Close but not quite...
When first noticed it was only a few inches, if that, but rather rapidly widened to 6 ft and further ...
It became something of a tourist destination, with refreshment stalls, marshals to control crowds and even lights setup for night viewing during it all. People would attend in their best Sunday clothes via bush tracks, as Cliff drive didn't exist then, and either view from above or from along Narrowneck.
There were several smaller falls, over a period of 4 months or so, before it finally collapsed in the middle of the night, and despite some claims of witness's none have actually been documented.
Despite being integrally linked with Ewbank he wasn't the first person to climb there, being beaten by bob Ryan and co who tried a bolt laddering the middle of the wall but stopped after 60 ft, and chopped the bolts. I repeated this as The Pecker Route. Then they completed a bolt ladder on the left near what is now Titan. Ewbank and co chopped those bolts before? climbing Titan and the cliff became known as Ewbanks Sandpit after numerous first ascents with a variety of partners.
Gigantor, the current trade line of the face, we led by John as a single pitch of almost 100m, with literally 100 pitons, biners etc. After the second was unable to follow I bilieve John ended up going back the next day to clean it...
In the 60s barely 30 years after the cliff had formed the scenery at the bottom was apparently more like a lunar surface, very barren and bare... He was quite surprised at how green and softened it all looked when we went back there on his last visit to Aus. when we re climbed the top half of Jormangund -21, on the left wall. Well worth a look, as is Fingal -23, both are free routes ..... |