Raoul Mellish
(late 1940s and 1950s)

We started on our own bat, Reg Ballard and myself. As far as I was concerned, it all came back to that wonderful sight [Tibrogargan]…winter time and the clarity of the air and the outline of that beautiful mountain…I had the urge to paint in those days but I wasn’t doing much about it. I was looking forward to it. But I had that urge to go and climb it and we did that. You get bitten by a bug, don’t you, and away it goes.

Picture: Raoul Mellish (left) and Coll Taggart on the east face of Mt Warning, 1949. Raoul Mellish collection.

Jon Stephenson
(late 1940s to present)

[It was] partly the people but it was largely the places—and largely the environment. But over the campfire at night a few people tried to explain why in earth they did it and I never thought they did very well. I had no idea. I couldn’t explain it. I could not explain it…I’ve been back to some of the places and what I didn’t accept was that they are so exceptional. The environment was so…wow! I’ve been back to Mt Barney a few times after a long period when I wasn’t there and I was so astonished that it was such a handsome place. It was for that reason, I’m sure, that I got absolutely sucked in. I couldn’t put it aside. I still find good forest, rainforest especially, and one can walk through it by yourself, it’s like going into a church.

Picture: John Comino collection

Bert Salmon
(1923 to World War II: ‘the spiritual father of Queensland climbing’)

Why do they climb? I have often wondered…but I have never been able to satisfy on the point. Some are born climbers; nothing can keep them from the mountains. They keep on climbing until they die—or until they slip, which often means the same thing. Others not so apt often join climbing parties to learn the rudiments of the game. For these we carry a rope, but we do not use it if we can avoid doing so.

Picture: Bert Salmon collection.

Nora Dimes
(Regular climber throughout the 1930s)

Should you believe, with Addison, that the proper study of mankind is man, you may have met in your researches a mountaineer. He is one whose soul is blent of heights and depths, and in extreme cases his admiration of the tallest and newest building in town is confined to the possible hand or footholds on the facade. I have known one such, seized suddenly with the climbing fever, clamber onto a foot-wide parapet and walk airily along it seven stories above street level.

L. M. R., Sunday Mail, 1932.

What is it that makes city toilers expose themselves to the dangers, hardships, and discomforts that must accrue from scaling sheer walls of rock when they might admire the great peaks from terra firma? Is it because they believe that reward is proportionately great: that he who gains the crest of the mount will discover beauties undreamt of and experience a full measure of the elusive joys of achievement? Yes, maybe they do compensate for the toils, doubts, and difficulties experienced before anyone, no matter how adept at the sport (they call it good sport), can reach the summit of a real mountain.

Why?

Rockclimbing has become more and more part of everyday society, as the cover of Qantas's Frequent Flyer magazine (above) demonstrates. And despite all the debates over ethics, one thing is for sure: people will continue to climb for many and varied reasons. Here’s the first of a collection of Australian climbers’ thoughts on this from across the ages...

Freda Du Faur
(1915: Australia's first mountaineer)

Every now and then a voice seemed to rise from nowhere in a faint cry. Again and again I have started up, sure that some one was calling me, to confront only the silent, snow-clad mountains. Some stone falling from the heights, the gurgle of an underground stream, or the wind sweeping into a hidden cave and raising an echo from the distant ridges—clear and distinct it comes, this call of the mountains, sometimes friendly and of good cheer; but often eerie, wild, and full of melancholy warning, as if the spirit of the mountains bade you beware how you tread her virgin heights, except in the spirit of reverence and love.

[Freda Du Faur, The conquest of Mount Cook and other climbs: an account of four seasons’ mountaineering on the Southern Alps of New Zealand, London, George Allen and Unwin, 1915]

Where do we go

from here?

The very nature of sport climbing, along with a huge increase in the numbers of climbers, has led to some perhaps unforeseen consequences: climbing crags on private land have been closed down across Australia; climbing access to previously public cliffs—the Three Sisters in New South Wales and Crookneck in Queensland, for example—is increasingly being banned; and there has been a growing concern over environmental degradation of climbing areas. This has compelled rockclimbing clubs to align themselves more forcefully with conservation ideals. Perhaps it has come full circle...the climbers emerging from the earliest bushwalking clubs in Australia at the end of World War II generally had a close association with wilderness. This was not so apparent with new climbing clubs emerging in the 1960s, many of whom saw climbing and the environment as separate issues. With increasing pressure on the environment, there has been a return to the importance of conservation amongst newcomers, many of whom began their vertical journeys in climbing gyms rather than on an isolated, scrubby cliff, several hours’ walk from a carpark. This does not mean that one form of climbing is any better or worse than another. It is simply suggesting that things can’t go on as they are without a significant change in attitude, particularly towards bolting—or perhaps gyms and practice cliffs like Kangaroo Point in Brisbane will become the only approved destinations for hard climbing in Australia. The debate over bolts is as old as the practice itself, stemming from the early 1950s in the Blue Mountains, in particular, but increasingly, national parks’ regulators are taking more notice of the permanent damage it does to rock surfaces. And it’s worth remembering that it’s only in the past decade or two of the 100 year history of modern climbing in Australia that bolting has become accepted as the majority practice.

Picture: Rob Hales on the final headwall of the north face of Leaning Peak, Mt Barney, September 2003. Michael Meadows collection.

Changes...

Early in 2005, the strange hiss of an electric bolt drill echoed around the overhangs on Tibrogargan. I’d just finished Prometheus II, an exposed climb below Cave Five with Greg Sheard, Jane White (pictured) and Cass Crane. I felt a great sadness, watching the trachyte powder drifting down as a couple of climbers forced their way up through the previously impossible overhangs. Just to their north was the classic Trojan, climbed in 1966 by Les Wood and John Tillack. And a few metres to the south, Overexposed, another special route climbed by Les Wood and Donn Groom the same year. No bolts were placed (or carried) on the first ascent of either climb. Perhaps it is symptomatic of the current era that the claim for the longest climb in the country is a route which uses almost 100 bolts—the difficult 568 metre Lost Boys on the north face of Mt Warning by Tim Balla and Malcolm Matheson. A significant achievement according to the rules of today’s game—but even more difficult, perhaps unclimbable, without bolts. I wonder how far we can honestly say we’ve travelled when we consider this in light of the first tentative steps taken by the first European climbers in Australia, more than a century ago.

Picture: Jane White reaches easier ground after the delicate traverse on Prometheus II. Michael Meadows collection.

Climbing for adventure

Wendy Steele and sister Katie ( closest to camera) high on the north face of Leaning Peak making the 1st female ascent, September 2003. At 410 metres, it is arguably the longest bolt-free climbing route in Australia.

Picture: Michael Meadows collection.

Bolts and the Buttress

The first bolt was placed at Frog Buttress in 1981 in a climb called Yodel up the Valley. It was repeated shortly after by Rick White and Kim Carrigan who found the bolt to be unnecessary. But the practice has continued. Rick White died hoping that Frog Buttress might one day reclaim its bolt-free status. The crag that he played a major role in developing over the years has been central in identifying Australia as an international rockclimbing destination. The clean climbing ethic that created Frog Buttress was one of its foundation pillars. Some have begun removing the bolts they placed in their climbs there following Rick White’s death but it will take more than a few fine gestures to turn around the bolting juggernaut that dominates modern Australian rockclimbing. Ethics — including climbing ethics — will always remain the domain of the individual. But to have one bolt-free crag in Queensland (or Australia, for that matter) would make a powerful statement in the current environment. It would be akin to the impact American environmentalist-climber John Muir had on the early days of exploration and development of climbing in Yosemite. And perhaps it would go some way towards acknowledging the central role that clean climbing ethics played in pushing Queensland to the forefront of Australia rockclimbing in the early 1970s. Surely that alone is worthy of such recognition.

