Much of the Blue Mountains is characterised by a flat sandstone plain at around 900m dissected by occasional rivers. These rivers have slowly eroded the soft sandstone down to around the 400m level. The sandstone forms a talus slope of roughly 45 degrees as the porous sandstone on the plain is weighed down by periodically by precipitation and crumbles. This has happened of the millennia and these talus slopes are heavily vegetated. Above the talus slope a vertical cliff of sandstone bands can often be found - these cliffs range from non-existent to towering around 200m above the talus slope. Overhangs and caves are frequent as different bands of geologic feature erode at different rates.

These cliffs are a challenge to climbers, walkers, abseilers and photographers. The frequent fault lines eroded by wind and water can form deep slots very occasionally provide a passage from the plain to the talus and river below. However, far more frequent is a slot terminated by a long drop and sometimes waterfall into the valley.

So the discovery of a slot that ‘goes’ is a find worthy of mention. And more unusual is a parallel slot - one that runs parallel with the cliff that it is breaching. One such parallel slot is Miracle Slot - it’s in the centre of aerial shot pointing just West of North. A finger of partially detached sandstone forms the Western side.

Looking back up the slot.

Over the years it’s filled with rubble and a few fallen branches. And today it forms a perfect slope from the top of the cliff to an easy ledge around 50m below. Although not quite perfect enough to take your granny down, adventurous kids could negotiate it with care.  At around a metre wide for most of its’ length it has little exposure.

The dead she-oak branches mark the entry to the slot.

The final couple of meters to the easy ledge is over rock (not rubble) and is slightly steeper, but still nothing with exposure. Over fifty metres of descent in little over 50m down one of the easiest slots into Carne Creek is worth a mention.

The remainder of the descent to the creek would be mostly on almost impenetrable steep talus slope.

The view across Carne Creek shows the the height of the cliff and other possible routes into the valley.