Chockstone Forum

      Sponsored By
      ROCK
   HARDWARE

Chockstone Photography

Australian Landscape Prints

Chockstone Forum - General Discussion

General Climbing Discussion

Topic Date User

Coolest features to climb in Australia 5-Dec-2015 At 12:49:39 PM BA

Message

From Mountain Magazine February 1974: Part 2

Ten months later, our travel-weary VW headed into the desert again, to settle unfinished business. In the last 850 miles to the rock, there are only three tired, dusty little towns. The legend of the Centre is of a great barren plain beneath a blazing, relentless sun. The sun certainly is dominant, but the languid desert is far from sterile. Low, undulating hills of deep red sand break the horizon, the hills themselves being dotted with the tough, pincushionlike spinifex. At times, generally in mid-afternoon, stunted skeletal trees float above a shimmering plain of gibber stones.

This time we were prepared for the Ayers Rock ranger. Our gear was hidden under the seats, and an emergency lot was cached in the bonnet. My palms sweated as I signed into the park; Andrew chain-smoked behind dark glasses. Four thousand miles was a long drive, if we were recognized and thrown out again. We passed as tourists.
Quite early next morning, we drove to the rock, lights out. While I found and climbed the chimney in the cool desert night, Andrew parked the car at the tourist ramp.
Pausing after four hundred familiar feet, we were treated to a superb sunrise as the desert woke, appearing almost translucent in the soft dawn light. Finches fluffed awake and skittered in the scrub way below, and a pair of eagles soared in effortless circles above the rock.

New terrain now confronted us. Out on the flanks of the monster, the rock swept smooth and unbroken above and below, the exposure effectively stilling our exuberance. A 1,000ft. water-scoured groove beckoned to the right, but was guarded by vertical walls, and Andrew ran out 150ft. of sustained and difficult climbing with one runner, before he reached a belay in the mental comfort of the groove. Over the centuries, occasional torrents have sculptured this huge feature into a series of vertical, dry waterfalls interrupted by stagnant pools. We bridged up this for six pitches, dispensing with belays. The theory was that if one of us came off, the other could brace himself across the groove. Fortunately, we didn't have to try it. As the angle rolled back we unroped, ignored the tourist gaze and, laughing hysterically, tore out of the place in a cloud of red dust. It had taken Ayers Rock exactly a hundred years to have a second route established, albeit secretly!

SUMMARY
Australia. Ayers Rock: The Kangaroo's Tail. An account of the first ascent in May 1973 by Keith Lockwood and Andrew Thomson.