[spidermonkey09]

I spent 3 months there in 2016 and visited again earlier this year. I found myself very conflicted as a climber who believes in Indigenous rights.

Arapiles felt  broadly similar but the loss of Tiger Wall meant that other multi pitches were much busier. The Grampians is now all but dead as a climbing destination. I genuinely felt a bit emotional driving round and visiting the few unbanned crags and mourning (for want of a better word) what has been lost there. More generally there was a real tone of dissatisfaction and discontent about the bans and the approach that has been taken that left me pretty worried. More than a few people are quite openly flouting the regs, doing what they like and keeping it quiet. No one had a good word to say about Barengi Gadjin Land Council, the local Aboriginal corporation.

It doesn't bode particularly well for race relations in Australia, particularly after the failure of the Voice referendum. I think its pretty likely these bans will be widely ignored. The approach taken in 2018/19 was that of 'softly softly' in the hope that a reasonable compromise would be reached. The opposite has happened so I would think there will be a large amount of resentment.

[lukeyboy]

I similarly spent a couple of months in the Gramps and Blue Mountains in 2015 and am very sad to see the state of affairs today.

The recent Simon Carter episode on the Enormocast covered the subject a bit, and I found it interesting. His perspective was that it's been very politicised, climbers have been successfully scapegoated, and in most cases there is not a genuine case to be made for indigenous rights in these areas. I don't know whether or not that's true. If so, it's very different to there being a valid argument for climbers violating an important indigenous place / causing damage to rock art etc. - which whilst gutting, would also be fair enough.

[SA Chris]

Throw under the bus is probably a better term to use! A sad state of affairs, wonder how it will all pan out...

[spidermonkey09]

Simon Carter is definitely an 'ultra'. I don't agree with everything he says but I definitely have sympathy with it. I think there are definitely areas with notable Indigenous cultural heritage where climbers were always pushing their luck climbing there. In particular, in the Grampians, that includes Muline and Millennium Caves. I don't have a huge problem with these being banned.

I do have a bit of an issue with areas with rock chips being banned though. The central section of Taipan is banned because the accessible ledge has been used as a stone tool quarrying site. There are hundreds of these across the Grampians, you literally walk over them on the track heading up to Hollow Mountain. I think it's excessive to ban climbing based on these. That's what a lot of the Arapiles closures are based on as well. Eg there are visible quarry marks at the base of Trojan, on the back of the Pharos.

Another complicating factor is the closure of crags that lie close to areas of significant value, but the public aren't told where these are due to (legitimate) fears they will be vandalised. Chatting to people who would know out there, if you're a reasonably committed bush warrior in Aus Indigenous art is quite common, so the q is whether it's justifiable to close climbing (and increasingly ban off track bushwalking) near it.

Indigenous culture does not really follow the concept of open access in the same way western societies do. Access to sacred sites is highly restricted and contingent upon seniority. It's hard to see how that aligns with the notion of a national Park where access is relatively free. I think a compromise position is possible. The 90s in the Grampians were like the wild West and tilted too far to climbers. The current situation is equally ludicrous in my opinion. I can't see it holding, a lot of people are really pissed off.

[spidermonkey09]

Decent overview here for those interested.

https://www.acansw.org.au/index.cfm?module=news&pagemode=indiv&page_id=2602676&fbclid=IwY2xjawGWvzFleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHWWxL2YkhZdnIPI14Owed-L3uliSWX8yNxlucfscmbgPPv2NCyaBJhaPAg_aem_PNQINsEjXagVpf49lX8x1g

[T_B]

That’s shocking.

It’s hard for me to get my head around all of this, as I just don’t have a sense of how many climbers there were in the area in more recent times.

You describe the Grampians as the “Wild West” in the ‘90s which I find a bit of an odd description. I was there for 4 months in 1998 and there was literally no-one there apart from the local activists (I was at Muline when HB had just bolted Desert Rose) and an occasional visitor. I don’t think I ever saw another party anywhere in the Grampians apart from maybe Bundaleer. The Pines was busy over New Year but you wouldn’t even describe it as busy during weekends in the ‘season’.

I can imagine the locals ignoring the bans, unless there’s way more infrastructure in the Grampians nowadays and it would be obvious that climbers were ‘out there’?

[spidermonkey09]

I mean the Wild West in the sense that I think its fairly likely climbers ignored signs of Indigenous art and culture and went climbing around it anyway. The old Grampians guide by Mentz and Tempest is absolutely littered with references to Aboriginal art, sometimes literally on the climbs being described. I don't mean any moral judgement  on the era as it was a different time, Indigenous issues just weren't in people's consciousness. I think some of that is part of a general attitude among the locals to perceived 'rules' in general. I've been out with HB and Kevin Lindorff in the Vic Range where they ignored quite a lot of 'road closed' signs, for example! I bet that was a good 4 months, I'd have loved to have been there then.

Arapiles is extremely busy now, I was very surprised- much busier even than in 2016 when I was last there. Part of the general explosion in climbing I guess? but the Grampians is dead, mostly because there is nowhere left to climb really - a bit of Taipan, a bit of Bundaleer and some esoterica. I think there's still very little chance of climbers being spotted ignoring bans anywhere in the Grampians except maybe Taipan. Even there, I watched a local casually rope soloing up Mr Joshua, which is definitely banned. I saw a Ranger twice and ACAV have said they will pay the fines of anyone caught climbing on banned areas, as the legal underpinnings behind them are contested. I didn't climb anywhere that was banned but it did cross my mind. If I was local I'd probably give it some thought, which is an uncomfortable thing for me to type.

[spidermonkey09]

Useful timeline of events over the last decade in this.

https://savegrampiansclimbing.org/2024/11/09/arapiles-climbing-bans-the-plan/?fbclid=IwY2xjawGd209leHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHWGdTThpzCDA-IwhrQazBRA4ddlkfjBMDJTCQhTLroVZDnzP25us6iWiPw_aem_kgyVCSi_Moa6pu4Tj5lBYw

[spidermonkey09]

https://savegrampiansclimbing.org/2024/11/28/parks-victoria-boss-quits-and-labor-gov-orders-independent-inquiry-into-the-organization/?fbclid=IwY2xjawG1S1NleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHWGlzA0Qck9tzRCICWpTNaocnNCTqprvH1MsgaxNZYSYHQ6i-beSzm6OIw_aem_WsMzfaEZPTq5Os0vIkdkgQ

Interesting and positive update.

[SA Chris]

Pack yer swag bag mate, you're off!

[chriss]

Had the pleasure of a few months bouldering in the Grampians say 15 years ago.. Absolutely loved it, bar the snakes n spiders, would love to go back.

[Bonjoy]

Fingers crossed! That does look promising.

[SA Chris]

It does look promising. I doubt it will return to the good / bad old days, but hopefully a more measured approach.

Never heard that they refer to themselves as Victorians though, visions of climbers in bustle dresses and top hats arriving by horse and cart.

[spidermonkey09]

Really? Tasmanians, Queenslanders, South Australians, Victorians?

[SA Chris]

Never really thought about it.

[Fultonius]

Don't forget the bloody saffers