Monday, January 17, 2022

Vale Ian McLeod 1931-2020



Geologist Ian McLeod in Antarctica in 1958. Picture: Graham Knuckey



Ian McLeod: Courage in the frozen wilderness



By Malcolm Robertson



Chipping steps to traverse the icy slope of an Antarctic glacier only metres away from a sheer precipice takes both courage and skill. To do it on your own, still aged in your twenties, to reach two injured colleagues, survivors of a nasty helicopter crash, takes a special sort of person. Geologist Ian McLeod, who has died aged 89, was certainly that. In February 1960, in appalling windy conditions, his mountaineering experience and gritty geologist's determination ensured that he and his injured friends, all members of the Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions (ANARE) summer party to Wilkes base that year, made it safely back.


The dogs all had different characters - loafers, humourists, workers, you name it - and they could be a handful at times, but I found it the best way to travel and to really see the country


-- Ian McLeod describing dogsledding in Antarctica


In 1960, McLeod was no stranger to Antarctica and the vagaries of its weather conditions that had led to the helicopter incident. He had joined the Australian Government's Bureau of Mineral Resources (BMR, now Geoscience Australia) to over-winter at Mawson base in 1958 as glaciologist and geologist. In that year, he had earned the respect of his colleagues with a 650km traverse across Kemp and Enderby Lands in the hinterland behind Mawson base in the company of a surveyor and radio operator using a dog sledging team for transport, a feat little different to the pioneering traverses by Sir Douglas Mawson in the early years of the twentieth century.


To quote Ian: "During the traverse, the surveyor nominated the spot at each rock outcrop for a fix, and while he was doing that, I would do some basic geological observations. We used hickory wood sledges fastened with rawhide. There were no nails or rivets in the frame so the whole construction was flexible. The dogs all had different characters - loafers, humourists, workers, you name it - and they could be a handful at times, but I found it the best way to travel and to really see the country.”


Helping to recover his injured colleagues in 1960 drew on all his previous Antarctic experience, his mountaineering skills and his inner resolve and strength.







Ian McLeod with sled dog Lewis in 1958. Picture: Geoscience Australia




McLeod was born in Rockhampton on 26 July 1931, the eldest of three children born to parents Roy and Edith McLeod. Roy McLeod was a qualified accountant working with Vacuum Oil Company which later became Mobil. The family moved to Brisbane in 1940 and Ian finished his primary schooling at Taringa State School before moving to Brisbane Grammar School for his secondary education. He chose to study geology for his matriculation, a subject he soon found fascinating and absorbing.


McLeod went on to the University of Queensland to achieve distinctions in geology, First Class Honours and a Master of Science, working part-time in the Geology Department as a graduate demonstrator and research assistant in his post-graduate years. A quiet and thoughtful young man, he loved the outdoors and the Australian bush, hiking extensively in untracked areas while at university, building skills in bushcraft, navigation and rockclimbing.


McLeod's introduction to field work was in 1955 when he spent two months with three others in western Tasmania, being supplied by fortnightly airdrops. In early 1956, Ian joined Reg Sprigg's Geosurveys of Australia to explore for nickel in the far northwest of South Australia and adjoining Western Australia. The geology of the area was then hardly known, except that there were several well-exposed bodies of layered rocks, some dipping near vertically with thicknesses up to seven kilometres and exposed strike lengths up to 40 kilometres.


Being among the first to investigate these was exciting and challenging. The only road in the area was a two-wheel track winding through the bush to Mulga Park station, 250 kilometres to the east, but over the next two years, Giles weather station was established and the redoubtable Len Beadell began to grade the network of roads for the Woomera rocket range and the atomic bomb test sites. All the geological work was done using specially flown aerial photographs.


McLeod moved to BMR in late 1957 and went on to be one of Australia's leading experts in Antarctic geology. He returned to the frozen continent five times over the period 1960 to 1970 to participate in and supervise summer field work out of Mawson station and in the vast Prince Charles Mountains further south. His contribution to Antarctic geology is recognised with McLeod Massif, the McLeod Nunataks, McLeod Glacier and McLeod Island all bearing his name, and with a Polar Medal, an MBE and the Bellinghausen medal from the Russian Academy of Science.


On his return from Antarctica, McLeod lived at Havelock House where he met Beverley Bradfield, a young pharmacist who had moved from Sydney to take up a position in Civic. They became good friends and married in 1964. Their two children, Graeme and Jennifer, were born in 1966 and 1968.


McLeod's greatest contribution to Australia's growth as a nation came when he became head of the BMR's Mineral Economics Section in 1974. This Section was responsible for compilation, analysis and publication of information on Australia's mineral assets, and for the provision of expert advice to both government and industry. Its work was critical to the development of Australia's mineral resources and to the policy and regulation framework that the mining industry works within today. As well as leading the Section, Ian was the commodity specialist for tin.


His role evolved and by 1985 he was responsible for the co-ordination and broad supervision of the groups in the wider Mineral Resources Branch. He retired at the end of 1990 but his extensive knowledge of Australia's mineral resources continued to be in demand. Ian's career had included membership of several national and international committees concerned with Antarctica and the mineral industry, including the Australian National Committee on Antarctic Research, the Working Group on Geology (of which he was secretary) of the international Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research, and the International Strategic Minerals Inventory Working Group. He continued part time as consultant on these and on several resource studies for BMR while quietly throwing himself into the other activities he loved.





Ian McLeod in retirement (ca 2013). Picture: Beverley McLeod



He became a voluntary explainer at Questacon, a role he continued for many years, and where he was recently awarded Emeritus Volunteer status.


McLeod also devoted more time to the iconic Canberra Alpine Club which he and Beverley had joined when they had arrived in Canberra. Ian was an active member, bushwalking, skiing, at work parties, and in the management of the Club on committee positions over many years. He was still actively organising the next work party when he became ill. He is remembered as an absolute gentleman, a quiet achiever, who was always ready to lend a hand, and who got things done. His welcoming smile left a lasting impression on everyone he met. He was elected honorary life member in 1997. McLeod's role as Mt Franklin Officer with the Club brought him in close contact with ACT Parks and Conservation. His knowledge of the mountains of Namadgi National Park was legendary and combined his love for geology, the bush and the solace of the wilderness. His steadfast passion and enthusiasm for the heritage of Mt Franklin and the Canberra Alpine Club's association with skiing in the Brindabellas is a tangible legacy.


