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Death at Araps 2006

owl

31-Mar-2007
12:23:13 AM

I went to Araps last weekend and found out from some friends that there is now a plaque at the bottom of Syrinx where a climber had died in 2006. It seems intersting to me that the details were posted in a Queensland climbing club site, but not Chockstone.
Anyhow this is old news (aparently). I think it is a shame that a plaque has been placed at the bottom of the climb. It would have been more fitting to scatter the ashes around Araps so as not to detract from the climbing experience. It appears the cause of death was falling and hitting a ledge hard. All gear held.

skink

31-Mar-2007
12:42:07 AM

Search forums for 'Syrinx' and you'll come across discussion of both the accident and the plaque:

http://www.chockstone.org/Forum/Forum.asp?Action=DisplayTopic&ForumID=5&MessageID=2167&PagePos=&Sort=&Replies=15&MsgPagePos=0

http://www.chockstone.org/Forum/Forum.asp?Action=DisplayTopic&ForumID=1&MessageID=40362&PagePos=&Sort=&Replies=51&MsgPagePos=0

tastybigmac

1-Apr-2007
10:44:53 PM

plaques are ugly. go plant some trees or revegetate some poor trashed area for a memorial. i hereby give
permission to remove any plaque put on a cliff or a roadside for my death. i don't like them.

shaggas

24-Aug-2007
2:18:36 PM

I think the plaques are a great idea.
There are actually two plaques there for the same guy. One at the bottom placed there by the council and one half way up placed there by his loved ones. They are placed so they are not in anyones way.
If you have climbed alot around Arapilies you will see alot more plaques. If they are not in the way whats the problem. They signify the death of a fellow climber!!

nmonteith

24-Aug-2007
2:34:58 PM

My problem with plaques is two fold:

I have seen plaques erected to commemorate a person that was been killed elsewhere. (ie Plaque
errected by Victorian Police Force above Serpetine to commemorate a climber killed in Nepal). Where
does this stop. Do you errect one at every place they consider special? (the pub, their school, their
uni, their workplace??)

People will always die. It a fact of life. Cemeteries will fill eventually and then what do you do? The
problem with placing plaques is that there will always be more in the future. At what stage do you say
enoughs enough? If there was a plaque on every route that people were killed at it was start getting
very ugly (and very sobering for anyone wanting to climb the thing!).

Society in general dosn't place memorials at the places of death. Occaisonally people place flowers by
the side of the road, but generally we don't mark the places of accidents, murder and natural death
(This spot marks where Joe Bloggs had a heart attack)

I think designating ONE place where all memorials can be erected would be the way to go. Even
better, plant a tree. From one life comes another....

anthonyk

24-Aug-2007
4:50:52 PM

i totally agree, where does it stop. a memorial spot is much more appropriate than placing plaques all over the place. if there were plaques everywhere someone had died the whole world would be covered in them.

Bel

27-Aug-2007
9:27:22 AM

A few years a go i was in part responsible for the placement of a plaque at the base of a route at araps. This was very quickly removed and rightly so. A few years later i participated in helping get his fiance to the top of the route (a brave lady who hadnt climbed in 4 years and had never climbed at the grade) so she could spead his ashes over his favourite chunck of rock, this was by far a better experience.

alpinedan

27-Aug-2007
8:39:58 PM

In a major climbing location a memorial area would be very appropriate, rather than plaques. To put it on a larger scale, if there was a plaque for every death on Everest, in the location that the death happened, it would honestly be ridiculous.

The same should go for the crags. With the utmost respect to those who have died on the routes, they deserve proper respect, rather than scattered bits here and there. Plaques here and there are more likely to get the 'we need to ban this' crowd out of the woodwork, rather than a tasteful memorial. What I see is that of the armed forces, they have a memorial, but friends and family are free to place flowers or whatever they like at the actual site.

That is my humble opinion.

There are 8 messages in this topic.