'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.

Leaps of faith

Rick White had quickly established himself as one of the most active and innovative climbers amongst the new cohort in Queensland in 1968 and the new routes he led began to mount. With Chris Meadows now his regular climbing partner, he climbed a series of hard new routes at Binna Burra, Mt Greville and Mt Maroon—and a steep, bold line on the southwest buttress of Glennies Pulpit, Prepare to Meet Thy God (pictured). It was named after a sign bearing those words was ‘liberated’ from a gum tree a few weeks before. For many years, the sign hung on the climb as a warning to non-believers! Taking leave while on his honeymoon, White linked up with Paul Caffyn to do the second ascent of the East Face of Mt Barney in damp and sometimes slimy conditions on the anniversary of the first ascent. Caffyn balanced his interest in speleology and climbing throughout the years he was active in Queensland, studying geology, until, like others before him, the lure of the New Zealand mountains and eventually, kayaking, became too great. But during his brief time as a climber in Queensland, he managed to channel much of his nervous energy and talent into some memorable and difficult ascents. White chose him to try a bold new route on the East Face of Mt Maroon. They began their assault in July, climbing four pitches on the steep, bare wall. It had all the hallmarks of being Queensland’s hardest route—and they were only halfway! Six weeks later, White and Caffyn started from their previous high point and climbed the last four pitches to the summit—Caffyn falling twice on the crux. They called the climb Beau Brummel. Five months later, White returned with Ted Cais and made the first complete ascent of the route under a blazing Queensland February sun.

Picture: Michael Meadows collection.

And the women?

Although climbing in Queensland (and the rest of Australia) in the late 1960s was largely a boys’ club, several women had been active on the climbing scene in Queensland since the mid-1960s. Pat Prendergast (pictured) was the first woman to join the Brisbane Rockclimbing Club in November 1965. She was also the first woman to lead Carborundum on Tibrogargan and made one of the first female ascents of Desperation Wall in 1966. But the lure of the New Zealand Alps was too great and she left Brisbane, making several return trips over the years. But most of her life has been spent climbing and drawing the mountains she loves, publishing a book of her paintings. From February 1968, Marion and Sue Speirs, along with Lesley Rivers, were regular climbers who mixed their activities on the rock with bushwalking. But like Pat Prendergast, they, too, were attracted to snow and ice climbing in the high mountains of New Zealand. In December 1968, Marion, 26, and Sue, 21, went missing in the Southern Alps for three days, caught in a freak storm while climbing in the Malte Brun Range in New Zealand. Their survival skills were acknowledged by the Chief Ranger at Mt Cook who believed no one had ever been rescued before after having been on the mountain for so long—74 hours. Another strong, enthusiastic climber-bushwalker Lesley Rivers was a regular at Kangaroo Point and on crags around southeast Queensland in the late 1960s. She was the first woman to climb East Crookneck with Greg Sheard in 1969 and like others before her, was eventually drawn into mountaineering, first in New Zealand, then the European Alps. She was killed in an accident on the Jungfrau, in the Swiss Alps, going to the aid of an injured climber, in the 1980s.

Picture: Pat Prendergast in action. Pat Prendergast collection.

Maintaining a long tradition of climbing a prominent cross-river structure in Brisbane (from left) Chris Meadows, Greg Sheard, Michael Meadows, Rick White...June 1968.

Picture: Michael Meadows collection.

In high places

Rick White, climbing with Dave Reeve, found the first route up the big east face on Mt Maroon in February 1968. They called it Deception I—a bold and circuitous 250 metre climb through a maze of loose blocks, clifflines, caves and corners. The following weekend, John Shera (pictured), my brother Chris and myself climbed the North Face of Leaning Peak. We were forced to bivvy on a ledge about 60 metres from the summit, completing the climb the following day. At 410 metres, it is the longest climb in Queensland and amongst the longest in Australia. With three of the biggest faces in southeast Queensland now climbed—the East Faces of Mt Barney and Mt Maroon and the North Face of Leaning Peak—attention turned to other problems, other lines. For the first time since the early 1950s when Kangaroo Point had been used as a top-roping and training cliff, climbers led the first hard routes there—Cais started the deluge with a bold lead of Cox’s Overhang in January. White followed with Nightfell and the classic, Adam’s Rib. Cais found Tombstone Row and four weeks later, the hardest climb on the cliff: the fiery Pterodactyl. The status of the Kangaroo Point cliffs had changed significantly and a hard core of new climbers had emerged.

Picture: Michael Meadows collection.