Picture: Michael Meadows collection.

Women’s place

By the mid 1980s, as female climbers in Australia were beginning to establish themselves on the hard sport routes. Louise Shepherd in the early 1980s was climbing in Yosemite, Nyrie Dodd led Passport to Insanity, one of the hardest climbs in Australia, and visiting French climber Christine Gambert bagged India, even harder. It was clear that women could mix it with the men on the most difficult routes in the country. Within 12 months, American Lyn Hill would be described as the world’s best rockclimber—male or female. In 1990, Hill’s former arch rival in climbing competitions, Catherine Destivelle, soloed the Bonatti Pillar in five hours. Hill went on to make the first free ascent of The Nose on El Capitan in 1993, taking 23 hours, climbing part of the route in darkness—an extraordinary achievement. In the same year, 1993, Scottish climber Alison Hargreaves became the first person to solo all classic North Faces in the Alps in a single season. Two years later, she was the first woman to solo Everest but was killed in a huge storm on K2 along with six others a few months later. In 1991, 52 year old Junko Tabei became the first woman (and 11th person overall) to climb the Eight Summits—including Carstenz Pyramid—reaching the top of Kosciuszko. Bridgit Muir became the first Australian to climb Seven Summits—excluding Carstenz Pyramid—two years later.

Out of the gym

From the early 1990s in Australia, women returned to rockclimbing in numbers seen only in Queensland between the wars in the 1930s. It seems that the climbing gym culture played a significant role in this. Whatever the reasons for the sudden upsurge in interest, throughout the 1990s, women began to rediscover a place for themselves in Australian climbing culture. Ironically, their battle for acceptance was not so very different from the struggle by their European sisters, 100 years before. Strong female climbers were soon a regular sight on crags around the country and no route, regardless of how intimidating it might be, was out of bounds. Adventure climbing was firmly on the agenda for some, at least. One milestone in Queensland was in 1998 when Jacqui Kiewa and Wendy Steele (pictured) became the first women to climb the East Face of Mt Barney—32 years after the first ascent.

Picture: Wendy Steele collection.

Challenges

for

Rick White

Rick White returned to the Himalayas for a second time with Michael Groom in 1991 to climb Everest, but the trip ended in disarray with White having to fly home urgently to attend to a business crisis. With a long-time financier going to the wall, White was virtually forced out of Mountain Designs with huge debts. But by 2000, he was getting restless again and set up a small, hi-tech sleeping bag design and manufacturing company. In 2001, he was invited back to Mountain Designs by a new owner as adviser in research and development of new products, or, as he wryly observed, ‘as a walking historian’. His extraordinary business career had come almost full circle. It was during this period of re-adjustment that White had to confront a new and unknown challenge—a muscle-wasting illness called inclusion body myositis: ‘It was diagnosed in 1991 after I came back from Everest and I suspect I got it in 1990 after going to Cho Oyu. I definitely had it before I went to Everest because I was getting weak and then I got stronger by training but as soon as I stopped, it just went boom…really, really weak.’ For someone who had made a career out of climbing and who had played a major role in Australian climbing for more than a quarter of a century, it was a bitter blow. But his approach to this was characteristic of the attitude which propelled him into the ranks of Australia’s top climbers. White took up coaching a small group of talented sport climbers and insisted on taking part in significant milestones at Frog Buttress until his death from a brain tumour in 2004.

Picture: Rick White abseiling down Infinity at the 1998 Frog Buttress anniversary. Michael Meadows collection.

Twenty years ago today...

The 'discoverers' of Frog Buttress (from left) Rick White and Chris Meadows, with Jane White, prepare to climb Corner of Eden in November 1988 on the 20th anniversary of the first ascent. Ironically, it was their last climb together: Chris Meadows took his own life in 1991 and in the same year, Rick White was diagnosed with a muscle-wasting disease that effectively ended his active climbing career.

Picture: Michael Meadows collection.

Challenges for Michael Groom

Queenslander Michael Groom (pictured) had decided that climbing would be a big part of his life at an early age. With a grandfather like Queensland wilderness pioneer Arthur Groom and a father like Donn Groom, he probably had little say in the matter! By the early 1980s, was well advanced in his quest to climb the highest mountain in the world. It all started at age five when he was looking at Mt Barney with his father, Donn, who explained that Mt Everest was about six times higher! In 1982, Groom made several trips to the Himalayas with Australian climbers Tim McCartney-Snape, Lincoln Hall, Geoff Bartram, Greg Mortimer and Andy Henderson and following a season in the French Alps in 1986, he found himself on Kangchenjunga (8598m). But a decision he made to turn back close to the summit probably saved his life. The following year, he and his climbing partner John Coulton reached the summit of Kangchenjunga in a howling wind. A nightmare descent began as, snowblind and hallucinating, they stumbled along in the darkness. When Groom removed his boots, the ‘black rot’ of frostbite had reached the arches of both feet. For most, it would have meant the end of a climbing career—but not for him: ‘Losing my toes really changed my outlook on life in that unless you experience a situation where everything that’s so important to you is very nearly taken away, you don’t really appreciate how much it means to you.’ He realised that somehow, he’d been given a second chance and that’s when he decided to take up mountaineering with a vengeance.

The five highest mountains in the world

Groom joined Rick and Jane White’s expedition to Cho Oyu in 1990 and they attempted a new route before retreating. With the rest of the team suffering from either altitude sickness or exhaustion, Groom climbed to the summit alone up the standard route. His determination to climb Mt Everest (8848m) was rewarded on 9 May 1993 when he stood on the summit of his dreams. The following year he climbed K2 via the Abruzzi Ridge and 12 months later, became the first Australian to climb Lhotse (8511m). In 1996, he was back on Everest as an expedition guide when a huge storm swept across the region. In its wake, eight climbers on the south side of Everest died, including his employer, New Zealand climber Rob Hall, and another of Hall’s guides, Andy Harris. It was three years before Groom returned to the Himalayas. At noon on 16 May 1999 with partner Dave Bridges, he climbed the last few metres of solid ice to the tiny pyramid summit of Makalu (8481m), becoming the first Australian to climb the world’s five highest peaks.

Illustration: Michael Groom on the summit of Cho Oyu, The Courier-Mail, 1990.

The East Pillar

of Shivling

In May 1981, Rick White and Greg Child joined Britons Doug Scott and Don Whillans, along with Frenchman Georges Bettembourg to climb Shivling’s East Pillar in Nepal (pictured). They were stormed in for two days at the halfway point where White celebrated his 35th birthday. Jubilant after making the first ascent, but weakened from a lack of food, White and Child began their descent on very steep ice. They reached a small notch in the ridge and were just about to sit down for a rest. White continues:

The snow started slipping but we didn’t have axes because somehow or other Doug and George had the axes and Greg and I had hammers. But you can’t self-arrest with a hammer—you can’t belay with a hammer as Greg found out, so he got ripped off the belay and we went tumbling down. We fell 200 metres, 250. We were really lucky because there’s a col between the two peaks—Shivling’s got two peaks—and we landed in this little valley. I blacked out and woke up at the bottom and I thought, “O shit, my arms are working”—and we were fine. It all happened so fast. If we’d slid a little bit to the left we would have gone over a six thousand foot drop.

