Word Association (2024)

[snoop1130]

Australia's famed Uluru outback monolith to be closed to climbers

By Zalika Rizmal

 

 

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australia's world-famous Uluru, formerly known as Ayers Rock, will be closed to climbers from 2019, its management board said on Wednesday, ending a decades-long campaign by Aborigines to protect their sacred monolith in the Northern Territory.

 

A board of eight traditional owners and four government officials voted unanimously to close the rock to climbers, a spokesperson told Reuters.

 

"The climb is a men's sacred area, the men have closed it," chairman Sammy Wilson added in a statement. "It has cultural significance that includes certain restrictions."

 

The UNESCO World Heritage-listed 348-metre (1,142 ft) rock, known for its shifting red-ochre colors, is a top tourist drawcard, attracting around 300,000 visitors each year, despite its remote desert location near Alice Springs.

 

The traditional owners of Uluru, the Anangu people, have called for the climb to be closed since 1985, when the park was placed in indigenous hands.

 

The rock's board said in a report in 2010 that they would close the attraction to climbers if the proportion of visitors who tried to climb it dropped below 20 percent.

 

They took the matter to a vote on Wednesday after data showed the number of climbers had fallen below that threshold, from about three quarters throughout the 1990s to just 16.2 per cent between 2011 and 2015.

 

The ban will take effect on Oct. 26, 2019, exactly 34 years after Uluru was handed back to its traditional owners.

 

Australians are still the most common visitors to climb the rock, followed by the Japanese, according to Parks Australia.

 

The climb is closed about 77 percent of the time due to dangerous weather or cultural reasons.

 

There have been 36 confirmed fatalities at Uluru since records were first kept in the 1950s, with the most recent in 2010.

 

(This story has been refiled to fix typo in first paragraph)

 

(Reporting by Zalika Rizmal; Editing by Byron Kaye and Michael Perry)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2017-11-2

[notmyself]

The traditional owners of Uluru, the Anangu people, have called for the climb to be closed since 1985, when the park was placed in indigenous hands.

 

It was indeed placed in indigenous hands and the biggest reason given was because of objections to people walking on what was considered sacred ground. Obviously all roaming was stopped right? Nope... the revenue simply went into different hands.

[jobsworth]

the whole area is full of flies and one needs a bee keepers face mask just to be there.

it is also incredibly hot with heat thrown off the rock face as well as the sun above.

i for one will not miss it. despite the chain to hang on to it is still very dangerous and many people have been killed.

but do go there and look at it.

it is beautiful and well worth the journey.

also the steaks in the nearby backpackers are not bad either.

[boomerangutang]

The article wasn't clear.  Are they calling 'climbers' the tourists to walk up the steep path to the top?  Or are they referring to real rock climbers.  I'm a rock climber, and I like to see more opportunities to climb rather than less.   Rock climbers are quite sensitive to environmental and cultural concerns.   Two indications:

 

>>>  serious rock climbers take plastic bags with them, and defecate into them, in order to take their shit back down and dispose of it properly at a latrine or similar.

 

>>>  I read of a rock climber in a v. remote part of Grand Canyon who came upon a beautiful Indian clay pot nearly completely covered in sand.  He wiped part of the sand away, looked at it, then put it back exactly where how he found it, covered up with sand.

 

In India, there are many mountains which are claimed to be 'sacred' - therefore off limits for serious climbers.  I don't like that.

 

Near where I reside, in Chiang Rai, there are beautiful limestone cliffs.  Most are open to climbers, but some sections have Buddhist shrines/temples at their bases, so they're off limits to climbers.   I don't mind sharing rock formations with Buddhist/religious folks, but I'm glad they don't commandeer all the good places to climb.  

 

As comparison, imagine if Buddhist things were built at or alongside ski slopes.  Those runs would then be off limits for skiing.

 

 

 

 

[Ridler]

I climbed it many years ago, it’s a rock, that’s all. 

How can a rock be sacred? Ridiculous

[Credo]

13 minutes ago, Ridler said:

I climbed it many years ago, it’s a rock, that’s all. 

How can a rock be sacred? Ridiculous

It can be sacred in the same way a Book can be sacred or a flag or anything else that is a symbol of something in which we strongly believe or hold in great esteem.   

[ncc1701d]

Equivalent of religious rubbish. It’s a rock

[boomerangutang]

6 hours ago, Ridler said:

I climbed it many years ago, it’s a rock, that’s all. 

How can a rock be sacred? Ridiculous

Or looked at another way, 'all rocks are sacred' ....or at least special.

I go to the riverside once in awhile and collect rocks.  Every one is unique.  Some are dazzlers.  I image one or another is a meteor, or a moon rock or a pre-human stone tool, or.....

 

Every rock has a history; little ones by the river, and big ones like Uluru.

 

For those into 'bigness', here's an Aussie rock that's bigger than Uluru

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/life/weekend-australian-magazine/journey-to-mount-augustus-the-worlds-biggest-rock/news-story/246dea3b5fc42d754161019105ad9106

 

Don't tell the locals. They'll then declare it off limits to hikers because it's too holy.

[oxo1947]

A dingo's ate my baby" .......blue......................

[Enoon]

On 11/3/2017 at 3:04 AM, Ridler said:

I climbed it many years ago, it’s a rock, that’s all. 

How can a rock be sacred? Ridiculous

 

How can people believe that crawling up a lump of stone, like an oversize cockroach, is a worthwhile or ennobling endeavour? Ridiculous.

 

 

[greatwhitenorth]

What was wrong with it's original name Ayer's Rock.  Surely more Australians speak English than Pitjantjatjara.

 

[ncc1701d]

6 hours ago, Enoon said:

 

How can people believe that crawling up a lump of stone, like an oversize cockroach, is a worthwhile or ennobling endeavour? Ridiculous.

 

 

Climbing it doesn’t restrict anyone else from their fairy tale beliefs.