Peter Barnes, 86, at the launch of The Living Rock in 2015

Growing old disgracefully... 

Peter Barnes 13.7.1929 — 4.8.2025

We didn’t regard ourselves as being the first to do anything but we were aware that people from earlier stages had done some adventurous stuff and we saw no reason why we shouldn’t do the same thing.

— Peter Barnes

PETER BYRON BARNES was a pioneer of climbing and climbing photography in Australia. Following his early exploration of Mount Barney as a teenager, over the next 70 years he became part of an influential and inspirational cohort of adventurers who made numerous memorable and first ascents in southeast Queensland and beyond. He leaves behind a legacy that few can match.

Peter was born in Southport but grew up in Applethorpe on the Granite Belt. His earliest outdoor experiences involved riding a horse to school and scrambling over the granite domes near his home, the area now known as Girraween. His initiation into more challenging objectives came when the 18-year-old was a student at the Slade School in Warwick. One of his fellow students, 17-year-old Jon Stephenson, told him how 12 months earlier — in 1947 — he had visited a place called Mount Barney. He had climbed to the summit in cloud and scrambled down to the saddle between North and Leaning Peaks which he described as a ‘frightening place’. When he suggested returning to the mountain during the Christmas holidays in 1948, Peter Barnes and one of their teachers at the school, Bevan Meredith (later Archbishop of Papua New Guinea), were willing participants. As Peter recalled:

It really started with Jon Stephenson. He’s to blame for everything… So when I was invited to go for a short walk from Wilson’s Peak to Mt Barney to have a look at this hunk of dirt, I thought: ‘That sounds like a darn good idea!’ It was a bit rugged — I’d fallen into a creek the first day. I only had very cheap wool socks, they had holes in them and I got blisters. Things were fairly bad. I didn’t have a rucksack — they weren’t invented in those days — we just had army haversacks slung one over each shoulder which were, of course, terribly, terribly uncomfortable. Jon Stephenson had a rucksack but we didn’t, so we really looked like a right trio of twits. That’s when it started, and since then, I went back to Barney two or three or four times a year and when I started at university in 1950, then the Glasshouses called, so I scrambled over those.

 

Peter Barnes (left) with Jon Stephenson in the late 1940s (Peter Barnes collection)

By 1952, Peter was studying dentistry at the University of Queensland while his school friend, Jon, was pursuing a career in geology. Peter was conveniently based in King’s College at Kangaroo Point and he and Jon soon established the first regular climbing routes on the main cliffs a short distance away. Through Jon, Peter was introduced to Geoff Goadby — who later introduced roped climbing techniques into the local climbing scene — and Raoul Mellish, later the director of the Queensland Art Gallery. Peter and Raoul made numerous climbing trips to the Glasshouses, starting a tradition of setting off fireworks from the top of Crookneck on Guy Fawkes Night (5 November). Peter reminisced: ‘Most of us were university students and being university students, if you could get out of doing what you should have been doing, it was quite good fun.’ Their passion for the heights at this time is exemplified in this entry from Peter’s diary in 1952:

Being a most glorious night and a full moon, Peter Marendy and I decided to ‘do’ Crooky. Just before we left at 8.00 pm, Tom Waters (who had never before climbed a mountain) decided to come too. Set off on T’s 100 [Triumph Tiger motorcycle] and made Glasshouse at 9.15 pm. Pulled up past Murphy’s and arrived at summit at 10.10 pm. Tom crossed the ledge [Salmon’s Leap] without any trouble or hesitation at all, both on the way up and down. Scene was as lovely as ever…Saw two paddy melons in the track before Murphy’s. Arrived back 12.45 am.

 

Peter Barnes and his Triumph Tiger 100 heading for Mount Barney circa 1952 (Peter Barnes collection)

Peter Barnes in the Glass House Mountains circa 1950 (Raoul Mellish collection)

Using rope back then was optional. They climbed in Hong Kong-made gym boots — a canvas boot with a couple of rubberised patches over each ankle with very spongy soles. When they felt it was necessary — with inexperienced climbers — they used a 20 metre hemp rope (‘a piece of string’ as Peter always referred to it), tying it around their waists for safety. One of the group would lead the climb with the old-fashioned adage, ‘the leader never falls’, ringing in their ears. Once at a stance, the leader would then bring the rest up the pitch. Peter recalled: ‘If it was just our group then we wouldn’t bother but if we were talking somebody who wanted to have a go, then we’d take a piece of string along just in case.’ He remembered introducing a number of dental and vet students to the delights of the east face of Tibrogargan, south Crookneck, and west Beerwah.