Doug Scott remained a close friend of Rick White's until White's death in 2004. The 13-day East Pillar route was the most technically difficult climb ever done at altitude and remained unrepeated for 15 years.

Picture: Rick White collection.

New games: new names

Kim Carrigan’s and others’ adoption of European sport climbing techniques and training strategies set up a framework for climbing in Australia that has persisted from the late 1970s. Until that time, a handful of mostly weekend climbers in the country had ever contemplated training as special preparation for climbing. This was a turning point when ‘climbing’ became many different things. The gradual dominance of sport climbing, most usually accompanied by a reliance on bolting, toproping and multi-day sieges of one pitch problems, pushed ‘traditional’ or ‘adventure climbing’ to the periphery—even creating new names for what in the past was simply ‘rockclimbing’. But traditional climbing persisted and pockets of resistance remain. This trend continues today and although the divisions between various genres of climbing remain blurred, the dominance of sport climbing is apparent in the pages of Australian and international climbing magazines and websites. The focus of the experience has shifted with numbers seemingly playing a more central role than other criteria. This was exemplified by publicity around the one-pitch Punks in the Gym at Arapiles by German climber Wolfgang Gullich which claimed to be the world’s hardest route in 1985. Few, if any, climbers in Australia would have known that it was the same year in which pioneering Lakeland climber Bill Peascod died on the 1st stance of a climb in Wales. He was climbing with Don Whillans at the time—Whillans himself died in his sleep exactly three months later. Six years after his 1st ascent of Punks, Gullich was also dead—killed in a car accident in Germany.

Picture: Rick White and Ted Cais gear up for climb at Frog Buttress, 1987. Michael Meadows collection.

Climbing high

For almost a decade, Fred From was a significant force in Queensland climbing. He refused to use either climbing boots or chalk. Raised on a farm at Coominya, just west of Brisbane, From soon acquitted himself on the Frog Buttress classics, leading Conquistador in fine style. By this time, the Brisbane Rockclimbing Club had fizzled out and a new University of Queensland Climbing Club had started up with From its ambassador. He had soon added new routes on the steep columns of Crookneck, at Girraween and Knapps Peak. In 1984, Fred From set out on his greatest adventure—an attempt on Everest via the West Ridge. Tragically, he fell to his death, tripping on his crampons, while searching for another Australian climber, Craig Nottle, who had fallen in the same way, at the same place. It happened on From’s 28th birthday—9 October. At the same time as From fell to his death, another Australian expedition was on Everest forcing a bold new route, White Limbo, up the Great Couloir the North Face, climbing Alpine-style without supplementary oxygen. Of the team, Tim McCartney-Snape and Greg Mortimer reached the summit.

Illustration: The Courier-Mail, Brisbane.

East Barney solo

Robert Staszewski (pictured) made the first and only known solo ascent of the east face of Mt Barney in March 1979. He was on the brink of an ethical epiphany following years of climbing at Girraween, about to reject the use of bolts as protection. He climbed the east face route using a combination of free-soloing and a back rope, anchored to a belay, which entailed climbing each pitch twice. Staszewski found himself facing a dilemma as he contemplated the crux of the climb which entails lassooing a tree and pulling up the rope, hand-over-hand. He had thrown a nest of nuts and carabiners around the infamous tree, planning to climb the exposed pitch as others had done before him. But there was a problem—the rope had jammed, but not on the nest of nuts and carabiners, and he could not see how reliable it was. Eventually, he swung out over the huge drop. When he reached the tree he saw all that held the rope was a small loop, jammed in between the tree and the rock!

Picture: A younger Robert Staszewski muscles up Electronic Flag at Frog Buttress. Paul Caffyn collection.

Climbing solo

Rick White made the first solo ascent of Ball’s Pyramid in 1979 in one hour 45 minutes while on a trip there with members of the University of Queensland Climbing Club. It was a time when soloing was becoming popular amongst the experienced core of climbers in Queensland and beyond. White recalled that Ball’s Pyramid was his best solo performance:

It’s not technically hard but then again, with the style of the rock on those kinds of sea stacks, you can climb quickly. If you read any article written by solo climbers, it always has the same theme—the way you can focus and just flow over the rock. It’s not often you have to think about a crux move because you’ve got to have it pretty much wired in your mind and you can do it—if you have to think about it you’re likely to fall off it.

Picture: Michael Meadows collection.

Climbing by numbers

In Australia by the mid 70s, another generation of young climbers was filling in the gaps at Frog Buttress and various other crags around the country. With Rick White pursuing his business interests in Mountain Designs and other climbing projects, this cohort was a lot more mobile than in previous eras and many moved from crag to crag, picking off the prime routes as they pushed the upper limits of the possible. It included Greg Child, Chris Peisker, Kim Carrigan, Mike Law and Nic Taylor. In January 1976, Taylor was the first to break from the pack, climbing Australia’s first grade 24—Country Road, at Mt Buffalo. Peisker was hot on his heels and produced Horrorscope at Mt Arapiles, a climb of equal difficulty. The gauntlet had been thrown down. Taylor spent almost a year in Queensland, much of it climbing with White. Then it was time for something special, as White recalls:

Nic and I hatched a plan to go to Mt Buffalo and simply blow everyone away by doing a hammerless ascent of Lord Gumtree. I guess we picked Lord Gumtree because it was the hardest, I had prior knowledge and we had not forgiven the uncharitable locals after our second ascent a few years earlier. Thinking back, it’s hard to justify hammerless climbing. Why make a hard aid route even harder by leaving behind some crucial gear? I guess as Lito Tejada-Flores would say it’s just another game climbers play. Pitches that were easy on pegs now became M7 and we weren’t at the crux rurp pitch yet! I led all the hard pitches with grades of M6, M7 and M8. When we finished, we ran into Roland Pauligk, whose home-made nuts had helped to solve the crux, and convinced him he should make a smaller size. Thus the RP size 0 was born.

One new face on the Queensland scene was Coral Bowman. The expatriate American spent some time working with Rick White in his growing Mountain Designs business but found time to make the hardest female ascents in the country, including Insomnia and Black Light at Frog Buttress. Two years later in 1978, she was regularly climbing the hardest routes graded then at 24—and put up a new climb at Maggies Farm on Mt Maroon, Little Queen, grading it 22. Rick White teamed up with Greg Child in 1978 on the 10th anniversary of the discovery of the cliff to climb Decade, and do the first free ascent of Impulse, grading it 24. Boundaries are there to be pushed and in April that year, Chris Peisker climbed Australia’s first grade 25, Ostler, at Bundaleer in the Grampians. It was the country’s hardest climb for just five months—Kim Carrigan found Procul Harum at Mt Arapiles in September, pushing the grade up to 26.

Illustration: The Mountain Designs logo designed by Vicki (Couper) Farwell in 1977.