Ian McLeod is survived by his sister Fiona, his wife Beverley and their two children.




Jon Stephenson revisited

 


Jon Stephenson revisiting Heard Island in 2002 (photograph: Grahame Budd)


Jon Stephenson is a name that resounds throughout the postwar history of climbing in Queensland but his contribution extends far beyond his pioneering exploits on the crags of southeast Queensland. This review of Jon's life has been prompted by recent communication with one of his contemporaries, Antarctic explorer Grahame Budd, and Pat Conaghan, himself a trailblazing climber and scientist with more than a passing interest in Australia's climbing heritage and history.

When Jon passed away in 2011, there were several worthy obituaries celebrating his life but one which has perhaps had limited distribution and which sums up his extraordinary achievements was written by his climbing and scientific contemporary, Grahame Budd. In 1963, Jon and Grahame, together with former British commando Warwick Deacock, made the second attempt to reach the summit of the highest point in Australia and its territories, Mawson Peak on the Big Ben massif, an active volcano on the subAntarctic Heard Island. The following year, Grahame was in the first successful ascent team. 

Grahame's obituary for Jon captures the essence of the influential yet humble man whose unbridled passion for science, the environment and setting foot on high places, helped to create the foundation for Australian climbing culture.

Grahame's obit for Jon Stephenson is available online in the Australian Antarctic Magazine, Issue 21, 2011.

A more detailed description of the ascent of Big Ben, along with more of Grahame's historic photographs is in my book, The living rock, available as a free download until 1 March 2022 from either Apple Books or from Google Drive. Please note that both are very large files (around 700 MB) and will take some time to download.

Wednesday, December 22, 2021

The living rock lives again...

Copies of The living rock (digital) will be available as a FREE DOWNLOAD from the Apple Bookstore (Apple devices) or Google Drive (Android devices) for two months from Boxing Day 2021. Please note these are BIG files, both around 700MB. 

I've decided to offer free copies initially as a thank you to all of you who supported the print version since its launch in 2015. The original print run of 1100 sold out in the second half of 2021with just a few copies still available at places like Binna Burra and Pinnacle Sports. I had decided several years ago that a second edition of the book would be digital, mainly because of the enormous workload involved in organising a second print version, not to mention the uncertainties, inevitable delays and material shortages because of the ongoing pandemic.

So what's new in this edition? Almost double the number of images (now close to 850) including photographs, newspaper and magazine articles, extracts from diaries, sketch pads and letters that contribute to telling the story of rockclimbing in eastern Australia. I've also included 12 videos from a range of contributors -- Rod Bolton and Robert Rankin, in particular -- which include footage of early climbing activites in southeast Queensland in the late 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, plus aerials of prominent climbing crags in the region (courtesy of Nicholas P Shera -- who is also my esteemed nephew). 

There are new climbing stories from the 1970s and early 1980s that help to fill a gap in the original publication and I have incorporated feedback and suggested corrections from a number of patient and zealous readers. 



From 1 March 2022, the book will be available ONLY through the Apple Bookstore for AU$8.99 but between Boxing Day and March, it's free. So please pass on these details to all those who you think might enjoy reading it -- and add it to your own library. Any funds generated by sales after 1 March will be donated to an environmentally-responsible organisation, the details of which I will announce at a later date.

It's been another long but rewarding process pulling this one together in a new, portable format which I hope will appeal as much as the hard copy version. Naturally, there will be errors and with an electronic version, they can, at least, be corrected in a reasonable time although it's still not a fast process. So please, let me know what you like -- and what I've got wrong -- and hopefully we will end up with a reasonably accurate story of rockclimbing in Australia (with a Queensland edge).


Michael Meadows, 22 December 2021

Tuesday, November 02, 2021

Bill Peascod documentary launched online

 At Home in The Steep Places



The feature-length documentary about artist-climber Bill Peascod, At home in steep places,  is now available online at the website of the Mountain Heritage Trust. Co-directed by Steve Wharton and Perrin Walker, it tells the story of pioneering Lake District climber-guide, Bill Peascod's transition from climber to mining engineer to artist and his decision to emigrate to Australia to seek out a new life. 

It was in Australia that he rediscovered his love for climbing, largely due to the influence of a young Queensland climber, Neill Lamb, and other members of the Brisbane Bush Walkers. Bill was invited to Queensland in 1955 to conduct a cliff safety course at Kangaroo Point, organised by BBW president, Julie Henry. While he was in Queensland, he climbed what was the first described climbing route in the state -- Faith, on Tibrogargan -- and introduced advanced rope safety techniques which inspired the next generation of climbers. 



Bill Peascod belaying on the first ascent of Faith on Tibrogargan in 1955 (Photo: Neill Lamb)

Although at the time, many routes had been climbed in Queensland by a cohort of young climbers like Jon Stephenson, John Comino, Geoff Broadbent, Geoff Goadby, Alan Frost and Peter Barnes, before Bill's visit, few of their routes, if any, had ever been formally described in route guides and given a grade using international standards. Bill's visit changed that forever with climbers in Australia adopting the cumbersome British grading scheme (Easy 2, Difficult 3, Very Difficult 4, Severe 5, Very Severe 6). This was later replaced by John Ewbank's open-ended grading system in the late 1960s which we still use today.

Mountain Heritage Trust website link: At Home in The Steep Places








Thursday, September 16, 2021

AT HOME IN THE STEEP PLACES: Documentary on pioneering climber, Bill Peascod, to be launched soon on YouTube

In 1955, pioneering Lakeland climber Bill Peascod visited Brisbane's Kangaroo Point and conducted an historic training session. It was the first time that local climbers and bushwalkers had seen carabiners, pitons and rockclimbing safety rope techniques that had been used in the UK and Europe since the late 19th century. 

Bill had emigrated to Australia a few years earlier, taking up a position as a lecturer in mining engineering in Wollongong -- but it was his experience with the Brisbane Bush Walkers that rekindled his love of the outdoors and climbing. BBW president Julie Henry had organised the Brisbane visit following the death of club member, Mickey Miller, on Tibrogargan and a plane crash on Mount Superbus where BBW members were the first on the scene. 

