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551m or Balls to you

Onsight

10-Feb-2005
4:54:15 PM

On 10/02/2005 tony harris wrote:
>we'll make ya >famous Neil ha ha.
Well, he's already infamous...

Dried Rat, troll or not, but spraying about how you intend to ignore the ban, on a public forum that probably is seen by authorities from time to time, to me appears potentially unhelpful to those climbers who might possibly like to go there one day - legally. Thanks (not).


nmonteith

10-Feb-2005
5:52:34 PM

On 10/02/2005 Onsight wrote:
>Dried Rat, troll or not, but spraying about how you intend to ignore the
>ban, on a public forum that probably is seen by authorities from time to
>time, to me appears potentially unhelpful to those climbers who might possibly
>like to go there one day - legally. Thanks (not).

Did you not take photos of an illegal ascent of the ANZAC bridge in Sydney Simon? I say give these guys the chance. Real adventures are made from this sort of stuff. Climbing has always been inhabited by the more extreme elements of socitey - the ones that tend to lurk around the edges of legailty!

Onsight

10-Feb-2005
7:48:51 PM

On 10/02/2005 nmonteith wrote:
>Did you not take photos of an illegal ascent of the ANZAC bridge in Sydney
>Simon?
Gosh, who, me? I would never... Er, OK, you got me there... but it wasn't like I knew they were planning to climb it or anything. I was just wandering around Glebe w my camera at 4am one day, as I do, and there were these crazy guys doing something weird, so I thought I'd take a few pics, like in case they were needed for evidence or something... (was years ago mind you, pre Sept 11, would be a different story now).
>I say give these guys the chance. Real adventures are made from
>this sort of stuff. Climbing has always been inhabited by the more extreme
>elements of socitey - the ones that tend to lurk around the edges of legailty!
I guess I tend to agree, to an extent... and if you note closely what I said it was the spraying about it that I was commenting on, not... (you fill in the gaps). But now you've got me to spray publicly about the Glebe thingo, I'd like to withdraw my comments to Dried Rat (with my apologies, and put me down for a copy of the vid).

I guess my comments stem from a general concern about some of the things that are discussed here, and on other forums (publicly) from time to time. I suspect that now - and in the future - web forums are likely to be the primo place for authorities to find out about any of those few things that are potentially likely to damage our "cause" (mostly access I guess). Because you never know when Big Brother

[Note: a section of this post has been confiscated to be used as evidence. Reference DPP 54662-21351. Please resume normal discussion]

Anyway, I reckon it would be great if we could get access to Ball Pyramid some day, assuming it’s appropriate. Would like to be kept informed.

Gosh, what happened there?


shaggy

10-Feb-2005
9:18:55 PM

I'm never one to miss an adventure, I have somehow got myself involved with the shooting of, and participate in plenty of 'less than legal' adventures, but I do usually draw the line when it involves enviromentaly fragile areas. Now with out sounding too much like a tree hugging hippie activist, if the case is, that the area and fauna are that fragile, I would have to frown apon this particular adventure. In Simons defence, there is a huge difference between structure adventures, and things like Balls pyramid.

Onsight

10-Feb-2005
9:23:07 PM

Just to reiterate a little – if there are good, sound, environmental reasons NOT to climb something (as may well be the case w Balls Pyramid), then I don’t think it’s something to seriously consider – even if it is “legal”.

Onsight

10-Feb-2005
9:28:00 PM

Ha, cheers Shaggy, your post just beat me to the punch there, because thinking about it later I realised that precise point might need a little clarification.

tony harris

11-Feb-2005
6:31:05 AM

May WE clear up a few points ....Anyone who has trundled gear over a fragile wilderness area for either their own egotistical ambitions(...a great many climbers we have all met???) or for commercial interests,( ie: profit from the sale of articles,video or still photography) has done so perhaps from not quite the purest of motives if, by just being there has iritrievably caused some kind of ecological disaster. Do we really do that when we climb in wild places? When we record our exploits on film? Perhaps some of us have, many of us haven't! Dried Rat can honestly say that if WE could be convinced by sound, unbiased scientific information (which is the reason this forum was opened, can anyone give us this, Neils' father, an entomologist at QLD uni is the only offer so far!) that the reason the ban is in place is because climbers would definitely do iritrievable damage to a fragile eco-system then we would not go, end of story.

Did Brydon Allen do damage? Did Dick Smith and his camera crew? perhaps Rick White or John Worrall inadvertently caused the near extinction of the Lord Howe Is Phasmid?? WE don't think so. WE are led to believe it was the residents of Lord Howe Is. who did that. WE seriously doubt that the couple of days required to climb this great ocean peak by a small team who are on the thing for the sake of climbing it as an end in itself, and without having to resort to some bullshit pseudo scientific expedition tag for legal expediency, would not cause damage and might even be the purest of reasons for doing it.

