Climbing legends #12 Series of posts celebrating climbers of Ayers Rock. #12 Traditional Owners Since 1991 Parks Australia and the Park Board have pushed the message that the Traditional Owners don't climb Ayers Rock. As we have shown this message is demonstrably false . Below is a short list of Traditional Owners who have climbed the Rock. This is only a small fraction of what would include a cast of thousands stretching back into the Upper Pleistocene, when humans first arrived in the region. The list is derived from references by prospectors, anthropologists, rangers and tourists. Many non-Anangu Aboriginal people have also climbed as tourists over the years. The current group of Traditional Owners (Pitjantjatjara, Yankunytjatjara and Ngaanyatjarra language speakers - collectively known as the Anangu) likely arrived at our arkosic inselberg some 4000 years ago. This is based on the inclusion of the Dingo in Anangu creation mythology. Dingoes arrived with seafarers to Austr...
Our mountains belong to all of us. The Right to Climb them and bask in their views that inspire awe and wonder is as old as the human genome. This long-established cultural tradition is under threat by a small group of bureaucrats determined to impose their way on the rest of the world. It is right to Climb because we have the Right to climb. If you don’t exercise your rights you lose them. Don't let petty nanny state bureaucrats take them away.