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Mt Arapiles development


nmonteith

22-Mar-2007
1:39:28 PM

"It is recognised that the Mt Arapiles Climbing area provides basic facilities for visitors, but lacks
infrastructure to accommodate organised climbing groups, or to support a range of mountaineer education
courses. Quality infrastructure would reposition the area for outdoor education and elite mountaineering
courses in Australia."

I'm not againt outdoor eductaion, but im pretty unhappy with the scale of large commercial groups who
frequent places like Summerday valley and occaisonaly araps. Stapylton campground is usually
swamped with 40-50 screaming kids, who have no respect for other campers, or the enviroment they are
in. I watched a bunch of dickheads attempting to boomerang kangaroos last weekend (yes, with a real
wooden boomerang!). Encouraging more groups of this scale doesn't seem to be in the best interest of
the 'average' clibmer. Why should someone be profiting by ruining the experiance for everyone else?


cruze

22-Mar-2007
2:00:59 PM

On 22/03/2007 kieranl wrote:
>Mikl had an excellent article in Rock a few years back with Arapiles as
>a safari park for hunting climbers (might have been called "2001: A Batting
>Average" but that might be something else).
>Perhaps with a concerted campaign we could sell the concept of establishing
>a climber shooting lodge at the Pines.
>
On a slightly different hunting tact: So what would be the Big Five at Arapiles? (maybe that is due cause for another thread if anyone could be interested) Bard, Watchtower Crack, Punks in the Gym, ...

simey

22-Mar-2007
2:22:43 PM

On 22/03/2007 kieranl wrote:
>Mikl had an excellent article in Rock a few years back with Arapiles as a safari park for hunting climbers (might have been called "2001: A Batting Average" but that might be something else).
>Perhaps with a concerted campaign we could sell the concept of establishing a climber shooting lodge at the Pines.

Gee, you are going a few years back there Kieran. I think the article you are referring to by Claw is 'Goodbye Cool World'.

The article '2001: A Battering Average' appeared in Screamer and is by Graeme Hill (I think).

Greg Pritchard also produced some great articles and cartoons that revolved around Arapiles in the future. One of my favourites is Rock Fishing in Australia which appeared in Farce (Argus) and talks about rock fisherman moving from the Sydney Sea Cliffs to Arapiles as they had discovered it was a lot more fun to catch climbers instead of fish (and most fish were protected species, unlike climbers). There was even a picture of someone hooking a magnificent Carrrigan on India.

There was also The Giant Stumpy theme park, which appeared in another cartoon by Greg.


Eduardo Slabofvic

22-Mar-2007
2:41:39 PM

I would like to replace all rap stations and descent gullies with a complex system of water slides that
dump you out in a deep pool that has been dug out around Golden Streak. I might put in a tender.

prb

22-Mar-2007
2:56:27 PM

On 22/3/2007 Cruze wrote:

>So what would be the Big Five at Arapiles?

Slinkin' Leopard would be one.


tmarsh

22-Mar-2007
3:07:44 PM

giant inflatable bouncy castles under all necky routes. that would be progress.

earwig

22-Mar-2007
3:57:51 PM

Maybe the plan is to relocate the Mt Buffalo chalet?

andi nismo

22-Mar-2007
4:45:21 PM

Neil, with respect, I hope you had the cahones to do or say something to those nobs with the boomerang?


nmonteith

22-Mar-2007
4:54:17 PM

no i didn't sadly. i've sort of been worn out with complaining to school/scout leaders at Stapylton.
Unfortunately its just so common to have nob-ends running riot that i just pretend they are not there.

andi nismo

22-Mar-2007
5:10:03 PM

I know what you mean. One could spend their entire weekend pulling up these fools and just be drained at the end of it. That's basically why I stay away from popular spots like Summerday, Araps, and especially the Prom. That way when I do come across them I've no hesitation in saying something. But that's just me, I do understand that many find it difficult to be confrontational. Now, back to the original topic.... Araps development my pucker! Any chance someone with the know how could add a petition onto this site so as to allow the thoughts of the areas main users to be aired?

22-Mar-2007
5:27:11 PM

On 22/03/2007 jh wrote:

>“Mt Arapiles is already a well-established destination for climbers from
>Australia. It is recognised that the Mt Arapiles Climbing area provides
>basic facilities for visitors, but lacks infrastructure to accommodate
>organised climbing groups, or to support a range of mountaineer education
>courses. Quality infrastructure would reposition the area for outdoor education
>and elite mountaineering courses in Australia.