New waves

in the deep north

Rockclimbing had become firmly established in the eastern states in Australia by 1968. In Queensland, more new climbers began to emerge: Dave Reeve, John Veasey, Greg Sheard and a bloke called Rick White. I first laid eyes on White stuck on a tiny ledge at Binna Burra, 25 metres up Alcheringa—reputedly the hardest climb in Queensland—wearing a pair of Volley OCs. It was an indication of his strong mental resolve to push himself to the limit. Apart from Ted Cais, who had started climbing in the early 1960s, all of the previous generation of climbers in Queensland had moved on when Rick White, Greg Sheard, Paul Caffyn and others stormed onto the scene. White, Sheard and Caffyn moved quickly to repeat the hardest existing climbs in southeast Queensland and then began to look beyond. It was a time when most of the current crop of Brisbane Rockclimbing Club climbers had either moved away or slowed. Ted Cais was still climbing sporadically, balancing time on the rock with the demands of his postgraduate studies. But another generation was emerging. Early in 1968, Dave Reeve climbed East Chimney on Glennies Pulpit and Rick White put up two new routes on the Beerwah slabs, Scotch Mist and Gambier I. Paul Caffyn led my brother Chris and I up a delicate climb on the scaly northern edge of Cave 3 on Tibrogragan. We called the virtually unprotected one-pitcher Superdirettissima, another tilt at the traditionalists. Meanwhile, the number of climbing clubs in Sydney had increased from one to four—and in the previous two years, the number of climbing gear retailers there had trebeled. The Climbers’ Association of Western Australia formed, launching its ‘Golden Era’ which lasted until 1972. Several women were involved from the earliest days there including Jan Kornweibel, Hazel Adams and Helen Harrison-Lever. The association ran training sessions in a Perth quarry and it was characterised by a number of expatriate Europeans as members. At the same time, the first recorded climbs in the Northern territory were put up by Paul and Pam Oates and English expatriate Pauline Mason around Alice Springs.

Picture: Rick White and Paul Caffyn, summit of Crookneck, 1968. Paul Caffyn collection.

Tilting at tradition

By the close of 1967, John Ewbank had convinced his climbing compatriots in New South Wales to adopt a new open-ended grading system—a significant break from the European approach that had influenced Australian climbing from the very start. At the same time, an ethics’ war raged over the placement and use of bolts in the Blue Mountains (and beyond), with Ewbank leading the anti-bolting lobby in his own inimitable style. With Les Wood returning to the UK to climb, momentum in Queensland eased although several climbers remained active—Ted Cais, Donn Groom, Pete Giles, Geoff Cullen, Ken Purcell, Neill Lamb, Dennis Stocks, Bob Fick, Pat Prendergast and Marion Spiers included. In December, three new names appeared on the records of new routes in Queensland—Paul Caffyn, Chris Meadows, and myself. Searching for the new climb, Wasp, as a way of reaching Prometheus II on Tibrogargan, we inadvertently found what amounted to a direct start and called it—with a lot of tongue-in-cheek—Direttissima.

Picture: Paul Caffyn belaying the author up to the first stance of Direttissima on Tibrogargan during the first ascent in December 1967. Paul Caffyn collection.

The east face of Mt Barney

In May 1966, John Tillack solved one of the great climbing challenges in southeast Queensland, making the first ascent of the 300 metre east face of Mt Barney. He and Ted Cais had climbed the first part of the route but Cais decided against continuing the route next day. A week later, 26 May, Tillack returned, this time with Donn Groom and Les Wood. Wood, who was suffering from a hangover, remembers little of the climb, not even mentioning it in his diary. The face had been surrounded by an aura of invincibility ever since Logan and his team first commented on it during the first ascent of Mt Barney in 1828. But fresh from the recce the previous week, Tillack was confident and the team of three were soon at the previous high point below a large cave, as Tillack later recounted:

Unfortunately, I now remembered a trick [Walter] Bonatti used on the Dru, so I made a line of slings weighted with karabiners and flung this out so that the karabiners jammed behind a small tree. After appropriate incantations to the Gods of the mountain, I swing out into space and then, using the rope, climbed up to the tree. I then discovered that the tree was rotten.

The remaining four pitches followed a scrub-filled chimney to the summit. It has become something of a rite of passage for those who value ‘traditional’ or ‘adventure’ climbing, as it is now called.

Pictures: (from top) John Tillack [Ted Cais collection]; Donn Groom [John Larkin collection]; Les Wood [Les Wood collection].

Loaded

Ted Cais’s introduction to climbing came at an early age with Bert Salmon introducing him to previously unknown scrambles on the crags and cliffs of southeast Queensland. He read about the exploits of Ron Cox and Pat Conaghan, immortalised in the pages of the University of Queensland Bushwalking Club’s annual journal, Heybob—a collection of inspiring tales of the early exploration of the heights in southeast Queensland and beyond that have impacted on generations of climbers since. But it was Les Wood and later, Rick White, who influenced him to break away from the ethic where the leader never falls and to push himself to the forefront of Queensland and Australian climbing. He is pictured above at Easter 1966, loaded up for a walk into the High Tops at the Warrumbungles on a Brisbane Rockclimbing Club visit.

