More ascents in the Steamers

Two weeks after his first ascent in August 1950 of the Mast in the Steamer formation, Bob Waring returned for a third time with the founder of the Brisbane Climbing Club, former New Zealand mountaineer Kemp Fowler. Their goal was the first ascent of the Funnel and he was still chasing the reputed 100 pounds reward. The duo slept in a cave about a hundred metres from a huge flake they intended to climb to the summit. It rained during the night and at 6.00 am on 2 December under an overcast sky, they started their climb. Waring led confidently up to a large ledge at the top of the flake and Fowler came up to belay him on the next pitch. Jon Stephenson later described their route:

The overhang directly above the ledge proved impracticable, and Waring was forced to make an exposed traverse of thirty feet followed by a strenuous sixty feet of vertical work, and thus reached the first belay point on this severe pitch—a small gum tree. This manoeuvre required almost all their one hundred and twenty feet of rope, and took an hour and a half. But the problem was solved, and from a timbered step, a careful scramble, heightened by a close experience
with a falling rock, took them to the flat summit area, more extensive than that of the Mast.

At the time, it would have been amongst the hardest climbing routes in Australia. But Waring was not yet content as one more summit in the Steamer formation remained unclimbed—the Pinnacle. This spire is about half the height of the Mast and is separated from it by a narrow crevice, 30 metres deep. He returned two years later with John Comino and the pair began by climbing a 30 metre pitch (pictured above), unroped, up the north face to the foot of the crevice separating the Pinnacle from the Mast. ‘Thence a traverse, followed by a difficult set of pitches—some verging on the severe—brought the climbers to the last virgin summit.’ Waring recalls an incident in the crevice which almost led to his demise:

A large rock wallaby came bounding along the narrow traverse ledge and landed at high speed directly on my right thigh, almost knocking me off into space, then slammed away again onto some small ledges and disappeared. A second, smaller one, presumably a female, which was following, then arrived from the same direction, but just leaped into the 80 foot drop down into the scrub below. We did not think this was a very good start for the climb.

However, Comino, who was watching the presumed dead animal, was stunned to see it get to its feet after several minutes and bound off, apparently uninjured. Despite his three first ascents of the Steamer formation, Bob Waring and his several companions never received the promised 100 pounds reward.

Picture: John Comino collection.