Parks Victoria’s claim that climbing should be banned because of environmental impact flies in the face of their own actions. The biggest group damaging the Grampians is Parks Victoria. It’s all part of a push from the government and commercial tourism groups to attract more visitors and thus more dollars. As Kevin Costner so famously said “if you build it they will come”. A bigger carpark attracts more cars. Make it easier to walk to somewhere by installing a paved track and ladders and more people will walk there. The following photo essay is snapshot of the kind of damage PV is routinely allowing in the name of “progress” and “growth”. Much of the recent damage they so proudly promote is from the Grampians Peaks Trail® – a 144km walking track being constructed over the next few years – with attached luxury lodges. This isn’t just connecting old walking trails together – over 83km of new track is being cut, bulldozed and jack hammered through virgin bush to attract more tourists and their $$$. You can watch some of the private contractors working on the Peaks Trail in this promotional video:
This is the ugly truth behind how supposed low impact bushwalking tracks are created. So when someone complains about some climbers chalk, safety bolts or a foot pad – show them this. #notclimbers
“the team is clearing at a rate of 120 meters per day in dense sections and up to 600 meters per day in lighter sections. Clearing typically involves carving a path through foliage, removing bushes and, where necessary, trees to create a navigable path for the track construction.”
Grampians Peak Trail Community Update April 2019
“We also expect an additional 35,000 visitors to the region annually…”
Simon Talbot – Parks Victoria
“Construction will involve stone masonry techniques to install hundreds of rock steps ensuring the path is ecologically sensitive and sympathetic to the landscape”
Parks Victoria – April 2019
“Thousands of hand-built steps are being shaped from sandstone which has been mainly sourced on-site.”
Grampians Peak Trail Community Update March 2018
“This year, Dirt Art will construct 35 kilometres in the north, from Roses Gap to Halls Gap, and 22 kilometres in the south, from Cassidy Gap to Dunkeld. The remaining 45 kilometres in the central section will be completed by the end of 2020.”
Stanwell Times – April 2019
Watch this Ch9 video where PV talks up their environmental destruction.
“Contractors have completed work on over 1.5km of steel walkway on the remote Major Mitchell Plateau”
Friends of the Grampians April 2019
“the concerns remain about where the money for the upkeep of the trail will come from, and whether that money will come at the expense of other pressing needs of our Park.”
Friend of Grampians July 2015
“These works involve the pruning and removal of trees and vegetation and are carried out to ensure the corridor is cleared for construction of the walking track. Track clearing requires contractors the most efficient access points and the most effective means of removing all vegetation from the alignment”
Grampians Peak Trail Community Update November 2018
“there is significant harm… because you’ll end up with these private enclaves within what is essentially publicly-owned land. Ninety-nine years is essentially private ownership in a sense. We also know that if something starts small, even if it starts environmental friendly, it inevitably grows.”
Matt Ruchel, Victorian National Parks Association
“Parks Victoria is looking at how the fully facilitated walks can include accommodation, food, beverage and landscape interpretation.”
Grampians Peak Trail Community Update July 2018
“Mt Stapylton and Mt Abrupt walking tracks continue to be upgraded with the addition of over 500 new hand-built rock steps, flagstone paving, new drainage, a retaining wall, removal of trip hazards and track resurfacing.”
Grampians Peak Trail Community Update July 2018
“The Grampians Peaks Trail is a walking experience and does not offer rock climbing tours.”
Parks Victoria
“The areas, some of the
Grampians Peak Trail Community Update September 2017
most spectacular locations in the park, have
provided evidence of people camping on
or near the peaks for thousands of years.
Previously unknown occupation sites, scar
trees, surface scatters, greenstone originally
from the Lancefield area nearly 250km away
and rock art have all been rediscovered.”
“Any new trail to be constructed as part of the Grampians Peaks Trail should be offset by closures of trails, tracks and/ or roads elsewhere in the park if possible. “
Grampians Peak Trail Master Plan 2014
Save Grampians Climbing 
Looks like PV have zero credibility and land management skills. They have thoroughly trashed the place. It’s shameful and a disgrace that PV considers that this utter destruction and transformation of the landscape is acceptable. They certainly are not in the land management business. They have another agenda entirely.
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Here’s the thing: everybody knows all this. Anybody with a dog in this race knows that PV is responsible for most of the environmental damage done within the park. PV knows it! It builds tracks, car parks, toilet blocks, etc. to encourage people to visit the park. It creates more elaborate attractions to make the existence of PV a little more economically attractive to the government’s accountants (and the all-important Taxpayer). It fences areas off and puts up guard rails to stop people doing the kind of stupid shit people do, like vandalism and slipping off high things. And, mostly, it can justify all of it to those who need to hear some sort of justification—those who can do PV serious harm, if they’re displeased in any way. It’s a complex of negotiations and deals and favours and paperwork that long, long ago abandoned any concern for hypocrisy. So, don’t bother calling PV hypocritical—of course it is. Look for instances when contractors and sub-contractors failed to meet occupational health and safety standards (crowbarring untethered large rocks from the ground of a steep incline isn’t best practice, for example). Find out why certain contractors and sub-contractors were chosen instead of others (were local and indigenous individuals and companies chosen for the work, whenever possible, say). Check whether the materials used for construction is truly fit for purpose, whether corners have been cut, whether potentially hazardous circumstances have been created instead of prevented (I mean, that toilet block looks an oven that gives you tetanus). PV won’t be compelled to answer to charges of hypocrisy, but it’s bound by an extensive list of regulations to which it almost certainly isn’t adhering.
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