Bill's connection with Australia -- his new home for almost three decades -- and the inspiration to climb again following his friendship with Brisbane-based, Neill Lamb, is documented in a new video to be released soon on YouTube. But the doco offers a deeper insight into Bill Peascod's life, his 'escape' from the 'black depression' of life as a coal miner, and his transition in Australia -- with Japanese influences -- into an acclaimed artist. 

The feature-length documentary -- At Home in the Steep Places: the story of Bill Peascod -- has been produced and directed by musician-climber Steve Wharton. It outlines a climber's life far-removed from the experiences of most Australians and within a context of the emergence of rockclimbing in the UK. It is supported by an original soundtrack that embraces the rich musical heritage of the Lake District with songs written by local performers and climbers, including an Australian vignette. 

A trailer for the film is at this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lh9pteudfDk 

The finished film will be available online on Youtube but embedded on the landing page of the Mountain Heritage Trust website with that acting as the main location to send people to. The online launch will be timed for an evening (Australian/Japanese time) in September. 

The links and files for subsequent screenings of the film (mp4 and DCP) will be made available for free to schools, community groups and venues anywhere in the world on the proviso that should any ticket sales exceed the cost of the screening then a donation is made to a cause within the ethos of the film. This could be any causes or charities in the fields of climbing, art, nature conservation, mining heritage or folk/roots music (in a nod to the massive part that the soundtrack has played in the telling of Bill's story).

I was involved in a small way towards the end of the project and am very proud to have been associated with the production. I've seen an early version of the video so don't expect another video like Free Solo, for example. At Home in the Steep Places is a world apart from the modern climbing movie genre that tends to focus on action, adventure and superlative achievement. This is a moving, gentle story, delving deeply into the life and contexts that shaped this influential climber. It reminds us that we are all influenced by the different lives we lead away from climbing but it is this very dimension that is most often absent from the modern climbing video ethos. 

I'll let you know the official launch date and time as soon as I get the word from Steve.



Sunday, September 05, 2021

The Living Rock hard copies sold out

Well, it's happened -- the last box of printed copies of The Living Rock has gone out the door and appropriately, to one of my strongest supporters: Emily and AJ at Pinnacle Sports, West End. Apart from copies I gave to each participant in the project, the first sale in 2015 was to Brisbane climber Alex Mougenot. It's been quite a journey during which I have met so many wonderful people making the experience as rewarding as compiling the book itself. Of the 1100 copies I hauled home from the docks in Brisbane -- ably assisted by my great nephew Trystan and a heavily overloaded car and trailer -- I estimate that around two-thirds have been sold to people I have met face-to-face. In our current frenzied online age, that's quite an achievement, I reckon. 

But there have been so many supporters of this project along the way: Greg Nunn and Mountain Designs, who hosted the 2015 launch and on-sold many, many copies for me over several years until the company's sad demise; Teresa Cause from the Boonah-based Far Outdoors -- always an enthusiastic supporter and friend; Glenn Tempest from Open Spaces in Natimuk who has managed to convince Victorian climbers to read about the exploits of their Queensland colleagues; Binna Burra Lodge, with its connections to the high-achieving members of the Groom family, embraced the book from the start and still has copies for sale following the devastating bushfires of 2019; K2-Basecamp in Brisbane has been one of the key Brisbane-based distributors; and there are the many others -- local libraries, small family-run bookshops (like Petrarch's in Launceston and The Hobart Bookshop), tourist information centres at the Glass House Mountain, Canungra, Rathdowney and even one in the northern NSW village of Tyalgum. Thank you one and all!

I've decided not to have another print run of the book, mainly because of the extraordinary effort required and to enable me to include additional digital material. And so the next version will be an Apple Books production and hopefully, I will have completed it before the end of the year. It will include additional photographs (including aerials of southeast Queensland mountain areas), some new climbing stories, corrections (thank you to all those who have contacted me about the inevitable errors and inaccuracies), and some early climbing videos -- silent 8mm film converted to digital format of climbing activities in Queensland from the late 1960s. 

Hopefully you'll find this e-version as engaging as the print copies. I apologise to all of you whom will be unable to access this without an Apple device but at present, alternative online publishing formats do not allow me the project file size I need to present all of the visual material. Here's a preview of the e-book cover...talk to you when I'm closer to going live. 




Saturday, June 05, 2021

The living rock hard copies almost gone!

This is your last chance to have a hard copy of the book as I won’t be having another print run. Almost all of the 1100 copies I had printed are now gone and at the time of writing…5 June 2021… I have just 10 copies left. I’m well-advanced on an online edition which will be a corrected, updated version and will include new material and images, along with some historical climbing video. Because of the large file size, it will be available only through the Apple iBookstore so I apologise to Android users in advance. Unfortunately, other online platforms don’t allow for a project of this size.

I’ll announce a publication date soon but I expect it will be within the next two months. 

Thank you to all who have supported this project from the beginning. 

Saturday, October 24, 2020

A tribute to trailblazing Queensland adventurer



Geoffrey Bede Goadby

16 January 1925 — 16 October 2020



Geoff Goadby on the first ascent of the east face of Mount Warning, 1949 
(Photograph: Raoul Mellish)


A chance meeting at Mount Barney in the summer of 1949 arguably changed the course of rockclimbing in postwar Queensland. Geoff Goadby, then 24, was camped near Yellow Pinch on the recommendation of one of his fellow sailors, Bruce Mellor. Geoff had recently left the armed services and was wearing his polished black army-issue boots when he met up with 19-year-old Jon Stephenson. During their conversation, Geoff mentioned that he had recently abseiled down sea cliffs at Caloundra using a mainsheet from a yacht and was immediately invited to accompany Jon on an ascent of Leaning Peak. Jon had only just completed the first descent of the overhanging eastern cliff of Leaning with Derryck Firth, but with no knowledge of abseiling techniques, they had used prussik knots to lower themselves off! Two weeks after the fortuitous Mount Barney meeting, Jon and Geoff became the first to abseil off Leaning Peak, heralding an era of rockclimbing in Queensland that embraced the use of rope as a safety device. 