Picture: Hugh Pechey collection.

East Crookneck free

...almost

Perhaps the piece de la resistance for Les Wood (pictured) during his 1966 sojourn in Queensland was making the first (almost) free ascent of East Crookneck. Swinging leads with Donn Groom, they used some aid on the first pitch and then another aid move to climb the last big overhang on the second pitch. Les Wood continues the story: ‘We found most of it could be climbed free and that the etriers were necessary in one place. Much of the climbing was wide bridging around overhangs and the last pitch was done in very heavy rain.’ Shortly after the climb, Wood teamed up with Ted Cais who led an all-free version of the first pitch. The first free ascent of the climb was made by Greg Sheard and Chris Meadows in June 1968. Crookneck's southwest buttress was another problem that attracted the attention of Les Wood and Ted Cais in 1966. They started a new climb there that would eventually be called Flameout:

My first attempt was in August 1966 with Les Wood but he backed off the second pitch realizing this would probably be the first VS [Very Severe] in Queensland. So I returned in the heat of November with Donn Groom and he passed the overhang that was Les’s previous high point with two points of aid but took a whipper on an upside-down peg—it held—before figuring out the thin moves above. For a while this was indeed the hardest route although John Tillack claimed an equally difficult climb named Medusa on the organ-pipe columns somewhere on Beerwah’s northwest flank.

Donn Groom and Ted Cais were emerging as the strongest and most consistent leaders amongst the cohort of Queensland climbers of the mid-1960s. In July, Groom teamed with long time friend John Larkin to climb Alcheringa on the vertical rhyolite columns of Binna Burra’s east cliffs, again vying for the hardest climb in Queensland. Cais later made the first free ascent, eliminating the few aid moves. Cais played a key role in the last new route climbed by Les Wood during his Queensland stay by solving the tricky first pitch puzzle on Overexposed. Wood and Groom joined forces again to complete the route which offers sensational, exposed climbing through a series of small, shallow caves on the southern edge of the summit overhang on Tibrogargan. In the pre-cam and hex days, there was little protection on the route but modern equipment has helped to make it less psychologically challenging. Nevertheless, the aura surrounding the climb has meant that it is rarely repeated.

Picture: Les Wood-Donn Groom collection.

Seeking Clemency

On his return to Queensland after the Brisbane Rockclimbing Club's Warrumbungles climbing trip in 1966, Les Wood teamed up with Donn Groom again to put up the first route on the high southeast face on Tibrogargan in the Glasshouses. It was classy and clever route-finding through sometimes steep and poorly protected rock. 'Things like that didn't really bother me,' Wood recalls. 'I always felt that I was a very cautious climber. I was climbing within myself. I only ever had one real fall and that wasn't in Queensland. That was because something broke. I always I felt I'd got things covered but I suppose things can become uncovered if you're doing a few things that you can't reverse and you find yourself stuck-but that [climb] seemed OK to me.' The climb was probably the hardest climb in Queensland at the time and up with the most difficult in the country. Wood's diary records the climb having 'a few VS [Very Severe] moves, delicate and a bit technical'. He continues: 'I think I used a piton for aid. I seem to remember in those days people weren't at all touchy about using aid-you'd whip one in without thinking about it. But now they put those bloody bolts all over the place anyway.' They called the climb Clemency after Wood's close friend and climbing partner John Clements who had just been killed in a climbing accident in Scotland.

Picture: Les Wood-Donn Groom collection.

Out and beyond

In March 1966, Les Wood began his assault on Queensland putting up the climb,Trojan, weaving its way through the summit overhangs on Tibrogargan in the Glasshouses. ‘We went up there and let it unfold,’ Wood recalls. ‘It was just exploring really. I don't even remember if there was a guidebook. I don't remember finding it hard. Quite exhilarating. And I thought, “This has got a bit of class to it.” I don't know why “Trojan”—like something was hiding, maybe?’ Climbing every available weekend, he soon teamed up with Donn Groom and with Brian Driscoll, climbed a new route on Beerwah, calling it Slipknot, after a climb on White Ghyll in the Lake District. A week later he was back on Beerwah to climb Whynot, again with Groom. At Easter, he joined the BRC climbing trip to the Warrumbungles, seeking out the classic, Out and Beyond. ‘It had had only one ascent, classed as hard severe,’ Wood remembers. ‘It has a most impressive first pitch. So I did that but from the end of the traverse I had to retreat because Col Hocking didn't want to second it as he was getting married three weeks later. We did Vertigo and added a final pitch to it. The next day I went back to Out and Beyond with Ted Cais and John Tillack. John was a bit worried. Ted decided not to come. I can't remember why. I remember the route—really nice. I suppose, fairly exposed.’

