then a bypass and jump around the aforementioned waterfall, and we were out!! I’ll let the pics do the rest of the talking.
early on
one of many jumps – JJ Damin photo
another jump
jj in a mini mini slot
one of the more fun slides – JJ Damin photo
katie playing in the curtain falls – JJ Damin photo
me behind the curtain falls – JJ Damin photo
a small falls leading into the crux – JJ Damin photo
looking down into one of the big pools
me floating through the magic chamber – JJ Damin photo
katie thoroughly enjoying the magic chamber – JJ Damin photo
looking back up the narrows
katie and jj enjoying the side creek that comes cascading down on one side
katie enjoying the slides – JJ Damin photo
one last pool above the big drop – JJ Damin photo
the big guy, “Thac Coi” is the local name – JJ Damin photo
katie jumping to bypass the big one – JJ Damin photo
In total we figured the canyon was about a kilometer and a half long, or about 3/4 of a mile. Short, but with all the downclimbing and swimming it is more than enough for a day. We were motivated to get through before some late afternoon thunderstorms popped up, and we made it in just under 5 hours bike to bike. If you are in the neighborhood of Da Nang, Vietnam, and want to check this out, give me a shout. It’s not that easy to find but I would be more than happy to show you where to go, or take you in. Big thanks to JJ and Katie for their willingness to get this done and for sharing pics!
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Mountaineer
Thanks for sharing and posting these pics. Neat to see.
yetigonecrazy
Thanks for the kind words! My wife had long term plans to teach over here; we moved over in 2011 and lived here for nearly two years, then moved back to CO for a year, and now we are back for at least two more years. She’s got her same kickass job and I’ve found some good low-key teaching gigs as well as a result of the huge demand for English right now.
It’s a staggeringly beautiful country, despite many people inadvertently helping to wreck it. But for all they try, there are still lots of amazing things to see and do. The food is amazing and 99.9%of the people are incredibly friendly. Really it’s just a good time to be in a good place! I’ve got a couple more routes eyeballed and just need to get them done, so with the dry(er) season on us it’s time to do it!
Ram
Wonderful stuff. Thanks for sharing. Way to find your adventure. What brings you there?