Geoff’s knowledge of ropes came from sailing but he had read about climbing and saw the potential to apply his skills on the heights. Although the early, locally-made cotton rope was a far cry from today’s high-performance offerings, using it regularly to safeguard a climber was a marked departure from the anti-rope stance taken by Bert Salmon and his pre-war followers. Initially, manilla hemp rope was unavailable in Brisbane until Geoff — using his seafaring and diving knowledge — sourced some from a local factory, specifically manufacturing it for hard-hat divers. He tested it out with Raoul Mellish and Reg Ballard when they made the first ascent of the east face of Mount Warning that same year — 1949.






Bill Dowd (left) and Geoff Goadby on Mount Barney circa 1950 
(Photograph: Jon Stephenson)




By 1950, Geoff had been enlisted to teach abseiling techniques to members of the newly-established University of Queensland Bushwalking Club (UQBWC) at Kangaroo Point cliffs. He and a small group of friends, including Alan Frost and Peter Barnes, later pioneered the first climbing routes there. The early training sessions didn’t always go according to plan as Geoff explained: 


I was telling people what to do and I said to a bloke by the name of Byron Holloway (who was known as 'Chimp'): ‘You demonstrate.’ So he wrapped the rope around himself, walked over to the edge of the cliff and went CLUNK! That was quick…he had forgotten to tie it on! But there were a number of instances where a rope was a big help. Bertie Salmon reckoned it was unsporting to use artificial aids [like ropes] but I thought this was bloody ridiculous. He was an extremely competent climber himself but we couldn’t get him interested in the uni bushwalking club. We invited him once and he came along dressed up in a sports coat. He wasn’t interested. But he did subsequently change his view on ropes. 


Geoff recalled that Jon Stephenson once climbed the Main Tower at the University of Queensland using a rope belay, unaware that his Geology supervisor, Professor Fred Whitehouse, was watching as he jumped for a handhold, stepping on one of the sandstone gargoyles that grace the face of the building. Later, rather than admonishing Jon for his antics, the professor was more interested in the difficulty of the climb!


Geoff’s interest in the outdoors had close links with the sea. In the late 1940s, he was invited to sail a 20 metre missionary boat to Papua New Guinea. During that time, he read about the caves at Chillagoe in North Queensland and became attracted by the idea of underground exploration.


I was using ropes because I was doing a bit of caving by myself — there was  no one else doing it. I went to Texas, Rockhampton, Chillagoe three times. I was on my own at Rockhampton and you’ve got to be pretty careful in there on your own


His subterranean experiences sparked his interest in more land-based exploration and resulted in his chance meeting with the influential Jon Stephenson in 1949. Their friendship extended to Geoff participating in field trips to Mount Barney as Jon gathered data for his postgraduate research on the geology of the area. Geoff recalled that he carried the food in — and a pack filled with rocks out! They found that the Lands Department maps of the area were inaccurate with Jon discovering an unlisted mountain peak, promptly given the name of Mount Phillip — Jon’s first name — although he was always reluctant to publicise it. 


Around the same time that the UQBWC formed — 1950 — a Brisbane Climbing Club also emerged from a mixture of university students, staff and ‘old school’ climbers like Bert Salmon and Fred Whitehouse. Geoff recalled the process:


We had a few meetings but usually, someone would ring up on Friday and say, ‘Let’s go somewhere.’ We used to go up onto the Glasshouses and set fireworks off on Guy Fawkes’ Night [5 November]. I invited a bunch of scuba divers up Beerwah once to let fireworks off but I had contacted the Forestry to let them know I was going to do it.


Eight months after it had formed, the Brisbane Climbing club collapsed when accusations that it had been infiltrated by ‘communists’ created deep divisions. It was a time of political conservatism and a fear of communism in the USA (McCarthyism) and here with the Prime Minister, Robert Menzies, enthusiastically supporting the ‘Reds under the beds’ shibboleth. Fortunately, the UQBWC continued with many of the same climbers joining forces again — the attraction of climbing overwhelming political disagreements. In photographs of the time, Geoff is easily recognisable by his distinctive ‘Robin Hood/pixie’ style hat.





Hinchinbrook Island 1953: (from left) Geoff Goadby, John Comino (partly obscured), 
Ian McLeod, Jon Stephenson, Dave Stewart (pipe) and Geoff Broadbent  
(Photograph: John Comino)






Hinchinbrook Island 1993: (from left) Dave Stewart, Jon Stephenson, John Comino, 
Ian McLeod, Geoff Broadbent and Geoff Goadby (Photograph: Jon Stephenson)




In January 1953, Geoff was part of a six member UQBWC expedition to Hinchinbrook Island which included Jon Stephenson, John Comino, Dave Stewart, Ian McLeod and Geoff Broadbent. Despite being caught in a cyclone, they managed to make the first ascent of the Thumb, a granite monolith on the side of Mount Bowen. Geoff Goadby recalled: 


It was just one of the things we did. Nothing spectacular. We knew we were the first to walk the full length of Hinchinbrook and Johnno [John Comino] would often go off without saying anything. 


Later that year, Geoff joined what had become a tight knit group of friends — Jon Stephenson, Peter Barnes and Alan Frost — to climb the imposing south face of Beerwah. Alan Frost recalls his first meeting with Geoff on that day:


I came to Qld in 1953, a callow youth, to study Vet Science. I was ensconced at Kings College where Peter Barnes inhabited the next kennel. He introduced me to climbing, was thereafter my mentor; he soon introduced me to the Statesmen of Climbing in Brisbane. For this we went on his Triumph to Beerwah where we were to meet this Geoff. We  found his car, but no sign of him: a bit of a search, then from the bushes leapt this strange figure, with a shout, a big smile, topped with his trade pixie/Robin Hood hat. Then Jon Stevenson arrived and we were off to climb the South face of Beerwah. A wonderful day, all new for me,  somewhat overwhelmed by the company and their experience.