Picture: Ted Cais collection

A new climbing ethic

In Queensland in 1966, more than 30 new routes went up on crags in southeast Queensland, many of them destined to become classics. It was a combination of the formation of the Brisbane Rockclimbing Club, the emergence of several talented local climbers, and the influence of quietly-spoken English expatriate climber, Les Wood. Linking with local climbers Donn Groom, Ted Cais and John Tillack, Wood’s 12 month stay in Queensland took climbing standards to a new level. But he left behind something far more lasting—an approach to climbing that in many ways transcended the old bushwalking-climbing nexus. He drifted into climbing as a 17-year-old in 1961 at university in Durham, England, when he met John Clements who became a long time friend. Surviving an audacious first season in the Dolomites (‘The Dollies’), Wood later worked and studied in Canada, the United States, doing little climbing, and managed to arrange a 12 month contract as a demonstrator in Geography at the University of Queensland in Brisbane. He arrived via New Zealand almost broke, borrowing five pounds from an uncle there to get him to Brisbane. He managed to find a share house, the Brisbane Rockclimbing Club and Donn Groom:

Donn was then at Binna Burra and seemed to have a perfect life in that he and his brothers had taken over the lodge and they seemed to have two years on and one year off. He was an avid climber and a really nice bloke. We got on very well together and he had a car—I didn't have one in the early days—so we started going to the Glasshouses. I think I'd got a background that was unusual to many of them. I was climbing Hard VSs [Hard Very Severe]—but I was only just into those things. I'd fallen off Vector trying to follow John [Clements]. But I was doing Hard VSs without too much trouble and some big routes like Mickledore Grooves—back in the old days it was a route with a reputation—long runouts and no protection. Climbing before I left England occupied all my life. It wasn't like a sport, it was a way of life more than anything.

It was this ethic that Wood brought with him, instilling it into myriad Queensland climbing generations since. One of the interesting aspects of Queensland climbing culture is that each new wave of climbers seem to have had little knowledge and/or interest in previous generations of climbers. While individuals certainly stand out, for most, climbing history seemed to have more to do with events that happened last year rather than a decade or more before.

Picture: Les Wood collection.

John Ewbank leads out on the 17th pitch of his girdle of the Wirindi cliffline, The Masterpiece. Although in this photograph, taken during the first ascent in March-April 1967, he carries an etrier, it was not used. John Worrall (belaying) and Ewbank swung leads on this climb.

Picture: Donn Groom collection

The times they

were a-changin’

New South Wales climber John Ewbank picked up on a popular Rolling Stones’ hit of the time and penned an article on climbing ethics for Thrutch entitled, ‘Here comes your 19^th breaking runner’. Perhaps it was a clue as to the career change Ewbank would take on with gusto within a decade. But he had plenty to write about in 1966—he had just put up the hardest climb in the country at Mt Piddington in the Blue Mountains, a single pitch route called The Janicepts. He used jamming techniques to climb it—an approach virtually unknown in Australia at the time. Although climbers had used jamming moves on routes in Australia before this, no-one had applied the technique in such a sustained way. Most climbing relied on using existing hand and foot holds—jamming moved climbing technique into a new zone and Ewbank quickly became the unrivalled master although he revelled equally on the steep walls of the Blue Mountains. He is pictured (above) making the first ascent of the direct finish to The Eternity, at Wirindi in February 1967. But his activity was not confined to sandstone—in the December heat in the Warrumbungles that year (1966), climbing with partner John Worrall, he made the first ascent of The Crucifixion, a steep, 250 metre line to the right of Lieben on the west face of Crater Bluff.

Victorian milestones

In Victoria at this time, climbers began to use reamed-out nuts threaded with rope slings as protective devices as new routes multiplied on the cliffs of the recently-discovered Mt Arapiles. Two significant climbs done this year included the classics, Eurydice and Watchtower Crack, led by Bob Bull and John Fahey respectively. This was the year that a new wave in Victoria was champing at the bit and names like Chris Dewhirst, John Moore, Chris Baxter, the Gledhill twins—Alan and Geoff—and later, Roland Pauligk (creator and manufacturer of the famed RPs) were starting to appear on new route descriptions. They would dominate Victorian climbing for years. But all the activity in Victoria was not at Mt Arapiles—in February 1966, Ian Speedie, Mike Stone, Ted Batty, and Reg Williams made the first ascent of the huge granite north wall of Mt Buffalo, calling the climb, Emperor. Six months later, Dewhirst, Moore, Philip Seccombe and Philip Guild spent three days on the Mt Buffalo north wall, climbing Fuhrer.

