Climbing Mt Olga

Climbing Mt Olga.
Prior to 1986 visitors to the Ayers- Rock Mt Olga National Park had much more freedom to explore the area. One activity that was banned in 1986 was climbing to the summit of Mt Olga. As this represents a much more difficult and risky climb compared to Ayers Rock it is not something many visitors have completed but there is a rich history of climbers reaching the summit.

Tony Healy at the Mt Olga Summit Cairn, 17 April 1954

The early climbs, from the first recorded climb by Constable Bill McKinnon in 1932 to those undertaken up to 1955, are documented in "The early Ascents of Mt Olga" by Tony Healy (1995). This is a self-published book held in the National Library. The climbers following in MacKinnon's footsteps include John Béchervaise (1948); the author himself (with Bruce Jephcott in 1954); and Kath and Dennis Henschke (1955). A total of 21 people climbed Mt Olga in this period, two of whom were women.
Healy's list of climbers is reproduced below:

List of early climbers of Mt Olga, 1932-1955

The fascinating manuscript includes reproductions of photographs, portraits, newspaper and magazine articles and firsthand accounts of the climbs. One of which, originally published in Walkabout June, 1965 is reproduced below.
Directions to the summit based on surveyors notes included in the work, provide a useful guide to reaching the summit:

Sketch map and notes describing the Mt Olga climbing route from Healy's 1995 manuscript. 

Any recent climbers-please send us your story, we'll post it anonymously here. As far as we are aware fines for scaling Mt Olga are similar to those proposed for climbing Ayers Rock -see HERE.