White punks on chalk

Over the Christmas-New Year period in 1974-75, Rick White and Robert Staszewski made a bold attempt to climb a new route on the FitzRoy in Patagonia. Surviving a near-death experience with a huge loose block, they returned to Australia where White set about expanding his climbing equipment business and Mountain Designs was born. A few months after their return, 21 year old Boston climber Henry Barber arrived in Brisbane at the start of a short climbing holiday in Australia. White had met him in the Yosemite Valley, two years earlier. Barber introduced two new elements into Australian climbing, both destined to create controversy—gymnasts’ chalk, used to improve a climber’s finger grip on small and sloping holds, and a new climbing ethic. Barber (pictured) left Australia six weeks later with an impressive record: 14 new ascents, 39 climbs on which he eliminated aid, and claiming the hardest route in the country. The use of chalk caused a major debate. Victorian climber Nic Taylor had returned from a season in Yosemite around the same time as Barber and he, too, was sold on the magical qualities of the white powder. But many local climbers, including Rick White, spurned the use of chalk for years, arguing in part that the unsightly tell-tale white marks climbers left in their wake was like a series of ‘how-to’ dots others could simply follow up a cliff.

New ethics, new debates

But it was Barber’s ethical style that was the biggest challenge to local techniques. It had become common practice by then for hard climbs to be put up by ‘hang-dogging’, either falling or resting on a runner, then starting to climb again from that point. If Barber rested or fell on a runner, he always lowered off, pulled the rope through, and started from the bottom again. He was brimming with confidence and frequently used long, unprotected runouts. It was this latter aspect of Barber’s climbing ethics that appealed to Ian Thomas and Keith Bell who teamed up to do a series of long, serious climbs in the Warrumbungles and the Blue Mountains. Barber had a significant impact on many local climbers, if only in changing their attitudes on dress sense. Almost overnight, everyone seemed to be climbing in white cotton trousers! The debate over the impact of ‘Hot Henry’s’ visit was very much alive three years after his brief visit when the first edition of the climbing magazine, Rock, was launched, edited by Chris Baxter. Strangely, Queensland climbing did not rate a mention, despite Rick White's support for the venture through a full page Mountain Designs' advertisement. Meanwhile in the deep north, Trevor Gynther had been busy developing new rhyolite cliffline near Binna Burra with various partners, calling it Whitenbah Wafers. Competition for new climbing areas was keen and one of Gynther’s tactics was to name and grade the best lines before he had climbed them! The Brisbane Rockclimbing Club Mark I was virtually defunct and it would be 10 years before Mark II emerged. The collapse seemed to be catching as across the continent, the Climbing Association of Western Australia, too, folded. It would not re-emerge until encouraged by visits from the east coast by Kim Carrigan in 1986, and Mike Law and Louise Shepherd, three years later.

Illustration: 1st issue of Rock, 1978.

Bootlaces and Beerwah

Ian Thomas (pictured) and Robert Staszewski teamed up in 1973 and almost immediately took on the hardest classics in southeast Queensland. One of their chosen climbs was a long bolt route Sid Tanner had put up through the Beerwah overhangs in the Glasshouses. It turned into an epic with them spending an unplanned, rainy night on the climb and having to bail out, leaving their gear behind on the face. The recovery process proved to be a challenge, as Thomas recalls:

It led to the singularly most dangerous thing I have ever done in climbing which was abseiling over the whole thing, tying three ropes together and tying them to small bushes at the top—because that’s all there was—and throwing it over, so there’re three rope lengths hanging down. I lurched off the top one—it was my old Miller’s rope—and the friction was incredible. And I sort of ground my way down to the overhang, dropped below the overhangs and you’re way out in space. I couldn’t obviously get back in 50 feet to get the gear so I just had to keep on going down. I went down another 20 feet and suddenly came to a knot and realised I had no idea how to get over a knot. What was this? I was spinning around and around. I didn’t have any tapes to make a prussik loop or anything like that. I didn’t know how to do it. In the end, I took off one shoe and took the lace out of it and made a little loop to stand in and then that took my weight off and I was hanging by one hand from the knot and unclipped the carabiner from above the knot. So I was hanging totally by one hand 300 feet off the ground. But my foolish mistake was that the second rope was a 9 mm and I’d only clipped in one cross crab so I basically fell the next 150 feet down onto the next knot—dong! [laughs] Squeak’s eyes were out on stalks. And mine were as well.

Surviving Beerwah, Thomas eventually moved south to Mt Victoria in the Blue Mountains to run a retail outlet for Rick White’s expanding climbing business although strangely, even though it was in the thick of climbing activity there, it never really seemed to succeed. Back in Queensland, Steve Bell and Dave Kahler continued climbing new routes at Mt Maroon, Frog Buttress and the cliffs on Ngungun while more new names appeared on new route descriptions—Kim Carrigan, Trevor Gynther, Rhys Davies and Joe Friend. Meanwhile, Robert Staszewski had turned his attention to Girraween, climbing the first of hundreds of routes there he found over the next two decades.

Picture: Ian Thomas collection.

First Australian ascents in Yosemite

Rick White at Frog Buttress in 1973 shortly after returning from becoming the first Australian to climb both The Nose and the Salathe Wall in Yosemite National Park. And his matter of fact assessment of the Yosemite experience? ‘It didn’t particularly influence me because there was nothing there that we weren’t doing. It was just bigger. I guess it was an introduction to big wall climbing and it’s a different game, suitable for places like Patagonia and even the Himalayas, where I went later.’ On his return to Queensland, White found Ted Cais had linked up with Ian Thomas after the Porter’s Pass climbing meet and the three of them began to push the limits at Frog Buttress again, making the first free ascent of Corner of Eden, and climbing new routes like Venom, Child in Time and Black Light.

Picture: Michael Meadows collection.

Into the maw of The Minotaur

One of the strongest memories of the Porter’s Pass climbing meet for Ted Cais was his second ascent with Rick White of the intimidating John Ewbank classic wall climb, The Minotaur. ‘Rick and I had been thugging up cracks for most of the time on our Easter 1973 national climbing meet so I was more than ready to indulge in my preferred edging style,’ he remembers. ‘That night, while everyone else was quaffing quarts of ale at the Mt.Victoria pub, I retreated into my mind seeing myself sailing away on the line of thin edges past the notorious loose flake. And so it was the next day, but first I launched out with no gear except for hammer and lost arrows to place the one key pin at the flake (pictured) before reversing back to finally gear up and go.’

Picture: Ted Cais collection.

Porter's Pass climbing meet

With the interstate climbing ‘war’ at its peak, a large contingent of Queensland and Victorian climbers joined their New South Wales colleagues at the Easter 1973 climbing meet at Porter’s Pass. One emerging new climber at the time was Ian Thomas or ‘Humzoo’—the nickname stemming from his early penchant for playing the voice-generated instrument called the ‘hum-a-zoo’. He recalls being aware of the interstate rivalry well before he met any of the protagonists. ‘I remember pissing myself laughing at articles by Greg Sheard about him chopping bolts,’ he recalls. ‘So in ’71 when Squeak [Robert Staszewski] and I went down there, the first thing we did was not climbing, but we got our hammers out and chopped bolts. It just seemed to be the thing to do!’ To the exuberant Thomas and the ambitious Staszewski, it was simply good fun. Thomas recalls the interstate tension at the Porter’s Pass climbing meet when, in front of a highly critical audience, Chris Baxter retreated from Flake Crack, packed up his car and left. ‘That Queensland versus the south is mirrored in the wider community, too,’ he muses. ‘Maybe we were enacting something which is there culturally anyway. I’m not sure.’ With the hostilities at their peak, Thomas delighted in fanning the flames, referring to Grampians’ classics as ‘loose, crumbly lines on Mt Crumblebar in the Crapians’. It did little to improve interstate relations but it was the source of great mirth.