Picture: Donn Groom collection.

The Brisbane Rockclimbing Club

The third incarnation of climbing club in Queensland—the Brisbane Rockclimbing Club (BRC)—was formed on 1 September 1965. Instigated by Donn Groom, it attracted members from four southeast Queensland bushwalking clubs—BBW, UQBWC, Binna Burra Bushwalking Club and the YMCA Ramblers. It represented a significant shift in emphasis from previous associations in that rockclimbing was identified as the main activity—not bushwalking or mountaineering. The objects of the club were simple: ‘To rockclimb and instruct interested people in rockclimbing; and to abide by and assist in maintaining conservation laws and create interest and preservation of natural beauty and wild life.’ To this point in Queensland’s climbing history, virtually everyone who became involved in rockclimbing had also been interested, even in a peripheral way, in bushwalking—the two activities were closely linked. The new club was ‘open to either sex’ with four membership levels: probationary, members, leaders, and instructors, determined ‘at the discretion of the committee’. Meetings were held once a month and instructional weekends were planned for probationary members. Climbers were urged to provide details of all new climbs to an Archives Custodian. At the first meeting, there was a display of some of the equipment being used by climbers for the benefit of new members and the annual subscription was set at one pound ($2.00). Hugh Pechey was elected President; John Tillack was Vice-president and membership officer; Col Hocking the Secretary; Dennis Stocks, Archives custodian and outings secretary; and Treasurer was Bill Walker. At the second meeting on 6 October 1965, Pat Conaghan gave a talk and showed some of his climbing slides and a film from the Sydney Rockclimbing Club of the first ascent of Ball’s Pyramid was screened. Members were encouraged to subscribe to the Sydney Rockclimbing magazine, Thrutch. The open invitation to new members in the first club circular read as follows: ‘If you are interested in rockclimbing then we extend an invitation to you. If your climbing standard is low we shall endeavour to help you; if it is high, you may be able to help us. All members are not expected to be “superhuman rockclimbers”—we hope to cater for all tastes. WE DO NOT WISH OUR MEMBERS TO BE THE BEST IN AUSTRALIA—MERELY THE OLDEST.’

Picture: Hugh Pechey collection.

Donn Groom (pictured) was a key influence on climbing in Queensland and Tasmania the 1960s and 70s. His father Arthur Groom became the first honorary secretary of the National Parks Association of Queensland in 1930 and was active in the promotion of national parks and environmental protection until his death in 1953. With Romeo Lahey, Arthur Groom established Binna Burra Lodge, on the edge of the Lamington National Park, in southeast Queensland, in 1933. Arthur was known for his extraordinary ability to walk long distances and his sense of humour-in many ways the equivalent of Yosemite's John Muir. Donn lists his father as a key influence in his life. Arthur Groom's photographs and articles featuring the wilderness of southeast Queensland filled the pages of the early Queensland press from the late 1920s. He played a central role in forming ideas of wilderness and conservation the minds of members of the public, many of whom would never visit the regions he immortalised in his wonderful photographs and stories. Donn describes him as 'a mountaineer and an explorer'. He was a great influence on his son's life and his desire to climb.

Picture: John Larkin collection.

Northeast Buttress on Tibrogargan in the Glasshouses, north of Brisbane. The route followed by Pat Conaghan and Grahame Hardy in 1964. At the time, it was the longest climb on the mountain.

Picture: Pat Conaghan collection.

Tibrogargan's

Northeast Buttress

Pat Conaghan (pictured) teamed with Grahame Hardy in the Glasshouses to force a new route up Tibrogargan’s huge, bare Northeast Buttress in October 1964 — at more than 250 metres, it was the longest climb on the mountain. The climb was one of Conaghan’s first on local rock since he and Ron Cox completed the traverse of Geryon in 1961. The first five pitches weave their way cunningly through a series of steep walls and overhangs, reaching a steep, smooth corner which splits the arete. Next the climb traverses out left onto bare, seamless rock and it was here that Conaghan resorted to bolts to climb the 10 metre crux. As a climb, it offers some airy and sensational positions and like many of the multi-pitch routes on Tibrogargan, requires a high level of route-finding skill. A young Ted Cais joined Conaghan for the second ascent of the route along with chemistry honours student, John Tillack. With a strong southeasterly wind blowing the occasional rain squall in from the sea, the trio started their climb up sometimes greasy rock, reaching a tiny ledge, where Cais takes up the story:

Before we had time to re-arrange the ropes the rain really hit us. Right out to sea was just one big haze, and quite soon, there wasn’t a dry square inch of rock around us. We grimly hung onto the rope handrail trying to find a comfortable position on that confounded ledge, sheltering under our one leaky anorak while discussing the big question: should we go down or up?