Following the second ascent of Beerwah's south face in 1953, (from left) 
Geoff Goadby, Peter Barnes, Alan Frost and Jon Stephenson (Peter Barnes collection)

In June 1953, Peter met up with Alan Frost who had arrived from Melbourne to undertake a course in Veterinary Science at UQ. The two were in adjoining rooms at the college and hit it off immediately with Alan — six years his junior — impressed by Peter’s climbing knowledge and his possession of a motor bike — a Triumph Tiger 100. It meant that access to the mountains was guaranteed. Thus began a long friendship that saw them climb to virtually every summit in southeast Queensland over the next few years multiple times, often by new or the most difficult routes. Peter recalled that their proximity to the Kangaroo Point Cliffs was a perfect training ground for the two young climbers:

We started top-roping, not in the way people top-rope nowadays. Top-roping for us was some twit up at the top, standing on a rock with the rope over his shoulder and some twit he couldn’t see with the rope tied around his waist with a bowline — a 1 1/2 inch (3.8 cm) hawser-laid manila rope — and if he fell, you had him. We started scrambling up and down the nursery cliffs and we did what we called the Big Buttress, what’s now called Cox’s Corner — I think it was probably about as early as 53–54 or so we used to just solo that, tear up and down. I remember on one occasion I got up to the top — there’s a little traverse just below the top — and I was inching along the traverse and a swarm of wasps hit my hand, the one I was hanging on with. And this was soloing it so it was a bit awkward.

 

Peter Barnes in action on the Kangaroo Point cliffs circa 1953 (Peter Barnes collection)

Summit of Mount Barney 1954 (front roe from left ) John Comino, Geoff Goadby, Alan Frost 
(back row) Felice Benuzzi and Peter Barnes (Peter Barnes collection)

Peter and Alan were fit and climbed very quickly, setting fast times for various routes around southeast Queensland. Their first new route was an ascent of the Pinnacle — the West Peak of Glennies Pulpit — in 1953. In November that year, they joined Jon Stephenson and Geoff Goadby for the second ascent of the South Face of Beerwah, a challenging multi-pitch route that has rarely been repeated. In May 1954, Peter with Jon, Alan, Geoff Goadby and Geoff Broadbent, climbed all of the Nimbin Peaks, including a first ascent of the Monk’s Cowl. With Jon leaving for London in July that year to complete his PhD on the geology of Mount Barney, the group of friends decided that a fitting farewell for him would be reaching the last unclimbed summit in southeast Queensland — Glennies Pulpit — which they did, with the four summiteers (Jon, Peter, Alan and Geoff) building a cairn on top using a huge quartz crystal they had discovered en route. 

In 1954, Peter met up with the new Italian vice-consul to Queensland, Felice Benuzzi — also a climber. Benuzzi had published a book, No Picnic on Mount Kenya, two years earlier, describing his internment in a POW camp in east Africa and his audacious escape with two companions to climb to the lower peak of Mount Kenya, Point Lenana. The trio then returned to their prison camp to the astonishment of their British captors. The group of Queensland climbers — Peter Barnes, John Comino, Alan Frost and Geoff Goadby — guided Benuzzi to the summit of Mount Barney via the spectacular Leaning Peak. Peter and Felice remained in contact for many years after the vice-consul returned to Italy in 1954. 

Throughout his years of exploring the heights in southeast Queensland, Peter insisted that he and his companions regarded themselves as climbers rather than bushwalkers. The Brisbane Bush Walkers (BBW) had formed in 1948 and catered for different interests. There were some climbers in the BBW (such as Neill Lamb) but most members were not comfortable on the heights. Peter recalled running into groups from the BBW when he and Alan were out on their own:

We often ran into them camped on the Logan River — that’s when we made an early start and went by — a huge group of them, all with tents (we just slept in sleeping bags on the ground) and they had their Kellogg’s Cornflake packets and things like that. We didn’t take the Brissy Bushies too seriously. Probably more than anything else, we regarded ourselves as tyro rockclimbers, very tyro rockclimbers, and more as miniature mountaineers. We didn’t use the word bushwalking. It was more like ‘Let’s go off and knock off a hill’!

In 1955, the BBW invited former Lakeland climbing guide, Bill Peascod, to Queensland to impart his knowledge of climbing techniques to a large and enthusiastic audience gathered at the Kangaroo Point cliffs one Saturday morning. Peter was impressed by the ‘strange-looking equipment’ Peascod showed them:

So then we bought some carabiners and we made our own piton hammers out of bricklayers’ hammers. And then, because Geoff Goadby could splice a rope together so well, we made ourselves a sling out of climbing rope…It started off that the only pitons we had were the ones that Geoff Goadby made — he’d cut them out of mild steel. We sort of went on from there. We knew there were better things available but we didn’t have much at our disposal. But the basic principle was: the leader doesn’t fall; the second is protected — and we didn’t climb anything above about Grade 10.

 

Peter Barnes leads out on the second nascent of the west Beerwah chimney in 1956 (Peter Barnes collection)

The following year, Alan and Peter claimed the 1st ascent of Pages Pinnacle near Springbrook. While crossing a creek, Peter dropped his trusty Leica camera into the water. Unperturbed, he dismantled it on the spot, leaving it on a rock to dry out while they finished their climb. In the same year, with Geoff Goadby, they made the second ascent of the West Beerwah chimney — Alan had made the first ascent of the route a few weeks earlier with an inexperienced dental student, as Peter recalled:

Alan Frost said it was the most frightening experience of his life so he reckoned it should be done properly and that the boys better go and give it another nudge. He and I and Geoff Goadby screamed up there one day and had a great time — [consults diary] 20 October 56…