Picture: Ted Cais, Rick White, Trevor Gynther and Rick Jamieson contemplating the great climbs on the steep walls around Amen Corner at Wirindi, 1973. Ted Cais collection.

Beyond the Buttress

The first recorded climb on the Girraween granite near Stanthorpe—Late Afternoon Flake (pictured)—by Dave Gillieson and Richard Sullivan. Gillieson recalls the moment:

Right at the lip I had to take time to place a small leeper bolt, more psychological protection than real. Surprisingly this held a fall on the first free attempt later on. Beyond that, the angle eased, and I was able to reach a small ledge about two centimetres wide. From there, the crack continued cleanly for thirty metres, just off vertical but with a rounded edge. I laybacked about ten metres up to a point where a chockstone allowed me to stand and enjoy the situation. It was an exciting lead and very committed, with a fair bit of rope drag. From there, an off width crack continued, the angle easing all the while, to the upper slope of the dome. I brought Richard up to me and we soloed up to the top. We scrambled down off the dome as the sun set, the rock glowing ruby red in the twilight. That night we downed a bottle of the local rough red and celebrated a fine climb.

Over the next 15 years, around 1,000 new routes were put up there with Sullivan, Robert Staszewski, and brothers Stuart and Scott Camps involved in most of them. Steve Bell, who was active at Frog Buttress and in developing the cliffs on Ngungun, in the Glasshouses, linked up with Lesley Rivers to climb a new route, Urea Crack. Meanwhile in central Australia, Andrew Thomson and Keith Lockwood climbed 140 metres up the Kangaroo Tail on Uluru (Ayer’s Rock) before being ordered down by a park ranger.

Picture: Dave Gillieson collection

Coomera Gorge: 1st descent

In December 1972 in the heat of another Queensland summer, Donn Groom, Ted Cais and I decided to try something entirely different—a descent of the Coomera River Gorge from its source in the border ranges of Lamington National Park. Donn had pioneered abseiling into the Coomera crevice for guests at Binna Burra lodge years before, but no one had made a descent of the entire gorge. We started our journey at the headwaters—where the graded walking track crosses the barely-flowing stream. One hundred metres into the scramble we had our first swim across a pool of dark green, freezing mountain water. Around us the lush, deep green vegetation hung from the walls and small waterfalls sprayed into the gorge on both sides from dizzying heights. It was a magnificent place. We swam through several more rock pools and slid down a huge log angled down a steep cataract before reaching our first impasse—an overhanging waterfall, disappearing into the dark depths of the canyon. Ted started the abseil and swung heavily into the cliff under a big overhanging rock, finally shouting from below above the roar of the water that he was safe. Donn and I followed, discovering that the rope ran out about four metres above the surface of the pool below us. Pulling the rope down after us meant that we were committed—there was no easy way back from here. And there was no other option—we had to jump. Donn went in first, taking one end of the rope with him and we sent our waterproofed packs across to the other side of the pool on a makeshift flying fox. We could hear the water boiling ahead of us and it suggested one thing—another big drop. And it was! A sinuous water race plunging 50 metres into an unseen pool below. The roar was incredible and we had to shout at the top of our voices to be heard above it. It was a slippery, sliding descent, festooned with long strands of algae of the deepest green. The sheer walls, rising up perhaps 100 metres above us, were matted with a wild array of different kinds of vegetation. Donn left his pack behind for this one. When Ted and I reached him, he was on a small ledge, six metres above the pool. Another jump—the third so far.

The Hidden Falls

Donn peered over the edge of the next big drop—it was steep, partly overhanging, and he thought he recognised it as the Hidden Falls—the last big drop in the canyon before the 70 metre Coomera Falls. He had looked up at the lip of the canyon where we now stood many times before, wondering what it was like up here. Now he knew. And for the first time, we looked down into the Coomera Crevice. But there was a problem—there was nowhere close to the top of the falls to anchor our abseil rope. Donn hammered in an angle piton and was set to use this but Ted and I spotted a large tree about six metres above him on the side of the gorge. I cut 20 metres from the emergency rope we carried—an old No 3 laid nylon—and we made a long sling, linking the tree and the peg. We threaded our two 40 metre ropes through the sling and Donn disappeared over the edge. His shouts from below confirmed it was the Hidden falls and he was down—we had made it. We quickly joined him and swam through the pool, wading downstream to the top of the Coomera Falls, descending it in two abseils. After a quick lunch, it was a one kilometre rockhop downstream to the start of the ‘Mystery Track’, a steep climb up near-vertical slopes, swinging off small trees and tree roots. It was a fast way into and out of the Coomera Gorge discovered some years before. We arrived back at Binna Burra Lodge seven hours after we had left.

Picture: Michael Meadows collection.

Queensland takes the lead...again

From the early 1970s, Rick White continued to push the boundaries of hard aid and free climbing in Australia, driven by a strong ego and a powerful drive to reach the top echelons of his calling. By 1972, he was ready to take the lead and with Ron Collett and Ted Cais, they climbed a direct start to Beau Brummell on Mt Maroon's big east face. White wrote: ‘The route is significantly harder than all other routes I have ever experienced. The climb is awkward and sustained jamming up a 30 degree overhanging corner-crack which runs straight into a roof (aid). There are no rests. Once the roof is reached, the idea is to hang off one lousy hand jam and quickly place the first aid—you have approximately 15 seconds to solve the situation.’ They called it Valhalla and graded it 22 M2—the hardest in Australia. A few months later, Bryden Allen eliminated the aid moves from The Kraken at Wirindi (formerly Mt Piddington) in the Blue Mountains, creating Australia’s second grade 22 climb. White made the second free ascent of The Kraken a short time later, confirming that Valhalla was its equal.

Working on Maggie’s Farm

In May that year, Rick White and Ted Cais blitzed a new climbing area on the southeast corner of Mt Maroon which they called Maggie’s Farm. Along with a queue of other top climbers at the time—Coral Bowman, Chris Peisker, Ron Collett and John Hattink—they steadily climbed one new route after another. In a matter of days, White and Cais climbed 23 new routes at the cliff, commuting each day from Frog Buttress where a national climbing meet had attracted about 20 people from interstate and overseas. During that event, White put up Conquistador with Sydney climber Warwick Williams—Queensland’s first and Australia’s second Grade 21. White completed his Maroon odyssey with a solo mixed free and aid girdle traverse of the east face in November, calling it Animal Act, finishing up the classic, Ruby of India. Frog Buttress was not forgotten but climbing had slowed there. Nevertheless, White and Cais led more hard new routes including Elastic Rurp, Sorcerer’s Apprentice, The Noose, Monty Python’s Flying Circus, and Iron Mandible.

Picture: Tony Kelly, Greg Sheard, Rick White and Ron Collett sort gear on Mt Maroon. Within weeks, White and Collett joined with Ted Cais to climb Valhalla. Michael Meadows collection.

