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General Climbing Discussion

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Uluru ethics 29-Apr-2008 At 1:58:02 PM Mike

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I went up it in may last year. There would have been hundreds of people on it that day. When you stand at the base looking up, particularly after sitting in a car for two days of continuous driving, it just begs to be hiked. Basically the urge was impossible to resist. For me it really made the trip.

And yes, I did the base walk and the Olgas as well, but it's not the same. There is something magical up there on the top. Something about being Australian, (despite not having the 40,000 year heritage), I could still feel something, some sort of affinity and grandeur, size, cosmic relevance, relationship to the earth - hard to say what but it's there and however fleeting worth experiencing, just as it's worth experiencing, let's say, Cradle Mt, even though it's also covered in tourists. Could you go to Cradle and just walk around Dove Lake, without at least getting up to Marion's lookout or Kitchen Hut? Put it this way, if you go to Ayres, do the summit on a fine day, and walk away feeling it was nothing special, I'd be very surprised. Whether or not you should be allowed that experience is perhaps another question, but I personally would do it again, if I was there tomorrow.