The rain eventually stopped and a cutting wind added to their discomfort but it at least began to dry off the rock. They decided to climb on, with just three pitches remaining. Conaghan led off at 4.00 pm, reaching a small ledge, tantalisingly close to the next belay bolt, but separated from it by a greasy traverse. He decided to place another bolt for protection and 20 minutes went by as he patiently drilled—hit-twist; hit-twist; hit-twist. By the time he had reached the stance and belayed up Cais and Tillack, it was almost dark as even darker rain clouds raced towards them from Moreton Bay:

As I belayed him from the new bolt, Pat led up in the darkness with our only torch gripped firmly between his teeth, since there was no provision for tying the torch onto his waistlength. The slippery rock soon stopped his progress, however, and he found it necessary to place a new bolt, in attempting to reach a higher one from the first ascent which had served both as a runner and an anchor for a delicate tension traverse to the left. Time passed, and soon it was pitch black; not a start could be seen in the inly vault above our heads. I looked down to the Bruce Highway, where we could see the lights of cars that passed, their occupants being oblivious of the struggle we were having up on this rainswept cliff. Eventually Pat had the bolt in, and having then reached the higher bolt, he set out on the tension traverse. Groping for holds in the feeble light of the torch, at realised that he was going to come off. I heard him mumble something with the torch still in his mouth, and then he came off. The trusty bolt held and Pat fetched up a few feet above John and me. Conaghan came off again, realising he would have to bolt his way across this impasse. He set two more bolts and reached the belay stance, a very welcome tree.

They stumbled, exhausted, onto the northeast shoulder at midnight. Descent in the dark without a torch was impossible but they managed to find a rock shelter where they shivered until dawn.

Picture: Pat Conaghan collection.

Arapiles awakens

Two new rockclimbing clubs formed in 1963—in the Australian Capital Territory and South Australia—as a large outcrop of promising cliffline was ‘discovered’ near the township of Natamuk in Victoria by Bob and Steve Craddock. Mt Arapiles (pictured above) was destined become Australia’s most visited climbing cliff, one offering perhaps the greatest variety of climbing of any location in the country. In the nearby Grampians, Greg Lovejoy led a climb called Wrinkle then claimed as the hardest in the country. But this was 1963 and there was a long way to go. The open-ended Ewbank grading system had not arrived with climbing difficulty graded according to the British system. In New South Wales, Bryden Allen published the first local guidebook, the most comprehensive yet in Australia—Rockclimbs of New South Wales. Allen was in action on the rock as well, climbing the imposing Heartstopper with Chris Regan on the west face of the Breadknife in the Warrumbungles. The University of Queensland Bushwalking Club magazine, Heybob, continued its important role as a purveyor of climbing literature publishing accounts and descriptions of early climbs in Queensland. And towards the end of that year, the veteran Bert Salmon climbed Mt Lindesay for the second last time—his 26th ascent—with six Ramblers including 16-year-old Rudolph Edward Cais. Over the next 10 years, Cais would play a pivotal role in the development of climbing in Queensland before leaving to pursue a career as a research scientist in the United States in the mid 1970s.

Milestones on- and off-shore

As Kevin Westren put up the first climbing route —Hocus Pocus — at Mt Piddington (Wirindi) in the Blue Mountains near Blackheath, Bryden Allen and British immigrant, teenager John Ewbank, climbed a new route up the highest part of the face on Bluff Mountain, the 358 metre Elijah. It took them eight days to complete, retreating and returning. The guidebook advises: ‘Not exactly beginners’ stuff.’ Allen recalled their trip back to Sydney after the climb:

Certainly the most amusing experience of all was hitch-hiking back with John Ewbank after living on dehyds for a week in the Warrumbungles which had included the first ascent of Elijah. Both of us had fairly ripe guts. 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.

Like Allen, and perhaps even more so, Ewbank’s name would become synonymous with rockclimbing in Australia over the next decade. He moved out of climbing and is a musician, now living in New York. New South Wales climbing received a major boost in February 1964 with the 1st ascent of Ball's Pyramid, a magnificent spire near Lord Howe Island, by Bryden Allen, John Davis, Jack Pettigrew and David Witham. This paralleled an audacious first ascent of the southeast face of Frenchman's Cap by Allen and Pettigrew. At the time, it was undoubtedly the most serious rockclimb in Australia. Bolts first appeared on climbs in Victoria in 1964, the same year as John Fahey and Peter Jackson climbed Witch at the newly discovered Mt Arapiles—put forward as another contender for Australia’s hardest route. With the discovery of Mt Arapiles and the arrival of Allen and Ewbank on the scene, rockclimbing in New South Wales and Victoria was about to make a quantum leap forward. But a new wave of Queensland climbers was waiting in the wings.

