ADVENTURE MAG EDITION 1 - OE EDITION 56 51EXPLORING THE HEIGHTS
A brief history of rock climbing in Australia
HISTORY OF ROCKCLIMBING IN AUSTRALIAThe popularity of rockclimbing
here spread slowly after World
War II and more often than not,
climbers emerged from the ranks
of bushwalking clubs. By the mid-
late 1960s, influences from the UK
to Yosemite reshaped the nature
of climbing through technological
advancements in equipment, new
ethical standards and new attitudes.
Although rockclimbing culture
here is inexorably part of a global
project, at the same time it retains
its Australian character. So how did
it all begin?by Michael MeadowsAll features of the Australian
landscape, including high places,
were inscribed into Indigenous
cosmology for millennia before
the European invasion and sadly,
much of this knowledge has been
lost. It seems highly likely that
Indigenous people had climbed
most — perhaps all — mountainFlinders, who himself made the first
European ascent of Beerburrum
in the Glass House Mountains in- Almost three decades later
in August 1828, the notorious
commandant of the Moreton Bay
Penal settlement, Patrick Logan,
stood on the summit of Mount
Barney, one of the highest isolated
summits in mainland Australia. He
had to cast off his boots, climbing
alone up the last, steep rocky
section of a ridge leading to the
summit of the mountain’s East Peak.
As settlements spread along the
east coast and exploration slowly
crept inland, a group of men made
the first descent of Govett’s Leap
Waterfall in the Blue Mountains
in 1880 using a safety rope. By
the turn of the century, carrying a
rope for protection had become
commonplace for those exploring
the heights with many of the first
known ascents of local summits
by surveyors. There were a fewpeaks across the country,
generations before Europeans
began to contemplate the activity
we now know as climbing. There
are varied accounts of Indigenous
peoples in Australia and around
the world climbing mountains,
usually because high places were
accorded powerful religious
or spiritual significance. That
perception remains an important
dimension for many climbers
today.The first known ascents of
mountains in Australia coincided
with European exploration of the
continent. George Bass failed
in his attempt to cross the Blue
Mountains in 1796 using ropes and
‘scaling irons for his feet’, returning
to Sydney after a fortnight of
‘toil and unprecedented peril’.
He climbed Mount Wellington in
Tasmania two years later during
his historic circumnavigation of
the island state with, MatthewROCKCLIMBING IN AUSTRALIA has evolved from a range of disparate elements
— social, cultural, political and technological. Our climbing history has been
fundamentally shaped by exploration, scientific discovery and only much more
recently, recreation. Australian rockclimbing was ‘invented’ by the first Europeans
who pushed the boundaries of the possible as they explored the sometimes
threatening mountain landscapes that surrounded them.LEFT: Albert Armitage (Bert) Salmon in the Glass House Mountains in the early 1920s. A. A Salmon collection
Jean Easton (top) and Muriel Patten on Tibrogargan in the
Glass House Mountains in 1934. Cliff and Lexie Wilson collection.