 





First ascent Glennies Pulpit 1954 (from left) Alan Frost, Jon Stephenson, 
Geoff Goadby and Peter Barnes (Photograph: Peter Barnes)



On 18 July, 1954, Geoff Goadby, 29, Jon Stephenson, 23, Peter Barnes, 25, and Alan Frost, 19, made the first ascent of Glennies Pulpit (then known variously as ‘Kilroy’s Moneybox’ or ‘The Pig’s Ding’) via today’s ‘Tourist Route’. It was a fitting farewell for Jon who left Australia soon after to complete his PhD research in London and to explore the world. Later that year, Geoff joined with John Comino, Alan Frost and Peter Barnes in guiding Italian Consul Felice Benuzzi up Leaning Peak. Peter Barnes’ photograph taken on the summit that day evokes the simplicity and the enchantment of the era. The inspiring trio of Geoff Goadby, Peter Barnes and Alan Frost dominated the achievements in climbing and scrambling in the early part of the 1950s, their energetic and speedy ascents of almost everything vertical in Southeast Queensland becoming legendary. Reading about their exploits was a major incentive for me — and I know, many others since — to try to follow in their footsteps.





The summit of Leaning Peak, Mount Barney, 1954 (from left) John Comino, 
Italian Consul Felice Benuzzi, Geoff Goadby, Peter Barnes and Alan Frost (behind)
 (Photograph: Peter Barnes)



Geoff Goadby not only pioneered the use of roped climbing in Queensland, but also forged the first locally-made pitons, cut out of mild steel. Typically, he recalled that he and his colleagues never went out with the intention of breaking records:


We did it because we enjoyed it. Good company. Walking led to climbing very often. Jon and I went to south or west Beerwah once. It hadn’t been climbed. It was a bloody hot day so we sat down beside a tree then we turned around and went home. If you can do that it’s a pretty reasonable attitude. We subsequently climbed it — the south face.


Geoff had a varied life that incorporated a wide range of experiences. After school, he began studying Science at university but left to work on a North Queensland cattle station. He returned to Brisbane and joined Norman Wright’s boat building yard with sailing soon becoming a major part of his life. He had significant success in blue water racing, being a member of the crew of the cruising yacht, Norseman, on four of the five occasions it won the Brisbane—Gladstone Yacht Race between 1951 and 1956. Geoff recalled that the owner-builder Lex Wilson had been racing for 50 years when he joined the crew. Over the next decade or so he worked in various occupations, including as a rigger on the TV aerials for the new TV stations being erected on Mount Coot-tha and with a small mining company, before moving to manage the newly-established laboratory at the University of Queensland Veterinary School Farm at Pinjarra Hills. 





On the summit of Beerwah in 1953 following an ascent of the South Face (from left) 
Geoff Goadby, Peter Barnes, Alan Frost and Jon Stephenson (Photograph: Peter Barnes)


Throughout the early 1950s, he was involved in efforts by the UQBWC to build the first hut on Mount Barney after Jon Stephenson was benighted there in mid-winter with verglas covering the rock. But climbing was never far from Geoff’s agenda. Peter Barnes remembers his reaction when he heard about the fraught first ascent of Beerwah’s west chimney:


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


Alan Frost is the ‘youngster’ in that 1950s’ climbing cohort. At age 85, he’s still climbing and has made more than 100 ascents of Logan’s Ridge on Mount Barney, many of them solo. He acknowledges that it was Peter and Geoff who encouraged him to slow down and to look more closely at the world around him. 

Geoff Goadby was a polymath — able to engage in authoritative conversation on almost any topic from the arts to the sciences — and his desire to explore the unknown remained a prime driving force throughout his life. He willingly shared his knowledge with others and always downplayed his own influential role, often with a quizzical smile. 

Peter Barnes recalls his very first outing with Geoff Goadby — a climb up the east face of Mount Warning in November 1950. They had ridden to the base of the mountain on their motorcycles and were camped in a banana plantation, planning an early start. They had settled down for the evening in an old storage hut when Geoff suddenly appeared wearing a pair of pink pyjamas. And his response to the guffaws of his disbelieving comrades? ‘I like to be comfortable during the night.’

Geoff Goadby was the first person I interviewed in 1999 at the start of my research on Queensland climbing history that ultimately led to publication of the book, The Living Rock. At that first meeting and in all subsequent discussions, his enthusiasm, self-effacing humour and humility prevailed. It was inspiration for me to try to capture the essence of that moment in history when he and his peers had the world at their feet. They reached out and grabbed it, creating a pathway for all of us to follow. Geoff Goadby is remembered for his camaraderie, the passion he had for invention and exploration, and his willingness to share this knowledge with others. He is survived by his wife, Merle.


Michael Meadows 

Thanks to Peter Barnes and Alan Frost





Monday, July 06, 2020

Farewell to a pioneering Australian climbing icon

 Donn Graeme Groom 
 19 April 1937 — 23 June 2020

 
Donn Groom on the second ascent of the North West Face
of Federation Peak 1969 (Photo: Paul Caffyn)

  
    Donn Groom’s pathway to outdoor adventure was almost predetermined in one sense. His father, Arthur, was a pioneering explorer, writer and photographer — a visionary and passionate advocate for the environment who began urging for the preservation of old growth forests and wilderness in southeast Queensland from the late 1920s. Arthur enlisted his own evocative journalism to describe the solo journeys he made into the wild rainforests of the McPherson Range on the Queensland—New South Wales border, illustrated with stunning photographs of remote vistas never before seen by newspaper and magazine readers. Dozens of his articles and images were published from 1929 and it was this body of work, along with the National Parks Association he was instrumental in launching in 1930, that kick-started the environmental movement in Queensland. In 1933, Arthur joined with another staunch conservationist, Romeo Lahey, to set up Binna Burra Lodge as a holiday destination at the edge of what would later become Lamington National Park.
    This was Donn Groom’s heritage — and his backyard. He was the eldest of four — with brothers Tony and Richard from his father’s second marriage and sister, Linda, from the third. Donn always regarded his influential father as a mountaineer and explorer rather than a rockclimber and seemed to mould his own life along those lines. Another early influence he acknowledged was Italian maestro Walter Bonatti. Donn read everything he could about that extraordinary mountaineer’s life and even wrote to Bonatti on one occasion, asking him about the belaying techniques he had used when he made his daring solo ascent of the Southwest Pillar of the Dru in the French Alps in 1955. ‘Never got an answer though,’ Donn admitted with a wry smile.
    In the early 1950s, he would chase wild goats around the top of the rhyolite cliffs at Binna Burra but eventually found a group of like-minded adventurers in Brisbane, including members of the Brisbane Bush Walkers. He joined them for scrambles in the Glass House Mountains which seemed like ‘peanuts’ after his early exploits on the heights at Binna Burra. Over the next five years or so, he was part of a cohort of early Queensland climbing royalty, including Julie Henry, Neill Lamb and legendary British expatriate climber, Bill Peascod, who joined with Donn and Neill in May 1956 to put up two new routes on the big south face of Beerwah in the Glass House Mountains — Pilgrim’s Progress and Mopoke Slabs.