If they can't get it to rain, how on earth are they going to make it snow, let alone ice up?


Sabu

22-Mar-2007
6:29:03 PM

HA "elite mountaineering" in 40 degree heat!

i do suspect though that in the unlikely event of any such infrastructure being planned or implimented, mass protest would ensue! How many hearts has Araps touched? and just how many will come to it's defense? Certianly much more than what any g20 rally could muster... hehe!

kieranl

22-Mar-2007
9:20:29 PM

On 22/03/2007 Sabu wrote:
>HA "elite mountaineering" in 40 degree heat!
You would do well to read Yvon Chouinard's article on the East Face of Mt Watkins where he speculates that climbing in intense heat can be equated with climbing in extreme cold (or something like that).


tmarsh

22-Mar-2007
10:31:29 PM

On 22/03/2007 nmonteith wrote:
>no i didn't sadly. i've sort of been worn out with complaining to school/scout
>leaders at Stapylton.
>Unfortunately its just so common to have nob-ends running riot that i
>just pretend they are not there.

A few years ago I had the misfortune to have to sit through a scout group at stapylton who were setting off fireworks in january. We complained to their leaders, who did nothing. Come Monday morning I did a little googling and found the email address for the supreme commander (or whatever his official title was) of the Scouting movement in victoria. I can't say what happened in the end, but I got the impression he was absolutely mortified. It didn't hurt that I was working for the Department of Justice at the time, and that my email address looked far more official and scary than it should have.

In many respects there's not much point complaining at the time. If the leaders had control of the group it wouldn't be happening in the first place. Find out where the group are from, then find their regional commissioner on this page.


Sabu

23-Mar-2007
8:49:20 AM

On 22/03/2007 kieranl wrote:
>On 22/03/2007 Sabu wrote:
>>HA "elite mountaineering" in 40 degree heat!
>You would do well to read Yvon Chouinard's article on the East Face of
>Mt Watkins where he speculates that climbing in intense heat can be equated
>with climbing in extreme cold (or something like that).

hmmm ok well i get the idea of hard physical work in harsh environments as training, but what about the fact of snow and safety techniques etc etc. bit hard to learn elite mountaineering without that?!

andi nismo

23-Mar-2007
12:49:03 PM

Hey people, while in modern times the term mountaineering has become connected almost exclusively to climbing activities which involve snow and ice, the word once actually covered pursuits ranging from a days walk in the hills all the way to climbing the biggest mountains on earth. So strictly speaking there is really no issue with that word being used in this context!


harold

23-Mar-2007
5:05:06 PM

“elite mountaineering”? who has ever heard of this as a term to describe rock climbing? This just shows what a complete waste of space these PV morons are and the complete lack of respect they have for parks users. The fact that they talk about ‘elite mountaineering courses’ shows exactly that they don’t give a rats ass about what visitors go to Araps for. All they care about is how squeeze more money out of areas under their control. As soon as numbers get high enough in any park the first thing they do is put up boom gates and start charging all sorts of fees. $10 to climb at buffalo in the summer. $20 to walk out to Cape Otway. $20 for a bush campsite if your on the ‘Great Ocean Walk’. Any where else you would expect a bed and a shower for 20 bucks! There was even a boom gate at the Youies for a while which is surely a chosspile to most people. Then there is the $15 to camp at the Gramps for 6 people even though you might be on your own and then your supposed to pay at Halls Gap which might be an hours drive away

Even though the likelihood of development is very low due to water supply constraints I think everyone should write to Parks Victoria to let them know why people from around the world go to Arapilies and that any inappropriate development will be met with extreme resistance from climbers everywhere. I am sick of this attitude that parks are a resource for commercial development to mass market as some sort of theme park for bus loads of tourons. We really don’t want to see the sort of excessive track work and lookouts that has gone on at the Warambungles etc. Next thing you know central gully with have steel hand rails all the way. Lets keep commercial development in the towns where it belongs and out of our bush land.


nmonteith

23-Mar-2007
5:46:50 PM

i agree harold. nicely put!


sticky

23-Mar-2007
6:02:44 PM

This joke isn't funny anymore.


BigMike

23-Mar-2007
6:12:33 PM

On 22/03/2007 prb wrote:
>On 22/3/2007 Cruze wrote:
>
>>So what would be the Big Five at Arapiles?
>
>Slinkin' Leopard would be one.

Coeur de Lion?

There are 107 messages in this topic.