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Canberra Climbing Update 30-Jan-2004 At 11:40:45 AM Garrath

Message

Just received the following email detailing access arrangements for climbing around Canberra. Many congratulations to Zac and those mentioned below for their hard work:

Today, myself, John Wilson, Paul Ryan and Simon Clay from Outward Bound met with Daniel Iglesias and Simon Tozer of Namadgi National park. A very positive meeting. A summary of the outcomes are as follows:

ACT Parks received the CCA Cliff Inspection Report and were happy with it.
Once the Apollo Rd is open (hopefully at the end of this week following maintenance works), Booroomba and other areas within Namadgi National Park will be open for climbing. Signs will be erected to warn users of the risk of loose and unstable rock on the cliff face.
It is recommended that climbers exercise caution when climbing at Booroomba, particularly with dislodging loose rock from ledges and at the top of the cliff. It is also recommended that climbers wear helmets whilst walking along the bottom of the cliff and on climbs.
Gibraltar will remain closed until around end of March. Parks want to get in and clear hazards such as dead trees along the access tracks. Until this is done the area is closed to all and climbers are asked to adhere to this ban.
ACT parks will not clean the rock at Gibraltar. It is up to us to decide whether we want to do this.
ACT Parks will enforce the ban at Gibraltar with periodic inspections and checks.
ACT parks (through ACT Roads) intend to maintain the access track to Gibraltar from the Corin Rd. Currently it is washed out in one place and a bit tricky to get through.
ACT Parks will do some minor hardening of the walking track to Gibraltar peak from the base of the tors. They will seek our assistance with this work when it commences, probably after Easter.
The issue of the access tracks at Booroomba (from the top of the cliff to the base) is yet to be resolved ie whether Parks will do anything about it. They are not keen to pick up the responsibility and implied legal responsibility for every track in the park.
Bolting was discussed in general. I expressed the position to Parks that bolting was minimal and there is no intention for any large scale bolting to occur. The traditional nature of the cliff will be retained as much as possible. This is an issue we will need to discuss within the climbing community so that we have an agreed philosophy.
Camping for Booroomba is at Honeysuckle creek. You can 'wilderness camp' at the base of Booroomba as you can anywhere in the park but you can't 'car camp' (Car camp means parking your car and walking a few idle paces with all your gear. You need to carry it some distance. This may not be satisfactory for climbers given the traditional way it has been used but this subject will need to be tackled through the current Draft Plan of Management and the Community Consultation.

As you can see, this is all good news. We will need to communicate this message to all Canberra Climbers on the CCA mailing list via the next newsletter. We also need to consider our communication strategy ie who else needs to be informed SRC, VCC, Outdoor Magazines and shops etc. Any ideas?

Now with the cliffs open, our next challenge is to maintain the momentum created by the CCA and increase membership. We will need to continually pe! ster people so we can get all 120 people on the mailing list to join up (so far only 60 have paid). There are other ongoing issues we need to tackle as well as maintaining the energy, enthusiasm and spirit of the last nine months. We can't take access to cliffs for granted.

To all those that have assisted over the last nine months, thanks for your support and I look forward to granite climbing in 2004.

"On belay-climb when ready".

Zac Zaharias
President
Canberra Climbers Association