Standley Chasm

Standley Chasm is perhaps the most impressive gorge in the Macdonnell Ranges. The quartzite walls of the chasm, almost 100m high, are only a few meters apart, so that only when the sun is directly overhead at midday do its rays reach the bottom of the gorge, bathing its walls in a red glow. A track lined by cycads (palm ferns) and river gums runs along the dry bed of the Hugh River, which has created the chasm by eroding an intrusion of softer rock between the hard quartzite on either side, into the narrow cleft.

The chasm is named after Ida Standley, the first schoolmistress in Alice Springs, who taught Aboriginal children in Jay Creek. Before the area was returned to the Aborigines it was part of a huge cattle station.