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General Climbing Discussion

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Uluru ethics 5-Jun-2008 At 12:13:26 PM bigmike

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On 6/05/2008 tnd wrote:
>On 5/05/2008 evanbb wrote:
>>And did you climb it Mike? I hear it's a total sandbag.
>
>He's there this week so expect a trip report soon...

So ... a bit of a discourse, for anyone who's interested. (If you're looking for the short answer, it's on a separate line half way down, scan away!)

If truth be told, my feeling before the trip was that I wasn't going to climb UIuru.

The first time I heard about the debate was in the mid-90s. And the sense I got was that Australian sensibilities were shifting ... the "Sorry Day" march across the Harbour Bridge (before I moved to Aus), the pressure put on Howard, Midnight Oil at the Olympics, and now the apology by the Rudd Government, etc etc, seemed to support this perception.

So I thought any research on the issue (I also polled a bunch of colleagues at work, and asked heaps of others for their opinion) would confirm my feeling that it was no longer considered appropriate to climb.

Well, as the result of this poll shows (and to my surprise), I was wrong. Ditto with colleagues, people at parties, and the like. People were very evenly divided. The up side of this was that it gave me a chance to reappraise my thinking. The responses were a challenge to, not the expected confirmation of, my initial thoughts.

In my experience, the most vociferous arguments were from the "do climb" camp. Earlier on in this thread I noted that, while the vote was running 50/50, there wasn't much comment from the "don't climb" side. (Deadbudgy being one stand-out exception). I think the sense there is that it's difficult to appeal to sentiments that don't exist, and easy to have a go at arguments that can be painted as soft, bleeding heart, etc. Are there any left-wing "shock jocks" on radio? It's much harder to do.

Still, I set off for Uluru very much undecided. I felt that the better option would be not to climb, but couldn't guarantee that I wouldn't get "the urge" when standing at the base.

Well, I didn't climb it.

I've been to a fair few places of natural beauty in my life, but I was unprepared for the impact of Uluru. No matter how many times I saw it during my stay, it always seemed to change - the features, the angles of the light, etc. It just never got "old". It's a special place, and it was only after I left that I realised I had never actually touched the rock.

The clincher for me was the tone of the message from the indigenous people. They didn't TELL you, or threaten you ... it was a gentle request. And the words on the sign at the base of the route seemed to make sense - that Uluru wasn't a place for climbing, it was a place for listening and for reflection. Looking at the noisy groups of people swarming up a polished slab, french-freeing on a big railing all the way, well, it didn't seem that appealing.

I have to say I had a sense of frustration when I left. I felt that I hadn't got my head properly around the place, that I hadn't seen enough, that there was something left undone. Maybe that would have been cured by climbing it?

I don't think so. But even if that was the case, well, maybe it's better that way.