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1000 Feet of Courage: Conquering The Tallest Waterfall Climb in New Zealand or the World

Sometimes, the challenge was as mental as physical, but the view was worth it.

Charles Black M.D.
Globetrotters
9 min readJan 16, 2025

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Wildwire outside Wanaka, New Zealand. The world's tallest cable-supported waterfall climb in the work. Photo courtesy of Chuck Black Photography.

Imagine climbing to the top of the Empire State Building. I don’t mean taking the elevator to the top of a building so large it has its own zip code. Nor do I suggest walking up all 1,872 stairs to the 102nd floor.

Imagine climbing the outside of the tallest building in the world for four decades — over 1,000 vertical feet up with nothing but a very long drop beneath you. By climbing a waterfall in New Zealand, we performed the equivalent of scaling the outside of the Empire State Building.

Wildwire Wanaka bills itself as the world’s highest waterfall cable climb, and hearing that, we knew we had to “give it a go,” as they say down here.

Twin Falls drops 1,500ft or the lenght of four and a half football fields. Photo courtesy of Chuck Black Photography.

The tallest waterfall cable climb in the world is located a twenty-minute drive outside of Wanaka, on the South Island of New Zealand. Ascending the vertical surface of a free-falling waterfall offers a unique opportunity to experience a breathtaking view of Twin Falls, the Southern Alps…

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Globetrotters
Globetrotters

Published in Globetrotters

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Charles Black M.D.
Charles Black M.D.

Written by Charles Black M.D.

Dr. Charles Black is a general surgeon, author, photographer, outdoorsman, world traveler and fireside philosopher. Website:https://chuckbphilosophy.com

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