'Dirty Don' in the deep north

Greg Sheard moved to Townsville in 1970 and soon tracked down some locals who were interested in climbing. One was named ‘Dirty Don’—that should have raised his suspicions—and the other was Craig. For a reason best known to himself, Sheard decided to abseil down the vertical face of Townsville’s Castle Hill, using two ropes tied together. He went down first, managed to get past the knot halfway and scrambled back to the top of the mountain. By the time he arrived, Dirty Don was on his way down—but he was taking a long time. Too long. Sheard continues the story:

I hooked up another rope and went over the edge and Dirty Don was hanging there—he’d actually unclipped himself and had wrapped his arm around the rope and that’s all that was holding him. It was a bloody long way to the deck from there—70 odd metres off the deck just hanging by his arm wrapped around the rope! I went back and started trying to organise some gear to get down to help him. A crowd had turned up by that stage and one character said, 'Get the rescue equipment, get the rescue team!' Craig turned around and said, 'We are the &*#@*& rescue team!' And he was right, we were! We were the Townsville rock and rescue team! That’s all there was and one third of the team was stuck halfway up Castle Hill about to die because he’d stuffed things up. I got down to him and hooked him up—he’d totally freaked out—and got him to the bottom. By this stage it was well and truly after dark. But Dirty Don never went climbing again.

Picture: Greg Sheard in action on the east face of Maroon in 1970 shortly before moving to North Queensland. Michael Meadows collection.

Big wall battles

Big wall climbing was news in various Australian magazines (pictured) at this time with the antics of John Ewbank and others the focus. Meanwhile, Keith Bell and Ray Lassman braved the 1970 summer heat on Bluff Mountain in the Warrumbungles, climbing the 291 metre Icarus. Further south, on the north wall of Mt Buffalo, Chris Dewhirst, Dave Neilson and Ian Ross had spent two days climbing Conquistador, a hard aid route with some free climbing sections. Climbing in Victoria was beginning to take off with a vengeance—earlier in the year, the powerful Keith Lockwood and Roland Pauligk had climbed two hard routes in the Grampians, Frumious Brandersnatch and Liquidator. Activity in Queensland followed the lead and big wall aid climbs were suddenly in vogue. Sid Tanner teamed with Andrew Speirs to climb a new aid route through the huge roof on Beerwah in the Glasshouses, calling it Leviathan. At Mt Maroon, Rick White and Ron Collett with Keith Nannery put up the classic Ruby of India—a climb that has since had more ascents than any other on the east face.

Rajahs of rhetoric

White joined with Ron Collett and John Oddie in 1970 to climb The Antichrist on Mt Maroon, grading it M6—and claiming it as the hardest aid route in the country. Throwing down the gauntlet, Chris Dewhirst and Peter McKeand put up a climb at Mt Buffalo, calling it Lord Gumtree and grading it M7—now it was the hardest in the country. White had enlisted 16 year old protégé Robert Staszewski (Squeak), planning to climb Ozymandius. But when they heard about Lord Gumtree, they had a quick change of plan. White later quipped: ‘Of course, it was not as hard as our Antichrist.’ Their ascent was controversial in that both Staszewski and White jummared up the last easy pitch on a rope used by another climbing party. ‘The Victorian press led by Chris Baxter and urged on (I’m sure) by Chris Dewhirst—whose route we had just repeated before it could get a reputation—screamed foul,’ White remembers. ‘We had not climbed the last pitch therefore I had not repeated the climb.’ The battle raged on.

Illustrations: From the magazines Australian Outdoors 1969 and Pix 1970.

Deep Purple on Rock

By 1970, many of the easy, obvious lines had been climbed at Frog Buttress and it would be a hard core who would eke out the remaining climbs there over the next decades—Rick White, Ross Allen, Ted Cais and Ian Cameron amongst them. In 1970, 10 hard new routes went up there with Odin perhaps the pick of the crop. Climbing Odin would eventually be the subject of a home movie, set to the music of Deep Purple, one of Rick White’s favourite bands at the time. In the last years of his life, his mobile phone ringtone punched out the opening riff from Smoke on the Water. The super eight movie, called Deep Purple on Rock, did the rounds of Australian climbing clubs with White relishing the occasion as it showed Queensland climbers demonstrating their ‘jamBing’ skills to disbelieving southerners. In the same year Ted Cais and I climbed Dreadnought, a new route up the highest part of the east face of Tibrogargan and the second longest climb in Queensland (log book account pictured).

Climbing 'Mt Bastard'

Around this time, Greg Sheard decided to have one last attempt at climbing the East Face of Mt Barney. Two previous attempts had been washed out and he had started calling the mountain, ‘Mt Bastard’! It was getting serious. This time, the weather held and he found himself and Alan Millband at the base of the climb despite the challenging walk in. Greg Sheard takes up the story:

Alan led the first pitch. To quote the guide: ‘One already feels the exposure.’ To quote me: ‘Pig’s arse!’ Second pitch, I scored. There just happened to be a tree at the start of the pitch so I climbed it. This was destined to be the first of a long series of botanical aids on the climb. Belay in tree. Alan followed up (with pack on back), swinging through the trees like a constipated Tarzan.

And so it continued: Millband grabbed a snake on the crux pitch and Sheard managed to climb it free on a toprope, finding the ‘rotten’ tree to be ‘as solid as buggery’. Greg Sheard had once again dealt a body blow to any romantic notions of big wall climbing on Mt Barney!

Southern snippets

Earlier that year, a team of climbers from Sydney—Keith Bell, Ray Lassman, John Worrall, Bruce Rowe, Keith Royce, Hughie Ward, and Howard Bevan—made the first ascent of the North Arete on Ball’s Pyramid in a six day epic. Several new areas were opened up by climbers in New South Wales including Medlow Bath, Mt Blackheath, Nellies Glen, the Dogface to Echo Point cliffline and Mt Boyce. John Ewbank was talking of retiring and pursuing a career in the music business, having climbed more than 400 new routes in New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania. In Western Australia, rockclimbing attracted the attention of the Australian Broadcasting Commission which filmed a quarry climb and included it as a feature in a local sports program.

Picture: Ted Cais collection.

Ethical adventures

Ted Cais with an array of pitons and ‘crackers’—a central element of clean climbing ethics applied in Queensland from the late 1960s. At the close of the decade, debates over a new approach to climbing and climbing ethics swept through Australian climbing circles. One of the most notable and eloquent protagonists was New South Wales climber John Ewbank. Through the pages of the national climbing magazine, Thrutch, Ewbank advocated the use of forms of protection less damaging to the rock than bolts, as well as opening up placements impossible with the limited range of pitons available. Queensland climbers were quick to take up the option, playing a leading role in promoting the application of clean climbing ethics. This helped to set up a strong relationship between Queensland and New South Wales climbing that persisted throughout the 1970s with climbers in the two states often joining forces to resist a growing Victorian propaganda machine. Ewbank started to manufacture his own crude versions of ‘crackers’—essentially hexagonal-section lengths of aluminium rod, drilled to enable threading with a sling. As his manufacturing zeal waned, Rick White quickly followed suit with his own versions. Several local climbers in Queensland—Dave Reeve in particular—took this a step further, borrowing from sailing technology and using swaged stainless steel slings on the hexes, probably the first local application of this technology in Australia.

Picture: Ted Cais collection.

Victoria versus the rest

From the mid-1960s, the Sydney-based climbing magazine, Thrutch, had become the main conduit for Australian climbers' ideas and opinions. And its policy of publishing almost anything provoked some lively debates which stirred along a growing rivalry between Victoria and the rest of the country. It was exacerbated in 1969 when Victorian climbers Chris Dewhirst and Chris Baxter spent two days on the north wall of Mt Buffalo in October 1969 to create Ozymandius. They graded it M6 and claimed it as the hardest aid climb in Australia. Twenty years later, expatriate British climber Steve Monks would climb it free, grading it 28. But back in 1969, it became the most publicised rockclimb in Victorian history, stemming from a newspaper photographer who happened to be staying at Mt Buffalo at the time. Meanwhile, John Ewbank and Bryden Allen returned quietly to Bluff Mountain in the Warrumbungles in October to complete Stonewall Jackson. The 290 metre long route was probably the hardest and most serious yet climbed in Australia. Fresh from his Warrumbungles’ success, Bryden Allen then made the second ascent of The Janicepts at Mt Piddington in November that year with Roland Pauligk making the second ascent of Victoria’s Blimp at Bundaleer.

