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.