Above the Binna Burra cliffs in the early 1960s (Photo: John Larkin)


    A week later at the Steamers, near Killarney, the trio put up an innovative new route on the Funnel, calling it Reptile. Neill Lamb’s brief diary notes read: ‘Bill, self and Donn did new route up Funnel. Incident with goanna. Hole in wall, 80 ft chimney. Rapelled down, rope jammed, off at dark.’ It wasn’t the last time Donn’s climbing efforts extended beyond sunset but it was Bill Peascod’s last new route in Queensland — and perhaps ever — as his new pursuit as an artist gradually took over his life.
    Donn’s climbing days were abruptly cut short when, as a telephone technician, he was transferred to Cloncurry for four years. It could not be further from his beloved mountains and he was far from happy. But when he returned to Binna Burra in 1965, he made up for lost time by starting the Brisbane Rockclimbing Club It was a major turning point in Queensland (and Australian) climbing history. The club attracted members from four existing southeast Queensland outdoor groups — the Brisbane Bush Walkers (BBW), the University of Queensland Bushwalking Club (UQBWC), the Binna Burra Bushwalking Club and the YMCA Ramblers — and its objectives echoed the philosophy espoused by his father: ‘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.’




Donn belaying his young son, Terry, on Binna Burra's east cliffs (Photo: Donn Groom)




Donn's son Michael at age five (Photo: Donn Groom)


    Les Wood left England seeking work as a geography tutor and discovered both the Brisbane Rockclimbing Club and Donn Groom on his arrival in the Queensland capital, early in 1966:
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 Glass House Mountains. I think I’d got a background that was unusual to many of them…Climbing before I left England occupied all my life. It wasn’t like a sport; it was a way of life more than anything.



On the first pitch of East Crookneck during the first free ascent with Les Wood in 1966 
(Photo: Wendy Straker, Donn Groom collection)


    Meeting Les was a defining moment in Donn's life while Wood recalled that he, too, had found a soul mate: ‘He always seemed to me to be like a big kid. We got on really well together and I always found him to be one of the most gentle people I’ve ever known. He’s so kind, it’s not true. He’s got an attitude to life I wish I could borrow a bit.’ The duo put up a series of visionary climbs in southeast Queensland that remain classics to this day — routes like East Crookneck (free), Clemency and Overexposed. And only then Donn began to look closer to home — he was 28 when he climbed his first new route, Way Out, on the bubbly rhyolite of Binna Burra’s east cliffs with long-time friend, John Larkin. Donn recalled how it all began: 
I used to look down on the cliffs for a long time before I realised that they were perhaps climbable. I started with John Larkin doing Alcheringa and did some more with Les [Dislocation, Gravedigger]. I even climbed one with Dick Smith (the electronics man). He called me up a while back and reminded me of it. I don't remember the climb, however, it probably would have been Swansong — that was the only climb I ever took guests from the lodge up.
    The classy Alcheringa was the hardest route in Queensland in 1966 and soon had an equal in terms of difficulty when Donn teamed up with a youthful Ted Cais to climb Flameout on the Southwest buttress of Crookneck. Ted Cais recalled a failed early attempt on the route with Les Wood: ‘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.’



Climbing on Tibrogargan in the mid-1960s (Photo: Donn Groom)


    In that same year, Donn orchestrated the first ascent of Mount Barney’s 300 metre East Face with John Tillack and a very hungover Les Wood, who remembers nothing of the climb. Tillack was forced to lasso a tree to overcome the crux although Donn climbed it free as a second. The route is rarely repeated because of its remote, serious and runout nature — a true adventure climb that was at the top of Donn’s list of ‘last great problems’ in southeast Queensland.

    It was an extraordinary era in which Donn Groom, Les Wood, Ted Cais and John Tillack together shaped the future of rockclimbing in Queensland — but the next generation was waiting in the wings: Donn introduced his young son, Michael, to Frog Buttress shortly after its discovery in the late 1960s. Around this time, Michael — then five — remembers his father stopping at a lookout of Mount Barney and as they gazed at the view, Donn explained that Mount Everest was about eight times higher. ‘And that has stuck in my head,’ Michael recalls.’ That was the door to the path leading to Everest. It’s just one of those things; it just got into my head and never got out until I climbed it.’




Paul Caffyn, Donn Groom and Alan Keller on the summit of Federation Peak following their second ascent of the Blade Ridge and North West Face in 1969 (Photo: Paul Caffyn)


    In 1967, Donn headed for Tasmania with friends, John Larkin and Bob Fick, walking the Overland Track and then into Frenchman’s Cap, wrecking their feet in the process. Donn’s resulting article, ‘Scaling Tasmania’s Peaks’, was published in Walkabout that year and included several of his large-format photographs. He had started carrying a heavy 2 1/4 square camera with him, emulating his father whose grandiose images of wilderness helped to inspire the Queensland national parks' movement almost four decades earlier.