In that same month, Peter and Alan set off on an audacious attempt to traverse all of the main peaks on Mount Barney, a feat that remains as big a challenge today as it was back in 1956. Peter recalled they actually planned to do the traverse as a two-day trip so were carrying heavy packs:

The big problem was that we’d bitten off too much to chew. We were unfit but it wasn’t because of after exams. The greatest problem of all was that there was a temperature inversion on and it was hot, it was humid and there wasn’t a breath of wind. We nearly died. So we got up over the top of the Isolated Peak—we went up the Eagles Ridge—and by the time we got there we looked over at the Leaning Peak because in those days we used to go up to what was called the Great Gash, the cleft. We started to go down towards it and we said, well this is just not good enough so we just turned right down the creek. We ran out of water and by the time we got to Barney Creek which was our first water, our tongues were swollen, we were thirsty and in a bad state so we got out our mugs, a mug of water, two teaspoons of salt; two or three of those—the most beautiful drink you’ve ever had in your life.

It wasn’t until 1964 that Alan Frost teamed up with Tim Cassidy and Barry Smith to complete the All Peaks’ circuit — in a single day! Since then, Alan has repeated it 11 times — three solo.

Early in 1958, Peter left Queensland for Papua New Guinea where he worked as a dentist until his return in 1975. During his time in PNG, he explored caves, climbed Mount Wilhelm (4509m) three times, Mount Giluwe (4537m) several times, and Mount Lalibu (3148m). He also climbed Mount Lamington (1680m) — an active volcano — three times before returning to Brisbane. Back in Queensland he took on senior roles with the South Brisbane Dental Hospital, lectured in oral surgery at his old alma mater, the University of Queensland, and was involved as a dental surgeon in the Head and Neck Cancer Clinic, based at the QE II Hospital until his retirement. But the mountains continued to call…

I didn’t touch rock or rope since I left Brisbane at the beginning of ’58 until my son was 8 or 9 and started taking him up places like Tibrogargan, Beerwah or Crooky at night, of course. Then I ran into some like-minded people who were geriatrics like me but who’d just done a rope climbing course at the South Brisbane TAFE. We were walking together at that stage and they’d just done this rope course and they started climbing with Rob Bray at Kangaroo Point Cliffs so I started getting back to that. So I started climbing almost every Saturday morning. I took them around to places in the Glasshouses they hadn’t been before and then Col Smithies said to me one day: ‘You’ve been up the chimney in the west of Beerwah, haven’t you?’ And I said: ‘Yes’. He said: ‘Would you like to take me up?’ He was in the process of writing his guide to the Glasshouses at that stage [mid-1980s] and I said ‘O yeah.’ So we went up the chimney on the west of Beerwah.

 

Jon Stephenson (left) and Peter Barnes in Townsville in 2010 (Peter Barnes collection)

Peter Barnes climbing at Frog Buttress in 2010 (Peter Barnes collection)

Throughout his life, he maintained his undying passion for the natural world and our place in it and once reflected:

I think if we separate ourselves from that environment, I think we are the loser… I get fairly touchy if I can’t get out into the hills. I don’t spend any time on the beach, I like to get out into the hills, into the rainforest, the waterfalls, the creeks. I like lying back and looking at the stars at night, looking at flowers and birds and animals—if possible, photographing them. I think that’s where I belong. I’m a country lad at heart and being forced into this urbanised suburban environment doesn’t suit me all that well. I can survive but I’m not all that happy. In order to be happy I have to get out into the bush.

He had a comparable passion for photography and always had a trusty Leica camera or equivalent with him on his climbing trips from the late 1940s. His collection of climbing photographs is a definitive documentary of climbing activity in 1950’s Queensland. Until the end, he persisted with film cameras and has amassed a remarkable photo library of high quality mountain imagery from his many excursions to remote regions around the world. This, coupled with his meticulous diary records, offers a unique insight into an era that shaped postwar climbing in Australia. He once observed: ‘… the aim of the exercise really was to wander over the top of something — go and sit on a high place and contemplate nature. Look at the clouds, listen to the wind, look at the wildlife and the flowers, and I always carried a camera.’

Despite Peter’s penchant for self-deprecating humour and understatement, his considerable achievements on the heights and his professional contributions to society speak for themselves. Frustrated by increasing ill health in recent years, he nevertheless managed to maintain a connection with the natural world with selfless support from his long time partner, Vivienne Taylor. As the ability to climb to the top of the highest point on the horizon became increasingly unattainable, just being able to observe the beauty of the wilderness that captured him for most of his life was some compensation. Peter’s climbing partner and friend, Alan Frost, recalls the lasting impact that Peter’s values had on him:

I certainly got from Peter Barnes a great joy and gained the insight of not just rushing up and climbing but looking around and looking at plants or objects or rock formations or whatever it was and to appreciate what the real world was. And I guess when you start doing that, it never leaves you really, does it?

 

The tyros: (from left) Peter Barnes, Geoff Goadby and Alan Frost in 2012 (Peter Barnes collection)

Like most of his peers, Peter Barnes always downplayed his role in the history of climbing but his achievements tell a different story. He was a very private person but helped to build pathways for those of us who were inspired by reading about his exploits — often in company with his good friend Alan Frost. Peter influenced a generation of new climbers — myself included — to explore the heights and to go where few others had gone before. We will forever be following in his footsteps and forever in his debt.

