Date: 23/5/2026
Trip leader: Murray Jones
Party: Terry, Miles, Ivan, Zack, Patrick, Emma, Arthur, Sultan
NOTE: The Eastern Ascent of Sublime Point is now impossible, due to a landslide that has turned the bottom section into a sheer 10m cliff.
Wentworth Falls to Gladstone Pass
11am on a rainy Sunday morning, our crew of 9 assembled at Wentworth Falls station. The first leg of our route headed down the paths alongside Jamison Creek, before setting a respectable pace along sections of the Undercliff Track, Overcliff Track, and the Grand Cliff Top walk around to Inspiration Point, where we stopped for lunch before cruising around Inspiration Point, chatting to a friendly neighbourhood Lyrebird, then heading down to the top of Gladstone Pass, where the real hike began!
Gladstone Pass:
The descent down Gladstone Pass is rated ‘Grade 5’, and — unlike some trips where that gets bandied about (cough cough Lyrebird Gully) — actually deserves it. It’s a steep, slippery decent into the bowels of the Jamison Valley — and it is TONS of fun!
As I told everyone who came along on this trip, anything harder than this is either climbing or canyoning, and Gladstone Pass scratches the edges of both.
There are a few solid scrambles — most with handlines, but a few without — and a segment along the edge of a ~1m wide ledge beside a 30m or so drop into a canyon (handline present but slightly rotting) — which counts as for-the-bold.
Navigation here is also nontrivial, as the path diverges to several rather fun-looking rock-climbing routes along the walls of the gully. The main track is well marked with the odd red ribbon for those who know what they’re looking for, but a solo beginner could easily follow a climber’s top-path straight off a cliff in this part of the world.
For a reasonably experienced group, however, this is easily one of the most fun hiking routes that the Blue Mountains has to offer!
Lindeman Pass:
The base of Gladstone Pass bottoms out onto Lindeman Pass, the main route that runs around the base of the cliff line all the way from Wentworth Falls to Katoomba.
Lindeman Pass turned out to be in a rather neglected state. Closures due to some major landslides further to the west have caused it to see very little foot traffic, and the trail has become quite overgrown with wait-a-while vines, fallen trees, and so forth. The local leech population is, however, alive and well.
We’d only planned to follow this route for a kilometre or so, to the base of Sublime Point’s Eastern Ascent, which branches off at the last creek crossing before Lindeman Pass routes Southward along Sublime Point.
Now, turns out that on a rainy afternoon, Lindeman Pass features quite a few more creek crossings than the map might depict, so, after a short diversion up a beautiful but irrelevant gully, we made it to the base of Eastern at about 4pm.
… and it was completely destroyed.
The aforementioned final creek crossing had seen a relatively recent landslide, perhaps a few weeks to a month prior, which has turned the base of Eastern Ascent into a sheer 10 meter cliff. The ledge that was once used to cross the stream is now gone entirely.
After a spot of exploratory climbing, the higher sections of the Eastern Route were located, however, the bottom 10 meters or so where it joins Lindeman Pass is simply inaccessible.
Since we had a group of primarily non-climbers, we continued along Lindeman Pass to ascend the rather easier (Grade 4) nose route up Sublime Point.
Our explorations at this point had taken some time, so, in the interest of ascending Sublime Point in the daylight, we set a pretty fast pace along the remaining kilometer or so of Lindeman Pass.
Unfortunately, this faster pace was, perhaps, too fast for one member of our group — who had chosen not to believe me when I said this hike was probably the most technically challenging route in the Blue Mountains, short of either climbing or Canyoning — and so, with a jug of orange juice for hydration and an impressive determination to match the pace of our otherwise very capable group — he acquired a level of fatigue, and stumbled hard on an otherwise unassuming part of Lindeman Pass, smashing his right kneecap on a rock.
Fortunately, not broken, but painful, bruised, and perhaps some tendon damage. We continued on at a much slower pace, and reached the base of the Nose Route up Sublime Point a little before sunset.
Sublime Point: Nose Route to Copeland Pass
The Nose Route up Sublime Point is, much as the notes describe, a relatively straightforward Grade 4 ascent. The hand-lines are in good condition and well placed, the route is easy to find, and many of the more challenging climbs have now been fitted with metal rungs so as to be little more challenging than a ladder.
Our ascent was slow — with Sultan and myself helping he-with-the-bungled-kneecap up anything less trivial than a stair, and Terry leading the rest of the group up ahead.
As darkness fell, we quickly found out who had followed my instruction to bring a head torch — which was all but one of the crew — so I donated mine and hiked along in the ambient darkness. It was, in fact, quite sublime.
As we continued up Sublime point, the mist settled into fog, and a gentle rain began.
With about 70 meters of ascent to go, a clumsy scramble saw the second kneecap smashed equally hard on a rock, which left us all out of spare kneecaps.
We pressed on regardless.
Sublime Point to Leura:
By the time we reached the summit, it was late, raining, and the crew had been waiting a while.
The kneecaps got a round of applause, and Terry organised Ubers back to Wentworth Falls.
Sultan, Miles, and I, being less than inclined to vehicular travel, and just a tad jumpy after the slow pace up Sublime Point, opted to hike it to Leura instead, and set off down the trails past Siloam Pool at a borderline run.
TL;DR:
Brilliant hike, beautiful part of the world. One of the most fun routes that the Blue Mountains has to offer, for those with the experience to take it on. There’s an art to estimating your own ability.
When a trip leader says bring a head torch, expect that you’ll need to use it. When a trip leader says bring four litres of water, rocking up with a litre of orange juice is not it. And when I’m saying this is, despite it’s short length, one of the most technically challenging hikes in the blue mountains — grade 6 on a scale that goes to 5 — kindly avoid rocking up with a fear of heights and expectations of Lyrebird Gully++.
Written by Murray Jones.
