Summit photos #1 Kathy Ferguson May 1964

Summit Photos: celebrating some great photos taken at the summit of Ayers Rock

#1 Kathy Ferguson May 1964
This nice black and white portrait of Kathy Ferguson taken in May 1964 shows the summit cairn prior to the construction of the current directional plinth. The summit was established as a trigonometric point in 1958. The current directional table was built in 1970.

Caption reads: Miss Kathy Ferguson of Jersey in the Channel Islands, an early climber at the cairn on top of The Rock; she was one of a small group of five on an Ansett-Pioneer tour who reached the summit in May 1964. (Photo from P.88 of Storm over Uluru: The greatest Hoax of all by Peter B. English).

The first woman to climb the rock was Isabella Foy who ascended with her husband and son on the on the 28th of May 1936. The second woman to have climbed the rock and left her name in the small tin on the cairn was Englishwoman, Beryl Miles, Authoress of The Stars My Blanket, who made the ascent in mid 1951.

What the cairn looked like in September 1970 prior to being replaced with the current directional table (Photo credit Laurie McLean)

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