Picture: Michael Meadows collection.

The swinging sixties

Climbing in Australia went through an extraordinary period of development during the 1960s. As Queensland entered a period of calm, in New South Wales, there was a shift from the longer ‘adventure’ climbs to shorter and harder routes. The Sydney University Mountaineering Club formed in 1960 and initially started developing Narrowneck as a climbing destination. Around this time, a team of climbers from the Victorian Climbing Club made an assault on Tasmania, climbing the east face of the Foresight on Mt Geryon. Back on the mainland, they climbed classic routes like Buddha’s Wall and The Cat Walk in the Grampians, followed up in 1961 by two bold routes on Federation Peak — the Northwest Face by Bob Jones, Jack O’Halloran and Robin Dunse, and The Blade Ridge, climbed again by Jones and O’Halloran.

Sandshoes and steel

At the start of the 1960s, the vast majority of climbers in Australia still used the redoubtable Volley OCs as footwear, hemp rope, mild steel carabiners, pitons and — increasingly in New South Wales and Victoria — expansion bolts. Climbers in New South Wales in 1960 had begun to seriously investigate the potential of expansion bolts as a form of protection on the friable sandstone cliffs in the Blue Mountains. It provoked ‘strong feeling’ over their use—and a long and continuing ethical debate—although as protective devices they have become a central element of modern rockclimbing globally. Existing rockclimbing clubs in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane experienced a dramatic increase in membership in the 1960s, although the overall numbers of core climbers remained small, particularly in Queensland. By 1961, rockclimbing had split into two categories in Australia: free and artificial or aid climbing. Nylon ropes were becoming more common, along with advice on the best boots for rockclimbing, costing between £4/6/0 ($9.00) for a pair of RLs (Robert Lawrie) or £6/-/- ($12.00) for a pair of PAs (Pierre Allain). This description is from a 1961 MUMC catalogue:

The desirable features of a boot for rock climbing are narrow and slightly pointed toes, rigid and almost flat soles flush with the upper, with little or no protruding welt, low cut ankles, and a comfortable fit.

Perhaps encouraged by all the foreigners snatching local routes from under their noses, Tasmanians formed their own climbing club early in 1962. Across Bass Strait, the first climbing guide to Victoria was published, listing 15 routes. Fewer than 12 climbers were in action there but one figure soon stood out—Peter Jackson. Over the next few years, he was rarely far away from the cutting edge routes being climbed. And, like their Queensland colleagues, several Victorians were drawn into mountaineering imbing in the Alps and the Dolomites at this time.

The return of Bryden Allen

In the year that Australia pledged support to the United States in ending what appeared to be a small skirmish in Vietnam, 1962, three memorable new routes went up in the Warrumbungles—Out and Beyond, Lieben, and Cornerstone Rib. All would soon become classics and the climbers who created them—Bryden Allen and Ted Batty—would be as well-known across the country. Allen was born in Canberra in 1940, moving to England with his family when he was 11. He started climbing at age 18 when studying at London University and considers himself more of an English climber than an Australian. When he returned to Australia in 1961, he sported the latest European equipment, including a pair of climbing boots called PAs—reputedly the stickiest friction boots available at that time, taking their name from their creator, the French climbing star Pierre Allain. Over the next five years, Allen assumed the mantle of Australia’s top climber, figuring strongly in the development of climbing in the Warrumbungles, at Frenchman’s Cap, Balls Pyramid (first ascent) and the Blue Mountains. Allen described his ascent of Lieben—then Australia’s hardest climb—as ‘possibly the most foolhardy’ route he ever did on his ‘fourth or fifth weekend’ of climbing in Australia. Several climbers had eyed off the route on the west face of Crater Bluff, and the line Lieben took in particular. Russ Kippax was one of them and planned to climb the route as his swansong—but Allen beat him to it. Kippax recalls with a wry smile: ‘I wasn’t too happy about that.’ Ted Batty seconded Allen on the route wearing sandshoes and it was many years before it had a repeat ascent. Meanwhile, activity in Western Australia was starting in earnest, described in one magazine story as ‘one of WA’s newest sports’ with Latvian-born climber Arvid Miller pioneering climbing in the west.