Beaks on the peaks

It was a time, too, when climbers from Victoria were making their mark internationally with Michael Stone, Ian Guild and John Fantini having successful seasons in the European Alps. The interstate 'war' wasn't confined to the letters' pages in Thrutch. Out on the rock, the rivalry was as intense as New South Wales climbers Keith Bell and Howard Bevan discovered. They were making the 4th ascent of Lieben in the Warrumbungles with a gaggle of Victorian climbers watching, including Roland and Anne Pauligk who always travelled with a flock of their pet parrots. As Bell reached the crux of the climb, one of the birds flew up and landed on a ledge next to him, creating a dilemma: each time he stretched for the crux handhold, the parrot nipped at his fingers. It seemed that even the birds had decided which side they were on!

Internal exile

In the climbing press, Rick White constantly extolled the virtues of Frog Buttress—and any climbing area in Queensland, for that matter—stirring along the public relations’ battle with Victoria. White once told readers: ‘Frog Buttress is without doubt the greatest and most exclusive crack climbing outcrop yet visited by climbers on the Australian mainland!’ And, of course, he was right! His main sparring partner was Chris Baxter who visited Frog Buttress and admitted to his Victorian disciples that it was, indeed, a climbing destination of significance. Baxter recalls the era with a wry smile:

Initially there was the absurd interstate rivalry between Victoria and New South Wales and Victoria and Queensland and a lot of that was due to the lack of contact. It was childish on all sides. I suppose it was taken seriously and the letters would fly back and forwards through Thrutch and that would trigger it off. And there’d be raiding parties down to free Victorian routes or free NSW routes or whatever it was...

While much of the debate through the pages of Thrutch was tongue-in-cheek, it got to a point where bitterness began to creep into the exchanges. White recalls the impasse: ‘There was a point in time where I made a decision never, ever to write another article—ever! I didn’t break that pledge until probably around 1996 when Chris Baxter talked me into writing a history of something or other for Rock magazine. So I didn’t write anything from probably 73 onwards.’ Eventually, Victorian climber Nic Taylor who was working with White's company, Mountain Designs in Brisbane, was instrumental in bringing them together in the late 1970s and they subsequently became good friends.

Illustration: Thrutch logo.

Back to the 'Bungles

Easter 1969 saw another small, strong contingent of Queensland climbers heading for the volcanic spires of the Warrumbungles. Rick White and Paul Caffyn strayed off Crucifixion, climbing a new direct start to Lieben, the airy Out and Beyond had another three ascents, and climbers from Sydney and Brisbane were again hell-bent on avoiding the ranger who was hell-bent on collecting camp fees. With constant groups of tourists stopping at the campsite water tank—the only one in the area—Sheard became annoyed with the amount of water being used. So he removed the handle from the tap and hid it. As yet another group vainly tried to turn the tap on using sticks, one parent patiently explained the intricacies of climbing equipment to his inquisitive son. Climbers’ gear was draped on a frame near the water tank. Greg Sheard takes up the story: ‘And this little kid’s asking, “What’s that there?” “O, that’s a carabiner to clip into the pitons which are over there.” “What’s that?” “O, that’s a sling.” “And what’s that, dad?” “That’s the bloody tap handle!”’ Over the Easter weekend, we had heard that Ewbank and Allen were trying a new climb on Bluff Mountain at that very time—the 362 metre Ginsburg. Bryden Allen recalls one memorable incident from that climb—but it was when he and Ewbank were returning to Sydney. They hitched a lift, realising that living on dehydrated food for a week was beginning to take its toll. ‘Both of us had fairly ripe guts,’ Allen recalled. ‘There was this dog in the back of the car with us and the bloke turns around and says, “What an awful stink you’ve made, get out of the car at once…” John was just about to do so when the man said “…Fido!” Fido took the blame for John’s fart. And I knew it was John, of course.’

Picture: Chris Meadows, Greg Sheard and Paul Caffyn, Warrumbungles 1969. Paul Caffyn collection.

The 1st Frog Buttress guidebook

Around the middle of 1969, Rick White produced his own guidebook to Frog Buttress and it was quickly out of date, requiring a second edition, published in December that year. The guide (pictured) listed more than 60 routes and suggested there would be many more. White observed: ‘This small outcrop, discovered climbingwise in November 1968, has been the scene of more activity in the past year than all other areas in the past ten years.’ And he was absolutely right. The explosion of climbing activity was unheralded in Queensland climbing history. It was something Rick White and Chris Meadows could never have imagined when they walked down the scree that day in November 1968. While the overall number of new climbing routes in Victoria and New South Wales at this time exceeded the Queensland achievements, climbing populations in the southern states far outweighed the small core of pioneers active in the deep north. It was an extraordinary and frenetic period which would last for at least another two years. Frog Buttress and the climbers it produced took Queensland to the forefront of climbing activity and achievement in Australia—at least until the early 1970s. For many climbers at this time, Frog Buttress and its style of climbing represented something akin to the Holy Grail. But dissent was in the ranks. Some viewed the climbing there as too short, or too strenuous, or too competitive—or all three. Others found jamming either difficult or unpleasant or both, and continued to search for new climbs elsewhere.

The revolution continues

Although still very much a male-dominated world, talented 16 year old Marilyn Dall (pictured left) joined with ‘veteran’ Pat Prendergast in 1969 to put up the first all female climb at Frog Buttress. They called it Revolution, perhaps celebrating the year in which Australian women finally received equal pay for equal work—in theory, at least. The most novel ascent at the Buttress and perhaps anywhere in Australia that year was Macraderma. All 35 metres were climbed entirely underground! Paul Caffyn and Rick White abseiled to the bottom of the cleft and with White unable to get off the ground on the damp, slippery rock, Caffyn took over. Applying his considerable caving skills, Caffyn managed to solve the difficult start. Ian Cameron abseiled in to join White at the bottom and they both were forced to prussik up the first 10 metres, unable to follow Caffyn’s inspired lead. Another significant ascent that year was the hard aid climb, Brown Corduroy Trousers, climbed by Rick White and Ian Cameron. Thirteen years later, Kim Carrigan would climb it free, grading it equal to Australia’s hardest climb at the time—28. Along with the new routes at Frog Buttress came another wave of new climbers—Barry Overs, Steve Bell, Dave Kahler, Chris Knudsen and Alan Millband.

Picture: Pat Prendergast collection.