Conquering the Domes of Mt Olga by Anthony Healy

Walkabout 31/6 June 1965

EASTER THIS YEAR MARKED the twelfth anniversary of a memorable and exciting trip my wife, a friend and I had made from Alice Springs to Mt. Olga and back. Those four or five days and bush-spent nights I shall always recall with gratitude and deep satisfaction. They were red letter days that are only sparsely sprinkled through the average life-time. We left Alice Springs in a hired four-wheel-drive vehicle on Good Friday eve, which happened to be overcast, cool and subject to light showers. In those days, any traveller had to get a permit to enter the Ayers Rock-Mt. Olga Reserve. We had suffered some anxious moments, having planned this venture with great care and eagerness, before we finally secured our permit from the then Native Affairs Branch authorities. By contrast, many thousands of Australian and overseas tourists visited the area last year, in private cars, tourist coaches and almost daily flights from Alice Springs, without permits, which, nowadays, are both unnecessary and unheard of. These people saw what we saw, but from the comfort and convenience of established tourist camps with urban-like accommodation and formal meals, toilet blocks and an airstrip. They could even send specially postmarked letters, as they can again this season. Signposts, graded roads and litter bins are all outward signs of the progress and exploitation of this fascinating area, which can be reached and marvelled at within 24 hours' flying time from any capital city. But back to the adventurous early days. We set forth in an unusually dismal dusk, armed with a sound vehicle loaded with food, water, swags, petrol, photographic and tool supplies — plus our precious permit, still preserved among my souvenirs. We spun over clay-pan sections, shuddered over corrugations, twisted through sand hills and eased through washouts and jump-ups for twelve hours on that first dark, cold evening. After some 320 miles of demanding night driving, we climbed out of the vehicle, stiff, chilled and red-eyed, at a spot a mile or two from the famous Ayers Rock, only faintly showing against the pre-dawn sky. It was a tired five o'clock on Good Friday morning when we unbuckled our swag straps, and wormed our way into the warmth and welcome of bush beds. I was sufficiently awake to set our alarm clock for 6 a.m. An hour's sleep was scarcely sufficient to satisfy bodily needs, but the sight that greeted an unwilling awakening banished all weariness. We scrambled out of snug swags, groped for freshly loaded cameras and stumbled through quickly dispersing shadows towards vantage points from which to capture for future arm-chair projection the awe-inspiring scene. The enormous, burnished rock, wrapped in ever changing reds and golds and bronzes, seemed still to slumber as our goggle-eyes took it in. The stillness and the grandeur of colour, of which we were sole human witnesses, is still a vivid memory, and will always be. Mindful of our main (and almost untalked of) goal, we had a warming breakfast, broke camp and, by-passing the massive giant, bumped over the spinifex clumps, Mt. Olga bound. We had earlier spoken of climbing the top-most peak of the Olga group, but, as so often happens to most of us when an impending challenge draws closer, we must have thought more and spoken less and less about this cherished, almost secret ambition. Thirty-plus circuitous miles over rough going, affording ever-changing rearward views of the Rock, brought us to Mt. Olga and her several sisters. The group consists of five or six main elongated domes or humps, closely connected and running almost east-west. Scattered around and below them are clusters of pudding-like formations, hilly rather than mountainous. Interspersed are small valleys, rough and rock-strewn gorges and green gullies. The entire area of a few square miles is one of the most fascinating natural beauty that one could wish to see. Its secret, I think, is its variety, the highlights of which are the utter grandeur of the main domes and the fearsome, sheer ravines separating them. Afternoon skirmishes among scree slopes and lower hills sharpened our urge to achieve the summit. The overcast sky had cleared, and, that night, as we ran out of pre-sleep talk and gazed up at the extraordinary clarity and size of the stars, we secretly hoped that the morrow would see us atop Mt. Olga. A full breakfast was a must, for we were to travel light. Oranges, chocolate, biscuits and tea were the rations and sole burden for our excelsior, apart from vital cameras. With Ayers Rock dressed in early morning gold and red on our distant left, we struck out east and south from our base camp at the foot of the main group. I can vividly recall rounding a huge boulder at the mouth of a rough gully to see a muscular and heavily built euro startled by our intrusion. Surely he took flight up the rough, tight gorge so that he could pause at its head, look down at us in rebuke, and mock our clumsy progress! In the all-consuming silence around us, broken only by an occasional bird call or clatter of loosened stone, we searched the forbidding faces of the main domes towering above us on the right. To attempt an ascent from this eastern side was out of the question. Reaching the southern boundary by noon after a busy morning, we camped for a scant lunch break. It was more than welcome, although we began to doubt the fulfilment of our main mission. Today or never it must be; tomorrow we had to begin our return journey which was to include an examination and ascent of Ayers Rock on the way back to the Alice. Off to the south-western corner of the group we went now, with the faint lines of the Musgrave Ranges leftward on the southern horizon, marching in the noon heat. With blunted hopes and aching muscles we reached the corner and turned northwards, with the western faces of the domes still on our near right. As our tracks rose and fell across the unyielding scree slopes we searched for a route up the end of the hump we thought to be the highest. We gained heart, for in contrast to the forbidding eastern face, the western, on minute inspection, sparked a shred of hope. My wife wisely withdrew at this point, and my companion and I left her with directions to our distant camp, as well as a loneliness neither of us then appreciated. Up we worked, with a westering sun lighting the dull reds and coppers of the conglomerate face of our opponent. She was a formidable one, and did her best to keep us at bay. Inching our way up, always within soft speaking distance, but far enough apart to work at our individual courses, we sweated and sought hand and foot holds. Unlike the granitic Ayers Rock, the Olga group is composed of a conglomerate, a sort of a giant's mix of concrete; large and small rocks, stones and pebbles had been cemented together (none too securely at times) with a reddish brown bond. The incline was so severe and the frequent insecurity of support such that I was apprehensive, to say the least. Utterly unprotected, one felt that to falter once would plunge the exploit into tragic failure. Eventually, with thumping hearts and wearing hands we attained the final rampart, and walked, hoarse and panting, from the shoulder up the gentle rise to the summit of the dome. The view was vividly impressive, and marred only by a humbling and devastating revelation. In our moment of conquest, we looked south and saw the roof of a dome, higher by some 100 feet than the one we had just conquered! Our disappointment can be well imagined. After taking photographs from various aspects and gingerly inspecting the gloom and apparently bottomless depth of the ravines cascading from the exposed edges of the summit, we held a quick conference. We would descend, scramble south to the foot of the higher dome, and try to climb and descend before legs and light failed. Quite often, depending on surfaces and gradients, a descent can be more hazardous in an ascent. This one certainly was. The drop being so sheer, it was not at all easy to look down to find and test toe holds before committing one's weight. With back to the waII, and looking uncomfortably out over space groping for footholds some 1,400 feet above very uninviting floor below, I could admit something rather more than mere apprehension. However, luck was with us, and putting all four feet in all the right places we made good the bottom, not without some superficial damage to one's own. After a brief reunion with my patient wife, we wolfed a hurried bite and sucked a sweet orange before assaulting the prize of our plans. Our chief advantage now was a better understanding of our opponent; our growing disadvantage was rapidly expiring energy. We toiled as before. Glaring at the unfriendly face only inches from our salt-ridden eyes, our fingers arched above and our toes below us for friendly landfalls. A few times my knees quivered, and I found difficulty in locking them for safe support. There were even odd moments that hovered over the raw edge of panic. It was a cold and unpleasant sensation. We clawed upwards, and, at long last, breasted the rim of the ultimate. Three-quarters spent, we eyed one another in a momentary nod of exhilarated triumph. We had, after all, made it. To our surprise and in contrast to the quite barren crest of our first peak, the topmost dome was part clothed with spinifex and an occasional stunted shrub. A watery-legged walk across the rubble-covered surface brought us to a cairn of red and brown stones, from the centre of which protruded a lone, gaunt stick of weathered shrub. We found and carefully withdrew a small sealed tin from clefts at the base of the cairn, and avidly read the few historical notes left there by previous climbers. After scanning through 360°of hard-won scenery stretched below and around us, with only a few wheeling wedge-tailed eagles above us to share the tremendous view, we took our precious photographs and I copied down the notes in the tin:

