Blue Mountains climber Adam Darragh remembers camping on the side of a cliff while trying to reach the top of a “trepidatious” route deep in the Grose Valley with two mates.<\/p>\n
“We slept on a ledge, we lit a little fire,” he said.<\/p>\n
“We took some raw steaks, and we chucked them on the coals.”<\/p>\n
The cliff-side meal on the trio’s first attempt to climb the route in 1995 inspired its name, Carnivore.<\/p>\n
“The climbing was so loose and intimidating,” Mr Darragh said.<\/p>\n
“Steve Monks had led a pitch, and when I get to him, he goes, ‘Adam, that’s the loosest bit of rock I’ve ever climbed,’ and he’s a world-class climber.”<\/p>\n
The friends spent two days on the wall and bailed.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
John Ewbank and Adam Darragh scoping out Carnivore from Fortress Ridge before their first climbing attempt in 1995. (Supplied: Simon Carter Onsight Photography)<\/p>\n
More than a week later, they returned to the base of Carne Wall, led by the dream of prominent climber John Ewbank.<\/p>\n
“The walls he took on were really high-consequence climbs,” Mr Darragh said.<\/p>\n
Mr Ewbank had climbed the route next to Carnivore \u2014 dubbed The Big Loose Corner \u2014 two years earlier in 1993, and felt he had unfinished business with the wall.<\/p>\n
“To go climbing with John, you were climbing with someone who dreamed big.”<\/p>\n
Back on the cliff face, Mr Darragh was lying in a horizontal, 1-metre-high cave with fellow climber, Mr Monks, waiting for Mr Ewbank to climb the next section.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
About 200,000 cubic metres of debris fell from Carne Wall in early August. (Supplied: Neil Monteith)<\/p>\n
“There’s so much rockfall coming off as John’s reaching these loose holds,” he said.<\/p>\n
“We’re looking out and there’s a curtain of rocks.<\/p>\n
“It was like a boy scout troop was hurling rocks from the cliff above.”<\/p>\n
Mr Darragh said the trio was “stoked” to reach the top and headed off for a burger and a beer to celebrate.<\/p>\n
“Some of these really steep cliffs, we think about them as being eternal \u2026 but everywhere there’s a big cliff in the Blue Mountains, there’s been a big collapse.”<\/p>\n
One of the largest in recent years<\/p>\n
Carne Wall slipped away in a 200,000-cubic-metre rockfall overnight between August 1-2.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The landslide can be seen from Evans Lookout near Blackheath. (Supplied: Neil Monteith)<\/p>\n
The landslide carved a giant sandstone scar in the landscape, which is visible from the popular Evans Lookout.<\/p>\n
After the first ascents of Big Loose Corner in 1993 and Carnivore two years later, no known climber was able to complete them.<\/p>\n
Geotechnical engineer Zack Tuckey from engineering firm Jacobs has studied the behaviour of Blue Mountains landslides, and he said it was a significant event.<\/p>\n
“It was definitely one of the largest rockfalls in recent memory,” he said.<\/p>\n
Mr Tuckey said it was hard to determine the specific trigger for the landslide, but suggested the biggest cause was time.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The landslide did not damage any infrastructure or walking trails. (Supplied: Neil Monteith)<\/p>\n
“Cracks will grow, and eventually join up and form a release surface that will cause a block to detach from a cliff,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Factors like rainfall can certainly play a role, but the rain in the immediate lead-up to this particular failure wasn’t anything out of the ordinary.”<\/p>\n
Mr Tuckey said he was working on an inventory of landslides in the Blue Mountains, some of which occurred more than 10,000 years ago with a volume of up to 30 million cubic metres.<\/p>\n
“They’re a ubiquitous part of the landscape,” he said.<\/p>\n
“They’re part of the reason that people go there, to see these rugged terrains that have been carved by rockfalls and landslides and other processes.”<\/p>\n
He said the Carne Wall landslide could make it into updated Australian landslide guidelines, which were under development, due to the before-and-after drone vision.<\/p>\n
Only memories remain<\/p>\n
Adam Darragh says Carnivore was a scary, loose, adventurous experience, which deeply connected him with his fellow climbing mates. (Supplied: Jared Anderson)<\/p>\n
Mr Darragh said the landslide and the loss of Carnivore had left him with an immense sense of gratitude.<\/p>\n
“It’s part of geological time, and that’s groovy seeing that,” he said.<\/p>\n
“I’m fortunate to see things aren’t always the same, and I think change is something we need to adapt to.”<\/p>\n
He said he felt deeply connected to Mr Monks and Mr Ewbank after such a significant climb.<\/p>\n
“The partnerships we have as climbers are really special, and we get a bird’s-eye view of these incredibly beautiful natural environments,” he said.<\/p>\n
“You can’t ask the question about why do we climb, without considering the significance of the impact of those two things.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Blue Mountains climber Adam Darragh remembers camping on the side of a cliff while trying to reach the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":63884,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[51124,51125,51126,51127,51130,51123,51129,43,11077,25258,44,51128,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-63883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-blackheath","tag-blue-mountains","tag-blue-mountains-national-park","tag-carne-wall","tag-cliffs","tag-evans-lookout","tag-grose-valley","tag-headlines","tag-landslide","tag-landslip","tag-news","tag-rock-climbing","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63883\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}