Hi-ho, hi-ho, de-bolting we will go

In August 1968, the Brisbane Rockclimbing Club became the first in Australia—after the Sydney Rockclimbing Club—to adopt John Ewbank’s open-ended numerical grading system. Following the discovery of Frog Buttress, Rick White, Chris Meadows and Greg Sheard decided to head south in January 1969 to sample grades of climbs in the Blue Mountains and to sharpen their jamming skills. They spent a week at Mt Piddington (Wirindi) and Narrow Neck, climbing 18 routes, including the imposing Amen Corner and Flake Crack. With Queensland virtually a bolt-free zone, the sight and frequency of bolts on all manner of climbs appalled them, as Greg Sheard recalls: ‘There were bolts everywhere and we decided to chop a few. We would never chop them unless we could find alternate placements for equipment.’ The real fun began when they turned up at a Sydney Rockclimbing Club meeting at the Hero of Waterloo Hotel in Sydney and were confronted by the Safety Officer, demanding to know which climbs had been affected. Chris Meadows took exception to his officious approach, as Sheard relates: ‘He was going to have a severe discussion with this guy’s head using both of his fists.’ After dragging the two apart, White and Sheard decided to come clean. ‘He got angrier and angrier when we told him how many we’d done,’ Sheard laughs. ‘We did do a fair few. I suppose we did get a bit carried away because it wasn’t exactly clean the way we pulled some of the bolts out.’ Despite John Lennon’s urging that we should all Give Peace a Chance, the Queenslanders’ brash approach reflected a growing interstate rivalry in Australian climbing circles—albeit most of it good-natured. As Frog Buttress became better known across the country, an intense propaganda war broke out through the pages of Thrutch, with each State claiming to have the best cliffs and the hardest climbs at some stage or other. But it all seemed to come down to Victoria versus the rest.

Illustration: Supplement to Rock Climbs in the Blue Mountains, John Ewbank, 1970.

Ted Cais ' jamBs' over the bulge on the 2nd ascent of Infinity at Frog Buttress. He recalls his relationship with Rick White and the climb:

We complemented each other well and several times on new routes I would figure out the technical moves only to back off and have Rick punch the route through to the finish. More often we were friendly rivals and I usually was the first one to repeat Rick’s new routes at Frog, although Barry Overs filled this role for a while. I realized, too, I needed to lead new routes independently of Rick to establish my own style so we never became regular partners but helped push each other locally, although Rick was more driven by the achievements of John Ewbank in the Blue Mountains. My first climb with Rick and also my first introduction to Frog Buttress was on the first ascent of Infinity...

Picture: Michael Meadows collection.

'Paradise found'

It was a Saturday afternoon—9 November 1968—when Rick White and Chris Meadows on the spur of the moment decided to take a closer look at a low line of cliffs on the northwest slope of Mt French. They drove up a rough track to the top of the mountain from the west and walked to the edge of the cliff—the explorer Patrick Logan had stood there 141 years ago. White recalls the moment: ‘We walked along the cliff and thought we’d found a lot of good aid climbs.’ My brother Chris confirmed this when he arrived home that day, raving about the 50 to 60 metre high cliffs of columnar trachyte. He was more impressed by the geological formation they had discovered than by the potential it represented as one of Australia’s foremost climbing areas. They returned the following Sunday—17 November—and climbed the first route, Corner of Eden; a week later, Liquid Laughter Layback, naming it after my brother’s near out-of-stomach experience. The name ‘Frog Buttress’ did not come from the mass on which it is located, Mt French—it was a less obvious derivation. White initially called the cliff ‘Paradise Lost’, but the presence of several abandoned contraceptive aids (or ‘French Letters’) in the locally-frequented car park at the top of the cliff prompted Chris Meadows to suggest the name ‘Frog Buttress’—and it stuck. A handful of people were let in on the discovery of the cliff and over the first month or so, Rick White and Chris Meadows climbed Satan’s Smokestack, Witches’ Cauldron, Pirana (pictured), Clockwork Orange Corner, Strawberry Alarmclock, Orchid Alley, and Chunder Crack. News of the cliff lured Ted Cais away from his studies to second White up Infinity—the first real jam climb on the cliff.

Picture: Michael Meadows collection.

The Brisbane Rockclimbing Club, Warrumbungles, 1968

From left (standing) John Shera, Ted Cais, Kirsty Jensen, Cec Murray, Sandra Tillack, John Tillack, Chris Meadows, Bob Fick, Lance Rutherford, Geoff Cullen. From left (sitting) Pat Prendergast, Dave Reeve, Dennis Stocks, Greg Sheard, Michael Meadows. Absent: Mick Shera, Rick White, Paul Caffyn. Picture: Michael Meadows collection.

For many of us climbing at that time, the trip to the 'Bungles was a turning point. Cries of ‘Razzamatazz!’ echoed from cliffs everywhere. Here was a climbing area, a bit like the Glasshouses in that it was hard, volcanic rock, but the pinnacles near Coonabrabran were twice as high! Rick White, Paul Caffyn and John Shera spent a cold night on Belougery’s Spire helping rescue and injured British climber, Brian Shirley, who had fallen on Out and Beyond, burning the hands of his second. Mal Graydon and several others were injured in a car accident on the way down and spent a few days in hospital with minor injuries. Within a few months of returning to Queensland, Greg Sheard decided on a bold, new tactic—to eliminate aid moves from as many climbs in southeast Queensland as possible. His aim was to do ‘the big three’ in the Glasshouses—Clemency, East Crookneck and Flameout. Surviving the Clemency ascent, he eliminated the aid move from the final overhang on East Crookneck with Chris Meadows seconding this time, but he was tricked out the first free ascent of Flameout by a wily Paul Caffyn. It was all part of a mostly friendly rivalry that had emerged—mostly friendly! But the peer group pressure at times was intense.

The fall factor

Not to be overshadowed by the exploits of his peers, Greg Sheard (pictured) decided to give up smoking (an elusive goal he pursues to this day!) and launch an all-out assault on the local climbing scene. He was one of the first to test out the limits of the new protective gear in Queensland, particularly through his several falls at Kangaroo Point. But he also came to prominence through his inimical approach to writing in the Brisbane Rockclimbing Club Circular, RURP. He quickly developed a reputation for his brutally honest, remarkably perceptive analyses. Sheard challenged several of the newer and existing club members to prove their skills in belay practice at the Kangaroo Point training cliffs. This entailed throwing an 80 kg piece of railway line off the top and actually experiencing holding a lead fall. It was well before the advent of sticht plates or belay brakes of any kind—back in 1968, gloves were mandatory for a second. And for Sheard, the impact of a good belay on a climb at Kangaroo Point was perhaps more important than for most, as he acknowledges:

I think I’d already had a serious fall there—a head-first plummet off By Ignorance after getting on the wrong route. Mal Graydon was belaying and actually saved my neck because I did actually touch the ground with my helmet. Mal had done a static belay but had also jumped backwards and my first peg had pulled out but the next one took it up. If he hadn’t done either a static belay or made a jump backwards, I would have been dead.

The sight of Greg Sheard, curled up in a ball, plummeting head-first towards the ground became a common one at the Kangaroo Point cliffs. He continued to push the limits and seemed to lead a charmed existence. But it couldn’t last and he managed to break an ankle—and, as he discovered years later, a vertebrae—in a 10 metre fall at Kangaroo Point while trying to free an aid climb started by a rival. But this didn’t stop Sheardie who quickly discovered crutches are very good at bashing a pathway through lantana en route to Glennies Pulpit or as a stabilising prop abseiling down Caves Route on Tibrogargan. Sheardie had emerged as the character of the late 1960s—a very strong climber, with an unconventional approach and an ability to create havoc, in the nicest possible way. Like his ankle and vertebrae, his infamous black Hillman also came to grief when one 'friend' painted fascist slogans all over it and another 'friend' then dropped an 80kg belay weight from the top of the cliff onto the boot, almost piercing the petrol tank. But it was all in good fun and at least he was still able to drive it to the wreckers next day!

Picture: Michael Meadows collection.