We were just interested in hills and in the Australian context we called them mountains and we used to just like getting out into the open air for a bit of physical activity, social intercourse and misbehaving ourselves. Growing old disgracefully…

— Peter Barnes

Another perspective on the Dyurrite/Mount Arapiles debate

 I’m sharing this commentary by climber Keith Bell who arguably has more credibility than most who have been involved in the current hysteria around the climbing restrictions at Dyurrite/Mount Arapiles. Keith’s observations mirror my own and I am sure many others whose voices have been drowned out by the shrill voices of those who claim to represent Australian climbers. They don’t represent me nor many of my contemporaries and I, like others, find their most recent appeals to the political fringe — a cohort of climate deniers, environmental vandals and obstructionists to First Nations legal rights — insulting and offensive. They assert a mistaken belief that climbers are somehow ‘special’ with rights of access that transcend Australian law. What arrogance! Here’s what Keith had to say…

The Arapiles Declaration

Some Thoughts

In recent years there has been a tendency to transpose the artificial and synthetic surroundings of the climbing gyms onto the living, natural rock. Associated with this process has been grid bolting and the widespread use of chalk on our beautifully hued rock. This process was always going to be eventually noticed by land managers, First Nations Peoples and others.

And so, enter the ban on Gariwerd by Parks Victoria, its literature on the matter always quickly referring to the detrimental effects on the rock and environment by the placing of Bolts and the use of Chalk.

How did climbers respond? We came up with all manner of excuses, reasons and deflections why we should keep on doing exactly what we were doing. We manned the parapet, threw grenades, fired the occasional mortar round but were blitzed by the heavy artillery that any government department is armed with.

It seemed to me we were represented by the ‘bolt and chalk’ brigade with a few other representatives who were rude, officious, and abrasive – and that is to their fellow climbers.

So along comes the ban on Dyuritte.

Same climbers, same representatives but at least they have been joined by more reasonable folk. Petitions, letters to Parliamentarians and papers, radio, TV, meetings - all the standard fare. 

Then they, ‘the ironclad committee’ come up with a real brain wave – the ultimate strike weapon.

Let’s go nuclear!

And who better to enlist in this endeavour, than the Federal LNP opposition. 

So now we have the Arapiles Declaration, they did not even have the decency and respect to use the First Nations name. Alarmingly, the climbers involved did not care to run it past their fellow climbers before proceeding down this path. 

On the two Facebook post that I have seen so far there has been great jubilation, back-slapping, congratulations and acceptance by fellow climbers.

But this is a toxic and radioactive document. While Arapiles is mentioned the wide-ranging ambit of this manifesto is to neuter, reject or repeal Mabo and First Nations Legislation.

The LNP after scuppering the gentle request of the Voice is now going after the above in the guise of helping climbers.

This is a disgraceful document with disgraceful intent. I want nothing whatsoever to do with it. I’m sure that there are other fair-minded and reasonable climbers who are also likewise offended by this brazen, political opportunism. 

We have 60 years of history at the crag, First Nations People have millennia. Their love of country is great – ours is fleeting. There are already climbers stating that they are going to leave if they cannot climb.

Perhaps at the start of this we climbers could have got off our high horses and negotiated on the obvious things that we need to do to ameliorate the bolt and chalk situation. I think that this is only the start of such interludes – we had better learn to get this right.

Finally, be careful what you wish for if you support this document. You might well find that your favourite crag is destined to be mined or quarried.

From the vault... July, 1960

Jon Stephenson the 1st Australian to climb to 7000 metres without supplementary oxygen

Jon Stephenson began his passion for the outdoors as a founding member of the University of Queensland Bush Walking Club (UQBWC) in 1949. He applied his scientific bent to research and exploration on his beloved Mount Barney (his PhD thesis), the Antarctic and the Himalayas amongst other iconic destinations. With colleague Ken Blaiklock, Jon became the first to drive a dog team to the South Pole since Raold Amundsen in 1911. He later published a book documenting his Antarctic exploration - Crevasse Roulette: the first trans-Antarctic crossing 1957-1958.

My reason for revisiting Jon's extraordinary 1960 achievement in the Himalayas was triggered by a recent catch-up with two of his longtime pioneering colleagues, Peter Barnes, 95, and Alan Frost, 89. They shared countless climbing experiences from 1949, including a long list of first ascents around southeast Queensland. Although Peter's outdoor exploits have been slowed by impaired vision, his passion for the outdoors remains unbridled. Alan is active and still regularly climbs Mount Barney, almost always up his favourite ascent route, Logan's Ridge (around 150 ascents so far). 

Peter passed on to me a letter and photographs Jon had sent to him in 2010, documenting Jon's attempt to climb K12 (7428 metres) in the Karakoram mountains whilst on a scientific expedition there over a three-month period in mid-1960. Jon had organised the expedition - the Saltoro Expedition 1960 - with another UQBWC protege, Keith Miller who, three years earlier, had travelled in the area with the doyen of Himalayan exploration, Eric Shipton, and a group of students from Imperial College in London. As Jon observed, 'Keith thought it would be a good idea to climb the mountain K12'. 