1. J. Béchervaise, 5th September, 1948. Cairn erected by Mackinnon.

2. Hocking and McCoy, National Mapping, July, 1951.

3. Bennett and Elliott. Ernabella Mission, August. 1951.

4. Bartlett and Andrews, Armand Denis Expedition, 5th December, 1952.

Total height above sea level. 3.320 feet. Height above camp site, 1,570 feet.

That was the written record as we found it.

But who is to know whether it is the complete history? It would be folly to suggest that aborigines had not scaled the heights of Olga, but without research or substantiated record, it remains an open question. The first known ascent was made in the 1930's by William Mackinnon, who built the cairn, We added our names to the small band of conquerors, together with a short note of our earlier ascent that same afternoon. With hearts aglow and satisfaction supreme we feasted again on the indescribable view, but by now the sun was sinking rapidly, and the full Easter moon already rode high above the darkening plain. The fast failing light and thoughts of my no doubt anxious wife below, urged us to begin the difficult descent. The cold draught of self-preservation was stronger than the heady wine of success. By this time I felt utterly weary and not very sure that aching legs and feet would see me safely down. Dry-throated and a bit on the wobbly side, I had a few rests in precarious spots on the now dimly lit face, less from choice than from necessity. My companion, some years younger, seemed to make less of a task of it than did I, and was first to gain the foot of the dome. The pale light of the moon barely enabled me to pick my last stumbling way down from the face proper to the rough screes above the smooth edge of the plain. My wife, too, had had difficult moments while we were climbing up and down the domes. She had become temporarily lost while trying to regain our distant camp for rest and to prepare food for us. It was not until late in the gathering dusk that penetrating, echoing cooees re-established mutually comforting contact. The return route to camp was marked by cunningly concealed rocks and spinifex clumps that, insufficiently lit by the moon, were often obscured by the towering domes. Our arduous, painful and plunging progress must have scared several more euros. With no mind for talk, apart from a hoarse warning of a hazard ahead, we ploughed through the last mile or so on tortured feet and numbed legs. Swishing spinifex spines found their mark with sharp monotony, and the smarting smack of saplings scoffed at our grunts of protest. Our camp was as we had left it 15 hours before, and our swags felt like inner-spring mattresses as we just lay there silently quite some minutes. Then I opened the bottle of beer I had brought, and we drank to the success of our day. Having then shared a tin of fruit and content to forget further food until breakfast, we gratefully fell asleep under crystal stars twinkling down on a very tired trio. It is perhaps a point that, apart from encircling the Olga group that day in gaining its two highest peaks, we had both climbed and descended approximately 3,000 formidable feet in five hours — an effort that might se be claimed a "first". Easter Sunday we all spent returning to and examining Ayers Rock and making an afternoon ascent. We read the handful of notes the cairn tin, most if not all of which I understand have long since been cast to winds. I looked across from the roof of Rock, at sundown, towards the sepia-toned domes of Olga and marvelled that just a day before we had been astride the cap of highest of them, gazing at the spot where we now stood. Those early days unhappily are now gone. Gone, too, is the utter, unmarked loneliness the scene of such great beauty and humbling wonder. Some months later I read a newspaper article recounting the exploits and travel of John Béchervaise, who had just been appointed officer-in-charge of Mawson base in the Antarctic for 1955. I wrote to him of our climb of finding his name heading the list of conquerors of Mt. Olga. Back came a gracious and delightful letter which I still have. In it, he said how he had followed in imagination our journey and climb, and how he envied us our progress. He thought, however, that the climb was never likely to be over-popular because it was too exposed; but he had often recalled in the past, and would again recall in the future, amid the ice of Antarctica, the sunny domes of Olga.