    I first met Donn Groom 52 years ago on the evening I attended my initial meeting of the Brisbane Rockclimbing Club. I remember him warmly welcoming me, my brother Chris, Greg Sheard and John Shera into the small community of local climbers. John, Chris and I had made the first ascent of the north face of Leaning Peak on Mount Barney a few days earlier and Donn generously acknowledged our achievement. It was an inspiration to meet someone of Donn's stature who welcomed us as friends. Ian Thomas joined the BRC a few years later and although he met and climbed with Donn only a few times over the years, he recalls the influence that he and Les Wood had on his own emerging passion for the heights:
Those early blokes did influence me through their writings and also the very first guide book I think Rick [White] put together for the Glass House Mountains — a little guidebook — and in there was Les Wood and Donn Groom: their names loomed large. Clemency and all those sorts of climbs, Overexposed, Trojan and all the rest of them — they were to me just the pinnacle of horror. You’d shake and quiver in terror thinking about them. They really left me feeling awed. So they were actually inspirational through what they’d done, not through any meetings.
    In 1969, Donn joined a Brisbane Rockclimbing Club Easter trip to the Warrumbungles, teaming up with the irrepressible Greg Sheard for some memorable moments. Greg recalls one, in particular, as he traversed towards Donn who was belaying him on the first pitch of the Bryden Allen/Ted Batty classic, Out and Beyond:
As Donn was sitting there, he was dropping little pebbles which grew into bigger and bigger rocks. I’d had a bad experience on Tibro and I was a bit anti-dropping rocks but this looked really interesting — and I figured that if Donn Groom could do it, so could I. We ended up reaching the stage where we were taking it turns climbing up a little bit and collecting more rocks, coming back down to the ledge and dropping them over, timing how long they’d take to reach the bottom until we finally heard a lot of screams from below and suddenly discovered that the track actually went underneath us. So we abandoned rock-dropping and continued upwards.
    Donn was back in Tassie within 12 months, this time with his first wife, Roma, and their two sons, Michael and Terry. They lived for two years in the Berriedale Caravan Park in Hobart and Donn began climbing in earnest, joining the Climbing Club of Tasmania (CCT) and linking up with the likes of Reg Williams, Mike Douglas, John Moore, Tom Terry, Peter Jackson and Phillip Stranger:
We climbed on the Organ Pipes quite a lot — a tremendous atmosphere, quite alpine at times, right above the city of Hobart — and we often got caught in the dark. Later on I climbed with Allen Keller — he was a real bushwhacker that one — a real Crocodile Dundee character with the accent to go with it all! He came from somewhere near Ipswich but I only knew him in Tassie. He was a mad caver as well and I spent a whole weekend underground with him and Paul Caffyn trying to follow some shit of a hidden passage — the weirdest weekend I ever had. I don't particularly like caving and they had me on a couple of times and left me for dead, right when my trog lamp went out in a very nasty spot. You carry an emergency kit of a tobacco tin with a candle, box of matches, and a lamp pricker. You have to clear the jet with the pricker, candle and box of matches. The bastards wouldn't wait for me and I was getting quite panicky in a shit of a tight spot. So weeks later, when the three of us were doing the second ascent of the Blade Ridge and the North West Face on Federation Peak, they made me do the crux chimney pitch even though I hate chimneys! But I decided to get my own back while they were climbing the chimney pitch below me by some spectacular boulder rolling. I managed to scare the shit out of them! We decided to celebrate our climb of Federation when we got back to Hobart and went up to the Organ Pipes — drank a bottle of Claret between us and climbed a new route we called Claret Corner, and finished that one in the dark, too.


Leading Double Column Central on the Organpipes, 
Mount Wellington, Hobart, 1969 (Photo: Paul Caffyn)


    Over the next few months, he and Paul linked up for a dozen or so new routes on the ‘Pipes but the lure of Frenchman’s Cap remained:
I remember going in to Frenchman’s with Paul one time in shit weather with all sorts of grand notions about climbing new routes on the southeast face and even having a look at the then unclimbed east face. We camped below it for a couple of days in mist and rain listening to waterfalls off the overhangs above. The rain stopped and the mist slowly lifted like a giant curtain on this monstrous white fang of a mountain — it’s made of quartzite — dripping and as slippery as shit. Every foot the mist rose our determination dropped the other way — freaked us out, so we packed up and pissed off home. But I never worried with these sorts of failures — just being there was enough.
    But the pull of snow and ice prevailed and although his knees were starting to fail with early signs of arthritis, Donn joined a small Climbing Club of Tasmania group, including Reg Williams and Mike Douglas, and headed for New Zealand’s Southern Alps. It was a largely unsatisfying trip, mainly because of bad weather and indecision — until Donn’s adventurous spirit prevailed, devising a shortcut to the summit of Tutoko under a teetering icefall: ‘It took hours off the climb and, in fact, we made it, which felt good.’ He was hooked:
I remember walking up the Matukituki Valley towards Aspiring — not that we had Aspiring in mind just yet — but we hadn’t seen sign of the mountains because they’d been covered by cloud for days. I didn’t really know what a true alpine scene was. Suddenly, as we walked up the main valley, another opened to the right towards Aspiring and we could see this incredible ice fall — a mess of falling ice through a hole in the clouds — nearly freaked me out but I knew, then, I was in the mountains and wanted to do something about it.


On the summit of Low Peak, Mount Rolleston, Arthurs Pass National Park, New Zealand, following a winter ascent of the Rome Ridge, 27 September 1975 (Photo: Paul Caffyn)


    He returned to the Southern Alps for a couple of seasons — teaming up variously with George Harris and Robert Staszewski — but either the weather window did not arrive or other obstacles emerged. Close to the summit of Aoraki-Mount Cook on the Zurbriggen Ridge with Rob, they came across an injured Japanese climber and were forced to abandon their attempt so they could organise a rescue. But despite the disappointments, just being in the mountains was enough. Donn recalled a later trip into Everest basecamp with his now mountaineering son, Michael:
As we walked up — hadn’t seen any of the really high ones at all — and I was wondering what all the fuss was about, when around a corner came a bloody monster and once again I felt like I really hadn’t seen mountains before. Of course at that stage, I could do bugger all about it but it was an amazing experience to see the genes through Mike still pushing on in a way and for me, that trip to base camp was one of the most satisfying trips I have had into the mountains anywhere. Alaska was a special place for me, however.