Keith Miller contemplates a vertical granite wall on the Grachmo Glacier,
close to the base camp used by the Saltoro expedition to the Karakoram in 1960. Photo: Jon Stephenson

With two other colleagues, David Haffner and Jim Hurley, they flew into Skardu in the Kashmir region and trekked into the Karakoram with 100 porters and a Pakistani liaison officer. Sadly, Keith became ill on the expedition and was forced to go home early. He later distinguished himself in further Karakoram exploration and in Arctic scientific endeavour for which he was awarded a Royal Geographical Society medal. 

Sunset on K12 with the ascent route up the right hand skyline. Photo: Jon Stephenson

On 5 July, Jon was snowbound in a tent, high on the slopes of K12 with a Balti porter, Mohammed Choo, the only one willing to accompany him on his summit attempt. They had climbed through an icefall and up a 'straightforward' ridge, setting up a campsite on the crown of the rock ridge about one-third of the way up the mountain. The next morning, they continued, traversing above a line of huge ice cliffs. It was relatively easy going up moderate snow slopes towards a ridge which led to the summit. It was then that Choo became ill. Despite climbing without supplementary oxygen, Jon was in good condition and decided to climb on alone, leaving Choo to recover on a ledge cut out of the snow slope. Jon takes up the story:

"There was nothing to stop me except my own condition. Approaching the isolated rocks above the higher ridge promontory, about 10 per cent below the summit, I simply could not proceed, except with great slowness and deep shortage of breath. I might eventually have reached the summit, but would have spent the night out. Besides, I had to descend to see how Choo was faring. So I descended, much more easily, joined him, and climbed down to our tent without falling over the ice cliffs! The descent to the saddle was without incident the next morning...for a few years I harboured an ambition to make a return expedition. Fortunately this idea went away. It needed money!"

Looking across an ocean of summits towards the highest, K2, from the north ridge of K12. Jon wrote that he could see the curvature of the earth from his vantage point. Photo: Jon Stephenson

Looking north from K12 to the towering Saltoro Kangri (7742 metres) above the Bilafond (Butterfly) Glacier, used by the expedition team to access its tributary, the Grachmo Glacier. Photo: Jon Stephenson.

Jon Stephenson had climbed to 7000 metres and with no supplementary oxygen - the first Australian to do so. It was 6 July, 1960, the same day that an American duo, George Irving Bell and Willi Unsoeld, made the first ascent of nearby Masherbrum (7821 metres). 

Jon later established the Department of Earth Sciences at James Cook University in North Queensland and worked there as Professor of Geology 1970-1995. He was amongst the first to warn of the dangers of climate change based on his extensive scientific exploration and research over decades. He died aged 80 in Townsville on 24 May,  2011.

Many thanks to Peter Barnes for this historic material.

About The Living Rock...

 The Dugandan -- 1998

(from left) Bryden Cais, Greg Sheard, Ian Thomas, Paula McCall (partly obscured), unknown, Celia and Chris Thompson, Wendy Steele (at end of table), Scott Stewart, Trish Hindmarsh, Keith Harper, Carola Henley and Ted Cais. Photo: Michael Meadows

THIS JOURNEY into Australian rockclimbing history began (above) on a warm Winter's afternoon in 1998 at the Dugandan Hotel, near Boonah. I was sitting around a table on the veranda of the pub with a group of friends, climbers, young and old. My school friends Greg Sheard and Ian Thomas were there as was Ted Cais with his son, Bryden. Ted and Bryden were visiting for another stint of climbing at nearby Frog Buttress from Ted's new home in the United States. Greg tossed a copy of Rick White's original climbing guide to the crag onto the table and the young climbers present pored over it as if it was the Holy Grail. It was clear that they valued this moment and the apparently insignificant, hand-stapled collection of words and images. It may have been at that moment that I realised that it was far more than a rockclimbing guide: it represented a historical moment in the origins of climbing in Queensland -- and beyond.

A defining feature of many of the crags that have become so attractive to climbers in Queensland and elsewhere in Australia is the presence of vegetation in multifarious forms — from the smallest algae and lichen to tenacious shrubs and even large trees. This ‘living rock’ is a central feature of Queensland climbing, particularly on the low-angled cliffs where Queensland climbing culture was invented. It is ‘living rock’ in another sense as well, defining the relationship between climbers and the vertical world we temporarily inhabit.

 
Mountaineer and former Italian Vice-Consul in Brisbane in the early postwar period, Felice Benuzzi, identified an element of this ‘Australian-ness’ in his vivid descriptions of climbing and the environment in the Glass House Mountains, north of the city. Felice had contacted the inimitable ‘spiritual father’ of Queensland climbing, Bert Salmon, who took the diplomat on several ascents in southeast Queensland in 1952. Following a climb up Caves Route on Tibrogargan, Felice and Bert were walking back to their car through a forest of Eucalypts. Oblivious to 60,000 years of Indigenous culture, the Italian diplomat mused on the Australian environment:

The huge smooth trunks of the trees don’t recall images of cathedrals or columns of ancient temples, even though the colour could perhaps evoke something like marble and travertine. The thought repudiates such comparisons. They just don’t hold up. They’re out of key in this world that seems lacking in history. Yet Bertie, who was born and who has lived here, doesn’t seem to feel this sense of vacuum, of emptiness; this lack of something that is so difficult to express. I don’t dare to confess to him my thoughts for fear of offending him. He loves this forest; he loves this Australia with a devotion of a son.