Filming the ascent is not going to be a Warner Brothers or IMAX spectacular with whirring choppers and rigging crews complete with catering crews etc. Were talking handicam within the team and perhaps a flyby in a chopper for a summit shot. No Camp4, No Pines, not even a shiny new ring ladder for the masses! You see, It is OUR suspician, that the ban is in place for the usual reasons of fear of litigation as are the majority of climbing bans now in force on some of the Sydney sea cliffs and many crags inside national parks throughout Australia.

WE believe that crags that are banned for culturally sensitive reasons, or because they really do have nesting peregrine falcons etc., etc,.( I mean really do!!!) are valid and should not be broken. Likewise a farmer has the right not to allow climbing on his land if all he/she keeps meeting are series of dickheads one after the other, it is his/her land after all and to be on it without permission is trespass. Fair enough! However, If we continue to allow lawyers, to convince politicians, to convince climbers, through bans, that we shouldn't go climbing in particularly wild and isolated places because we might hurt ourselves and cause taxpayers an undue financial burden, it will only get worse.

What ever happened to the ethos of self rescue? When are we as climbers going to just go f***ing climbing! WE hear this "dont mess it up for the rest of us" stuff and WE say how more messed up can you get it when you just cant climb it without breaking the law!!! So OUR policy here is until WE are convinced that previous expeditions have done grievous harm and that WE would with our trip contribute to that harm, its........551m of Balls to you!......The ban that is.

Criticism is welcomed but lets make it constructive. Comments about trolls and going to QLD where it wouldnt matter will only make us feel like WE are discussing this issue with a knitting circle. And to all those who would prefer to stay on the right side of the law on this one.......... just wait till the law tells you the Grampians or the Blueys are banned. We all know how many times this almost happened. It was only the fact that in the Blueys, by their own admission, NPWS realised such a ban was utterly un-policeable without making hundreds of climbers into criminals every weekend that made them turn from the idea of enforcing it.


rodw

11-Feb-2005
7:14:32 AM

I dont know enough about the ban on balls and its reason to comment directly...but if NPWS are involved there reasoning is generally very shakey when it comes to ban on climbing anywhere. Just ask Bundybear on this forum about his recents dealings with those idiots in Georges River Nat park...very fustrating organisation.

A furthur example is when developing routes out at Sahara point in the blueys, I rang them up to see where the new boundary for Garden of stone nat park was, as soon as i mentioned rock climbing they stated the crag was definately within nat parks and was banned. Furthur checking with state forest, who provided maps and was very helpful proved that it wasn't. A few weeks later driving out to the crag, Nat parks had put boundary tapes along the side of the road indicating new Nat park boundary (encompasing the crag). I checked with state forest again and they agreed with me the boundary was at last 500m into the bush off the road (and not encompasing the crag), but that was obviously to far for Nat parks to walk.

Morale to the story, always double check Nat Parks facts, especially if climbing is involved.


Phil Box

11-Feb-2005
7:46:27 AM

Some facts for the debate.

The ban on visitors is as has been stated to protect the Phasmid population. The reason for the ban goes deeper than just not wanting people there it is so that visiting boats cannot inadvertantly allow rats or mice to jump ship and establish any sort of population to prey on the Phasmids.

The Phasmids are a form of large stick insect. A quite juicy morsel for a rat.

If there were ever an illegal attempt at going to the top of Balls then the crew should take every conceivable precaution to prevent the carriage of pests to the island. Fumigate the boat if you must and place ratsack in it for the voyage.


rodw

11-Feb-2005
8:02:46 AM

From what I know of Lord Howe, its a small community and I think you'll would have trouble getting anybody ,or even hire aboat, to take you out there for that purpose anyway.


mousey

11-Feb-2005
8:57:38 AM

i cant even beleive this is being entertained as a possibility! it doesnt matter one f---ing bit what the reasons are for the ban...the fact is, if YOU ignore it, WE will cop the consequences. we're already in constant beauracratic banter with .gov trying to get them to take climbers seriously, doing shit like this is not quite f---ing helpful for the cause....
i think it would be a great project,shit ive even dreamed of doing the route myself, but occasionally we have to practice a little coommonsense inorder to keep having crags


nmonteith

11-Feb-2005
9:08:13 AM

The unofficial response from my dad....