The 1^st ascent of Carstenz Pyramid

In Irian Jaya, Heinrich Harrer enlisted Russ Kippax, New Zealander Philip Temple and Bert Huizenga to make the first ascent of Carstenz Pyramid (4883m) in January 1962. The team made an additional 32 summits to their first ascent list. Kippax recalls meeting Harrer, a member of the 1938 Eigerwand first ascent team, in Sydney after he gave a talk to a Sydney Bush Walkers meeting. Harrer heard about Kippax's climbing experience and asked him to join the expedition but he would have to pay his own way. Kippax, a medical student at the time, sold his prized MGA sports car to pay for the trip without hesitation. Kippax led virtually all of the rock pitches and after the event, Harrer asked him to come on a world lecture tour. It was tempting, but Kippax decided instead to complete his studies.

The Southern Alps of New Zealand

Ron Cox leading on the 2nd ascent of the lower section of Nazomi's Southwest Ridge in January 1962. Nazomi is a satellite peak of Mt Cook's South Summit. Scottish climber Hamish MacInnes made the first ascent of the ridge a few years earlier, describing it as 'one of the longest continuous rock ridges in the world outside the Himalaya'. Within a week, Cox and Conaghan went on to make the first ascent of the entire Bowie Ridge on Mt Cook.

Picture: Pat Conaghan Collection

Mt Geryon: 1st winter ascent, 1960

Ron Cox had emerged as a dominant figure in the Queensland (and Australian) climbing scene and always saw his activities as part of a bigger picture. In August 1960, he set off with Pat Conaghan, Peter Reimann and Basil Yule to attempt the first winter ascent of Mt Geryon in Tasmania’s Central Reserve. It was a bold move and Cox’s laconic style captures the essence of how they came to be there:

They’d never climbed snow before. Their only knowledge of the art came from text-books…They started up the face, climbing on high angle snow, kicking steps and using their axes as an aid to balance. For safety’s sake, they belayed as in rock climbing, except that their belay anchors were axe shafts driven deep in the snow. As they climbed, they learned.

The team split up with Reimann and Yule completing the first winter circuit of the Ducane Range from the Labyrinth to Falling Mountain. Cox and Conaghan decided on an audacious attempt to traverse Geryon’s four peaks from north to south. No one had done this before, even in summer. They climbed Geryon’s North Peak again, bivouacking in a snow cave near the summit. But the weather closed in, as Cox writes:

The thick mist and freezing conditions, added to the immense technical difficulties of this winter climb, were more than enough to scare the usually optimistic duo into retreat. Descending the mountain, they narrowly averted disaster when Cox, climbing down a steep couloir of snow and ice too quickly and too carelessly, slipped and fell 150 feet. Conaghan held him on an ice axe belay. Had the belay gone, they would have fallen over a thousand feet down the western face.

Their first experience on snow and ice did nothing but whet their appetite. Although they failed to traverse the mountain, they had made the first winter ascent of Geryon’s North Peak—climbing it twice. Later that year, they made the first full ascent of the Bowie Ridge on Mt Cook with Cox making the summit of New Zealand’s highest peak twice in his first season. It was an extraordinary transformation. Cox and Conaghan returned to Geryon in the sweltering summer of 1961 to make the first traverse of all of Geryon’s peaks. Within four years, Cox and Reiman would be climbing in the Alps, Cox moving to Grenoble in France to work. He is still living there today, now retired. Conaghan has since travelled the world, visiting various remote regions in his capacity as a geologist. Hardy, too, felt the call of the bigger mountains and eventually went on to climb in the Himalayas, the Andes, Canada, Switzerland, Czechoslovakia and Africa with his wife, Margaret. ‘On my first climb,’ Hardy recalls, ‘I knew it was what I wanted to do.’ It was an extraordinary era, defined by an extraordinary cohort of adventurers, all emerging from the University of Queensland Bushwalking Club.

Picture: (from left) Peter Reimann, Basil Yule and Ron Cox in Tasmania, 1960. Pat Conaghan collection.

A long abseil

Over Easter 1960, Ron Cox, Grahame Hardy and Basil Yule made the first descent of the 350 metre East Face of Mt Barney, following the line of the chimney splitting the face (pictured). Carrying every bit of rope and ironmongery they could muster, they had descended three pitches without incident when, with the light fading fast, Hardy abseiled over the edge in search of a bivvy ledge. Cox captured the mood in his diary: 'Fourth abseil off tree. Hardy led. Darkness and mist arrive together (7 hours so far). Hardy lets out agonising scream from the darkness below causing Cox and Basil to nearly have kittens. Turns out Hardy has come off diagonal abseil and hit head on rock. But for crash helmet, and fact that head is extraordinarily solid, would no doubt have been knocked unconscious.' They managed to find a small ledge but with light from a full moon soon spilling across the face, they decided to continue their descent, reaching the base of the vertical wall about 1.00 am. At dawn, they skirted the foot of the wall, finding a trickle of water and their first for 24 hours. It was typical of Ron Cox's adventures in southeast Queensland which commonly seemed to become epics.

Picture: Michael Meadows collection.