This particularly Eurocentric attitude was commonplace in 1950s Australia and yet it lingers today. Every aspect of landscape was inscribed into Indigenous cultures eons before First Nations people ‘discovered’ Europeans. Some have suggested that it is this unique, rich cultural heritage that should influence how we ‘imagine’ our own idea of climbing in Australia. It is anything but the ‘sense of vacuum’ that Felice Benuzzi described albeit this parallel world remains largely invisible to most non-Indigenous Australians. 

In the early 1990s, an influential figure in Australian rockclimbing history, John Ewbank, evoked the spiritual relationship between people and landscape by drawing on Indigenous concepts. He argued that the elements that make a particular location ‘sacred’ for Indigenous people — ritual, belief and tradition — should also be central to understanding Australian rockclimbing culture. While acknowledging the clear differences in interpretation and meaning between Indigenous and non-Indigenous cosmologies, he suggests an analogy: that the act of climbing can be seen as ‘turning a piece of rock into a sacred site’ and ‘it is then that we superimpose special values on it, even if these values are comprehensible only to other climbers’. He concludes:

I think it is becoming increasingly important for climbers to see cliffs and mountains within the context of a broader landscape and to realise that these outcrops, these ‘bones of the planet’ are already sacred, just as they are to many people other than climbers. 

Sadly, ignorance and/or denial of a history of Indigenous custodianship of places that include climbing destinations has skewed recent public debate around access to crags. The ‘loudest voices’ seem to ignore the undeniable Indigenous heritage that has resulted in these places being preserved for our enjoyment. For some, it seems, less a century of regular climbing activity can override 60,000 years of Indigenous history. 

But apart from a lack of engagement with this philosophical question, a majority of climbers who have railed against restrictions on access to ‘their’ crags do not seem to understand that it is Australian law that they are now challenging. The 1992 High Court Mabo decision effectively destroyed the legal fiction that Australia was an empty land — terra nullius — at the time of European invasion in 1788. The High Court decision — ratified in 1993 by the Australian Parliament — set up a framework for Indigenous land to be returned to the original custodians — in effect, a cohort of an estimated 250 different ‘countries’ (with 500 separate languages) at the time of European invasion. Despite popular media misrepresentations of the Native Title Act as some sort of ‘land grab’, the legislation was designed primarily to protect non-Indigenous property rights. In fact, the ‘land grab’ occurred at the time of European invasion and settlement.

Native Title claims are limited to vacant Crown land, waterways, and parks and reserves — and it is the latter that has created conflict with some members of the climbing community because it is where most climbing cliffs are found. It has taken decades, in some cases, for Indigenous people whose communities and economic structures were disrupted and destroyed by European invasion and settlement, to gather sufficient evidence to make a Native Title claim over a particular country — or what’s left of it. Once a claim is proven, under Australian law, the identified Traditional Owners have the right to maintain and protect sites, to use the land for hunting or ceremony, camp and live there, share in any proceeds generated by development of the land, and to have a say in land management and development.

This historical and legal context seems largely absent from the online climbing community discussions in recent years. What most don’t seem to understand that it is not ‘our’ land — it is Aboriginal land and the 1993 Native Title Act has inscribed that into Australian law. We have been trespassing — albeit for many, unwittingly — on Aboriginal land from the time the first Europeans began seeking out the heights. But the world has changed and as climbers, we must change with it and respect the rights of the Traditional Owners — and Australian law. 

Interestingly, there have been several instances of climbing cliffs developed on private land around the country — at least two in Queensland alone — where the owners have subsequently closed them down, refusing all access, mainly because of bad behaviour (loud voices, swearing, gates left open etc). Strangely, there have been no public outcries by climbers about these imposed restrictions to ‘save our summits’. Why not? Because we acknowledge private land ownership laws. Similarly, restrictions on climbing to iconic summits like Uluru and Balls Pyramid have largely been accepted — so why don’t we afford the same degree of respect and acceptance to Native Title holders who now have the same legal rights under the Native Title Act? 

On another level, sport climbing and its associated activities — placing bolts and the use of chalk — seems to have done a very good job of attracting unwanted attention by leaving permanent and semi-permanent markers on the landscape. To non-climbers — and the handful of those who have eschewed the use of these climbing ‘aids’ outdoors — it is evidence of disrespect, little different from defacing scenic areas with graffiti. Is this how climbers demonstrate ‘care’ for the environment? I have often wondered whether we would be even dealing with such issues now if the use of bolts and chalk — I am hopeful that wisdom, knowledge and good sense will prevail and that climbers and Traditional Owners will reach a compromise through genuine negotiation rather than confrontation or litigation to enable us all to share this amazing country by respecting these priceless resources. It is precisely this unique cultural heritage that sets Australian climbing culture apart from the rest of the world. So why not enlist Traditional Owners or their representatives to share creation stories of the places we visit; involve local Indigenous communities in existing (or new) climbing education and training activities and in the business structures that profit from access to these special areas; or incorporate local Indigenous cultures into climbing guides? 