Hi neil
Yep the story of the Lord howe phasmid is told fully and correctly on that
PAWS website link that one of the earlier posts gave. It used to be common
all over the main island until about 1920 when there was a shipwreck from
which rats swum ashore and populated the island. The phasmids were gobbled
up by the rats and became extinct in a few years. The some of the earlier
rock climbers found dead ones on Ball's Pyramid in the 60/70s and just a
couple of years ago a serious expedition found a little colony of live ones.
I don't believe they would be restricted to one bush as they suggest,
because they couldn't possibly have searched the whole pyramid. I wouldn't
really know what the genetic situation would be with those apparent low
numbers but they must have survived there for close to 100 years already.
They are trying to breed them up in Australia at present (the Melbourne Zoo
is one of the places that have been selected to do this at) and meanwhile
they are evaluating the possibility of exterminating the rats on the main
island as there is no pint in releasing phasmid livestock there while the
critter that originally ate them is still prowling the forest.
I think the big problem for climbers dreaming of sneaking on to Balls is the
logistics of getting there. It is 20k out in the open deep ocean (it's just
visible from the top of the mtns on Lord Howe) and the only way to get there
is by a big powerful boat from LHI which can cope with full ocean
conditions. There are only a couple of these on the LHI. LHI is a small,
closed community and no outsider does ANYTHING on the quiet. You can't even
go there without an accommodation booking....there is no camping allowed and
you could never do it on the quiet. There are NP rangers actually based on
LHI and they know everything that goes on. There's no way that anyone would
be able to charter a boat from one of the locals and get illegally dropped
off on Balls. Would need a pretty big bribe....

Regards
dad


Jay Woo

11-Feb-2005
10:14:03 AM

That's one cool looking bit of rock! I've never seen it before. Some info about the Phantom Phasmids if anyone is interested;
http://www.amonline.net.au/collections/entomology/phasmids.htm


rodw

11-Feb-2005
11:22:29 AM

On 11/02/2005 JCP wrote:
>i cant even beleive this is being entertained as a possibility! it doesnt
>matter one f---ing bit what the reasons are for the ban...the fact is,
>if YOU ignore it, WE will cop the consequences. we're already in constant
>beauracratic banter with .gov trying to get them to take climbers seriously,
>doing shit like this is not quite f---ing helpful for the cause....
>i think it would be a great project,shit ive even dreamed of doing the
>route myself, but occasionally we have to practice a little coommonsense
>inorder to keep having crags

But Josh, you cimb in the Blue mountains Nat Park and its technically banned without a permit..Im not advocaing the balls expedition...but you certainly have the rights to know exactly the reasons for the ban before you blindly accept it.


mousey

11-Feb-2005
12:08:28 PM

absolutely agreed, but you also have a responsibility to find out the facts before blindly ignoring them as well

tony harris

11-Feb-2005
6:12:17 PM

fully agree, thats what were looking for.......facts

tony harris

11-Feb-2005
6:21:50 PM

phil box, thanx mate, a point we will take on board. WE will be going to great lengths to ensure WE don't introduce any predators of any kind to the eco-system. Marine craft, equipment and personal effects will be checked and or fumigated thoroughly before WE hit the landing platform.

tony harris

11-Feb-2005
6:32:10 PM

Thanx Neil and thanx to your Dad too. I'd like to say WE have our own yacht and will be departing from Port Macquarie heading direct to the Pyramid. Lord Howe Is is not on OUR itinery. The locals on Lord Howe and any officials will only know whats happened when WE are rapping into the zodiac. Once again Neil thanx for your support for OUR venture.

dried rat

12-Feb-2005
12:23:59 AM

I own the yaght , its name is "the angry buddhist ", a 30ft Hood Design Ocean Crusier ,12hp Desiel ,4 berth blah blah blah
What a load of crap from you mexicans, about fragile areas ! Why do you think Mt Arapiles is a National Park ??? ....Its has rare species of wildflower[s] ,only known to exsist at Mt Arapiles , but you knew that ... , Ive been in contact with the NSWNPS , all they could say was that it [balls pyramid] will always have a ban , they could not tell me why , no scientific or public issues were at stake , a parks personal expressed interest in going ....if we get permission from the LHBM, they think we might have a chance with getting the ok from the NPS but a number of factors are still outstanding which I will go into later .
Im waiting on a reply from the Lord Howe Island Board of Management and I will reprint my letter and their reply when it is available. All I can say is Im trying all avenues legally .. .. 40 year anniversary.. happy birthday balls pyramid 14th February 1965 .

dried rat

12-Feb-2005
2:30:41 AM

WM wrote "restricted to a single bush and the population probably did not exceed 20 individuals"
20 phasmids living in one bush... easy peazy... I will sneak past the shrub ,at night, biners taped...WM wrote "Can you back that up? The first ascentionist for one doesn't agree: "
No , all I know is what the Park persons tell me , I climb with some of them at the gym and outdoors, when I first moved here I went to the Parks office and they showed me the best areas to go ,park policy is one thing reality is another .

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