Climbing above Rome Gap on a winter ascent of the Rome Ridge on Mount Rolleston, 
Arthurs Pass National Park, New Zealand, 27 September 1975 (Photo: Paul Caffyn)


    Around 1980, Michael moved to Alaska to live with his father and for 18 months they climbed together, with Michael making several first alpine ascents. Eventually, Donn and his second wife, Mary, decided they would sail back across the Pacific on their yacht with their two young sons, Joshua and Danny. Like climbing, sailing had captured Donn’s imagination:
It seems a lot of climbers become sailors for some reason, so with me and after my knees just wouldn’t work any longer with arthritis, sailing seemed to fit the bill. It’s the same sort of freedom, I guess, especially when you take off as we did, across to New Zealand.
    They had been dreading the long haul across the Pacific but it was sailing down the west coast of North America that proved to be the most frightening — encountering huge seas, a massive Russian fishing fleet and motoring, exhausted, into a fog-bound West coast port in the dead of night, relying solely on radar for navigation, only to discover next morning they had anchored in the middle of a circular harbour surrounded by hundreds of luxury apartments.

    But they didn’t quite make it to Australia, settling in the small North Island community of Taheke, where another of Donn’s innovative visions emerged. They needed a house so he built one himself out of mud bricks. The extraordinary building that resulted was actually scoped as a possible location for Peter Jackson’s movie trilogy, Lord of the Rings. Donn designed and installed a hydro electricity system by tapping into a local stream, generating more than enough power for their needs. He and Mary organised workshops for local people interested in adopting the relatively simple, energy-efficient mud brick construction process and ‘Waheke Mud’ was soon well-known in the district and beyond. Donn believed that sharing this low-cost construction method had the potential to ease the housing crisis that bedevils most countries, including New Zealand.




The Groom mud brick house at Taheke (Photo: Michael Meadows)


    Donn’s love of the sea enticed him to build another, albeit smaller, yacht in his backyard shed — an old-style bay sailer — despite managing to accidentally saw off his left thumb and first finger during construction. The vessel had a relatively short sailing life when it was damaged by another boat which broke its moorings during a storm.

    I had drifted away from climbing for two decades while Donn was exploring the world but we reconnected in 2003 when I started gathering material for my book on Australian climbing history — at the same time that I reconnected with rockclimbing. Donn and his former climbing partner, Les Wood, were amongst the first people I wanted to interview. In fact, my inquiries put them back in touch with each other again after a break of more than 30 years. Donn and I exchanged telephone calls and emails across the Tasman and, in his own inimitable way, he outlined his practical and philosophical approach to adventure and the importance of mountain landscapes in his life. A few years later — with both of his dodgy knees now replaced — he returned to Brisbane for a visit and in typical fashion, had agreed to a trip up Mount Barney to test them out. This time three generations of the Groom family — Donn, Michael and Michael’s son, Harry — were there, along with Donn’s longtime climbing partner and friend, John Larkin. Halfway up Logan’s Ridge, Donn asked me to take a photograph of him attempting to climb a small overhang. ‘I’m sending this to my surgeon,’ he laughed. ‘He said I’d never be able to do anything like this again!’



Testing his new knees, Logan's Ridge, Mount Barney, March 2007 (Photo: Michael Meadows)


    Donn always welcomed others into the close-knit world of climbing and he inspired many of us to explore the outdoors with enthusiasm, passion and humour. What struck me most about him in those early days — and it remained a central part of his character — was his humility. Throughout the late 1960s and 1970s, I saw him often on my regular visits to the climbing cliff he had developed at Binna Burra. I have strong memories of sharing a late afternoon beer after a day on the rock, our legs dangling over a significant drop beneath the unfenced veranda of his house which was typically built into the side of a cliff. Tragically, bushfires in November last year destroyed both the house and Binna Burra lodge although there are plans to rebuild both.

    It was almost almost 50 years ago — two days before Christmas in 1972 — that Donn persuaded Ted Cais and I into joining him on the first descent of the Coomera Gorge from its source. It was a serious and committing canyon that required us to jump or abseil down sizeable waterfalls into deep, dark pools, knowing that it would be extremely difficult or impossible to climb out. Somehow we made it through, using some innovative anchors and I remember Ted’s furrowed brow on more than one occasion as we worked out how to proceed. But with Donn at the helm, it was merely another adventure. He managed to lug his precious Mamiya camera through it all unscathed. The memories of that extraordinary day have remained vivid in my mind.



With his trusty Mamiya 2 1/4 square camera in the Coomera River, 23 December 1972 
(Photo Michael Meadows)




Abseilng into the unknown with Ted Cais watching on the first descent 
of the Coomera Gorge, 23 December 1972 (Photo: Michael Meadows)


    The term ‘icon’ is bandied around a lot these days but it perfectly describes Donn Groom — the pre-eminent figure in postwar climbing in Queensland — and it reflects the multilayered contributions he has made to broader climbing and mountaineering culture. But Donn was much, much more than a climber — he was a pioneering adventurer, photographer, writer, innovator and sailor, with all of these pursuits and passions imbued with generosity, humility and humour.



Mount Geryon, Du Cane Range, Central Highlands of Tasmania (Photo: Donn Groom)


    Reflecting on his life in 2014, Donn summed up the powerful link between himself and the landscape — and the myriad ways that lives become interconnected, intertwined through shared experiences of the natural world. He wrote:
Dad was a climber of the Bertie Salmon era and also did not use ropes. His sandshoes on extra large feet were almost as tight on him as modern rock shoes, so he had to cut holes to relieve pressure on his toes. This was a trick I used for quite some time until I was introduced to rock boots by Les Wood. Les had a huge influence on my climbing. He was a superb climber brought up in the UK and was influenced by climbers such as Joe Brown and Don Whillans. He used lots of their rock climbing techniques and equipment and introduced these ideas to Queensland climbers. We got along well together, our styles complementing each other. His great climbing ability often had me struggling as I seconded. Occasionally, I was able to help out on the face climbing which I enjoyed. I learnt a lot from Les and was sorry to see our team split up when we went to different parts of the world. Perhaps my greatest satisfaction in the climbing scene was in passing on my love of climbing to my son Michael when he came to visit while I was living in Alaska. Mike was into motocross bike racing at the time, but very frustrated with the expense and fierce competitive atmosphere of the sport. He was looking for something new. At the end of my climbing career, with bad knees and developing arthritis, I took him up a few alpine peaks in Alaska and on his return home to Australia, I gave him crampons and an ice axe for his 21st birthday. Almost the next letter from him had him setting out for Kanchenjunga and a climbing career that I had only dreamt of. While history did not repeat itself exactly, the genetic repetition running through our family certainly did. And, it all started on the sunny crags of Southeast Queensland…