We can do do better than we have done thus far. A lot better.

 Two Tassie summits and a classic climb

One for the surgeon: Ian 'Humzoo' Thomas testing out his recently-reconstructed knee 
on the classic climbing route, Apline - Whitewater Wall, Freycinet, March 2023

There has been a run of obituaries on this blog over past few months so I think it's time to celebrate the living. I had the great pleasure to travel extensively around Tasmania in March, 2023, with good friend and legendary climber, Ian 'Humzoo' Thomas. Ian had a knee reconstruction six weeks earlier and was keen to test it out on a few challenging summits - and the fabulous Whitewater Wall climbing route, Apline. His knee passed with flying colours.

The video embedded below captures our two summit climbs - Mount Victoria in northeast Tassie and Mount King William I in the southwest. It was a truly memorable journey and a testament to Ian's incredible persistence in re-discovering the fine physical form of his younger days. Our shared euphoria at seeing a cloud-free Frenchman's Cap - several times - with the southwest's extraordinary mountain landscape spread out before us was unforgettable. 

This is why we do it! 

The wonders and beauty of Tasmania's wild places are self-evident - it's the camaraderie and inevitable humour that always takes this to a new level.

Two Tassie Summits video (18:32)

Vale Will Steffen 1947-2023

Climate scientist, climber and climbing historian

Will Steffen (Photo courtesy Climate Council)

I didn't ever meet Will Steffen but I was aware of his extraordinary work in climate science and his perhaps lesser-known contributions to Australian climbing history. 

He became a resident of Canberra in 1977 when he moved from the US to take up a postdoctoral research position with the Australian National University (ANU). He spent 35 years exploring mountain regions of the world, rockclimbing and mountaineering on every continent except Antarctica. He was a member of the 1988 Australian Baruntse (7129 metres) Expedition, forced to retreat 100 vertical metres below the summit by dangerous snow conditions on a knife-edge ridge. An account of the expedition is available in The Himalayan Journal. 

Will had an abiding interest in Australian mountaineering, penning two surveys of Australian Himalayan climbing, along with profiles of prominent local mountaineers. His 2017 book, Himalayan Dreaming, is the most complete and best-researched document of Australian mountaineering, particularly on the heights in Asia. The book is available as a free download from ANU Press. Highly recommended! 

Will Steffen was also an outstanding and outspoken climate scientist whose influence spread globally. Formerly Executive Director of the Climate Change Institute at the ANU,  in more recent years he served as a Climate Commissioner on the not-for-profit Climate Council - an organisation started in 2013 when the conservative federal government under Prime Minister Tony Abbott disbanded the Climate Commission within days of being elected to power. He also worked with numerous international climate research bodies. 

Will was a passionate advocate for recognition of the level of human intervention driving climate change globally. Described by his many supportive colleagues as a leading thinker, optimistic and kind, he once wrote in response to student demonstrations against the lack of action against climate change: 

The students are right. Their future is now being threatened by the greed of the wealthy fossil fuel elite, the lies of the Murdoch press, and the weakness of our political leaders. These people have no right to destroy my daughter's future and that of her generation. 

(cited in The Guardian)

Following a battle with pancreatic cancer, Will Steffen died peacefully in Canberra with his wife of 51 years, Carrie, and his daughter, Sonja, by his side. He was 75.

Other tributes and background

Renew Economy: clean energy news and analysis

The Guardian

Wikipedia

Planet Politics Institute

Climate Council

Climbing Logan's Ridge with a legend...

 Mount Barney: 21 December 2022

I had the great privilege of visiting Mt Barney with pioneering climber and adventurer Alan Frost. I doubt that anyone else has made the ascent of Logan's Ridge, aged 87 years and 9 months...and he's not done yet! 

VIDEO: Alan Frost climbing Logan's Ridge on Mt Barney -- the best mountain in Australia!

Vale Rod Bolton: adventurer, photographer, climber

Rodney Frank Bolton 

22 July 1943 - 20 July 2022

Early in 1970, Rod Bolton accepted a commission from noted Queensland climber Rick White to produce a short silent Super 8mm movie of Rick and his then climbing partner, Ross 'Cecil' Allen, making the 2nd ascent of the climbing route, 'Odin', at Frog Buttress. 'Odin' was at the time one of the hardest routes in Australia and certainly amongst the most strenuous, requiring superlative jamB-climbing skills and a high level of energy. Rick White had both and it was these elements that Rod captured in the historic four-minute movie he created. It is a rare glimpse of the climbing style that defined that particular clean-climbing era in Australian rockclimbing history. Hanging on abseil lines beside the climbers and with a second camera unit in action on the day, the skilfully-edited short film was affectionately dubbed Deep Purple on Rock by Rick, a longtime fan of the British rockers, Deep Purple (and of the colour purple), and screened to disbelieving climbers in the southern states in the early 1970s accompanied by Deep Purple's booming anthem, Smoke on the Water. 

Rick White starts the 2nd ascent of 'Odin' in 1970 (Rod Bolton collection)

Rod Bolton (left) hangs on an abseil line filming Rick White's 2nd ascent of 'Odin' at Frog Buttress in 1970
(Rod Bolton collection)

Rod was something of a polymath with climbing included in his set of diverse outdoor interests. His name appears on several new routes in southeast Queensland in 1969: on the now banned Glass House Mountains pinnacle of Crookneck ('Stairs', climbed with Rick and Alan Brown) and a memorable Frog Buttress contribution, 'Chocolate Watchband', again climbing with Rick. 

Born in London in 1943, Rod soon discovered his interest and skill in building and repairing, starting with model aircraft, some with tiny diesel engines and even one with a pellet fuel-powered jet engine. By the time he was 13, through Scouts, he discovered a great love of the outdoors. He started work at British Railways as an apprentice electrician, repairing vacuum cleaners on the side often using materials salvaged from the scrap bins at the train yards. Like his climbing contemporary in Australia - Ted Cais - albeit years earlier, Rod successfully directed a small electrical current through a doorknob to 'shock' the lowly apprentices when they grabbed the handle. This sense of humour was a theme that ran through his life.

Like many previous climbers, Rod was into motorbikes as a teenager and frequented local haunts on his beloved Norton Dominator. He was definitely a 'Rocker' in the age of 'Mods' and 'Rockers' - the Swinging Sixties - modelling his hair style on a youthful Marlon Brando who came to fame in the cult movie, The Wild One. One of Rod's challenges was to put on a three minute-long vinyl record and race his bike to an appointed place in town, trying to make it back before the song finished. And again, like earlier daring climbers in Queensland (Bob Waring in particular), he was fascinated by the Isle of Man TT motorcycle races, once completing a lap with one of his mates as pillion in 46 minutes! His earlier contemporary, Bob Waring actually entered the race one year in the early 1950s and was in third place when he had to withdraw with engine trouble!

Rod on the summit of Beerwah, Glass House Mountains, in the late 1960s (Rod Bolton collection)

In 1964, Rod emigrated to Australia, along with several of his friends as '10 pound Poms', ending up in a share flat at Kangaroo Point in Brisbane after driving north from cold, miserable Melbourne in a Khombi van. 

An Adventurers' Club outing on Tibrogargan in 1969 - Alan Milband (with the rope) instructs beginners
on an ascent of Caves Route (Rod Bolton collection)

Rod abseiling on the lower slopes of Mt Beerwah in the Glass House Mountains on an Adventurers' Club excursion in 1969
(Rod Bolton collection)

Alan Milband leading boldly in Volley OCs on Tibrogargan - Adventurers' Club outing 1969 (Rod Bolton collection)

A few years later he joined the Adventurers' Club, a group of outdoors' enthusiasts who met regularly at a refurbished boathouse on the banks of the Brisbane River at Kangaroo Point. It was through this active organisation that he met Rick White who had been engaged by the club as a climbing instructor. He also met up with ex-pat Welsh climber Alan Milband and local Ian Cameron, both featuring in bold early ascents in southeast Queensland - Alan on the 3rd ascent of the East Face of Mt Barney (with Greg Sheard) and Ian on many of the early 1st ascents at Frog Buttress (with Rick White). Rod was a highly skilled photographer and worked for some years as a camera repair technician, drawing on his extraordinary engineering skills. In more recent years, both Rod and Ian joined a growing number of backyard native bee keepers with several hives of the curious little stingless insects between them.

Rod with Alan Milband on the summit of Tibrogargan in the Glass House Mountains in 1969 (Rod Bolton collection)

I reconnected with both Rod and Ian through my research for climbing history book, The living rock, and my own interest in native bees. Rod and Ian had planned a visit to my place to split one of my hives when COVID struck in 2019, grounding us all temporarily. Although I never climbed with Rod, his infectious good humour and his extraordinary attention to detail will forever stay with me. 

(from left) Alan Brown, Rick White and Rod on the summit of Coonowrin, Glass House Mountains,
probably after their 1st ascent of the climb, 'Stairs', in July 1969.

When Rod was diagnosed with aggressive pancreatic cancer a few months ago, his typically throwaway response was simply: 'Shit happens.' His experiences are emblematic of so many of us who comprise the climbing-outdoors community. All of us have lives, families and friends beyond the crags and for me, his story underlines the broad spectrum of 'ordinary' people who comprise the Australian climbing/outdoors community. The vast majority of us will never find our names aligned with terms like 'the longest', 'the hardest', or 'the best', but it explains one of the great appeals of exploring the outdoors in whatever form we choose: each of us is able to have our own unique, intensely personal experiences that can - and usually do - enrich our lives. Crossing paths with Rod has enhanced this process for many of us. 

Rod on an early ascent at Frog Buttress in 1969

Ian Cameron (belayed by Rod) searching for a suitable 'cracker' placement on the 1st pitch of Carborundum
Tibrogargan, 1969 (Rod Bolton collection)

A smiling Rod Bolton (centre rear with beanie) oversees a stretcher party carrying his friend, Alan Milband, seriously injured in a fall on Mt Barney's West Peak in 1969.
Greg Sheard (front left) leads the rescue team to glory (The Courier-Mail, Rod Bolton collection)