Cultural Heritage

Gariwerd, as it known to Aboriginal people is extremely important to Indigenous Australians, and contains more than 80% of Victoria’s cultural sites – including most the art sites. 

Climbers wish to respect these values, but shutting off access to vast areas of remote and rarely visited clifflines is a blunt and lazy way to protect sites with Cultural Values. 

Culturally sensitive sites may be from artifact scatters, rock quarrying or art-sites. See our Cultural Heritage page for further information.

Most are not public (and the Traditional Owners would like to keep it that way), but the concerted effort to keep information about Cultural Values tightly held still presents a conundrum, which isn’t made any easier even if climbers are shamed for evening daring to ask where it is. As one climber put it:

If we, climbers, insist on sites being publicly identified we’re saying that the dispossessed are required to be open about their cultural sites otherwise we might damage them by accident. That’s another act of dispossession. We’re making the indigenous community responsible for our actions instead of accepting it ourselves.

The goal of the various access groups (eg Cliffcare/VCC, GWRN, CSV and CVAC has been to secure a “fine-grained” approach to site closures, rather than blanket banning, but this has so far yielded only minor “success” at the high profile crags: Taipan and Bundaleer.

The ACAV has taken a more direct approach, presenting a case where climbers are being singled out as representing illusory “protection”, while other potential impacts from tourists is ignored.

There is a massive amount of rock in Gariwerd, however the vast majority of small overhangs and caves are of no interest to climbers.  Even most of the 8 sites closed in February 2019 seem to be “close to” known sites, not sites themselves, which is an important distinction.

• Bundaleer (50% open) – Co-operation with Parks and Traditional owners resulted in signage and a boardwalk.  Minimal environmental impact at an otherwise quite popular cliff.
• Black Ians Rocks (Closed with the GGLMP) – Some recent climbing development did not help climbing relations (see above); but there is signage in place to educate visitors as to the cultural heritage, and to request that no more routes are established.
• The Gallery (Closed).  This is included as the track going up to the cliff (50min walk) used to go past the Billimina shelter (Buandik).  When this cliff was first being developed (30 years ago), Parks Victoria were installing new fencing, trails and paving around the shelter / art site, and later happily rerouted the start of the climber’s trail so that it avoided the shelter.
• Summerday Valley (New SPA area) has nearby aboriginal art sites that have been caged and are a major tourist site.  Summerday is one of the Grampians most popular beginner cliffs, and registered climbing guides use the area often.  Climbers have worked directly with Parks Victoria on hardened trails, seats and extensive stonework to reduce erosion and protect sensitive areas (see the post about Summerday Valley here)

There are some comments online which chide climbers for complaining about access to cliffs while disregarding thousands of years of Aboriginal history.  We don’t refute the importance of the Grampians / Gariwerd to Indigenous people, but simply that the Grampians is special for us too, and there should definitely be room for the respect and value of heritage values for generations to come.

It is telling that bushwalkers are still invited to go into the area; suggesting it’s not the act of tramping around the bush / caves that is the problem – but the simple act of scaling the rock.

Environmental Protection

There is no doubt that larger numbers of climbers result in increased pressure on the natural environment, and a greater need to protect sensitive areas with regards to erosion, and flora / fauna preservation.

However, this can be achieved on a case-by case basis for the following reasons:

• Many overhanging climbing sites have rock bases, so erosion is minimal or non-existent.
• Most of the ‘Trad’ climbing areas (especially those in the SPA’s) are simply not popular enough to experience any erosion issues.  Some of these cliffs receive only a handful of visits each year, but they are still extremely important to climbers to experience the adventure of remote climbing, and to adhere to ‘leave no trace’ climbing ethics.
• Many cliffs are naturally avoided by climbers for much of the year due to the direction they face and thus the environment gets time off. North facing cliffs that get all day sun are only climbable in winter and south faces get all day shade and are only climbable in summer. Seasonal road closures and wetter conditions in the southern Grampians also slow numbers.

However, we do recognize that there are some sites in the Grampians where erosion around the base of cliffs or boulders may be a problem, in particular at sites in the Northern Grampians – (eg Anderson’s).

The increase in popularity of bouldering means that this issue will need to be addressed by climbers and land managers, and if some areas need closure or restrictions put in place, then that conversation needs to be had.

In the past, popular and easy-to-access areas such as Summerday Valley, have seen positive collaboration between climbers and Parks Victoria, and there has been construction of  walkways, retaining walls and out of bounds areas to encourage re-vegetation.  While we acknowledge this can’t happen across all sites, it seems a very different issue than the banning of huge areas of the park where this problem simply doesn’t exist.

Further, the closure of 33% of the park will only result in climbing being concentrated into even smaller areas, further impacting the environment at those locations.

January 2017 – “The VCC is informed that bolting at Black Ians has angered local Indigenous groups”. [The offending routes have been removed].   The image shown involves one climb put up in 2016 where a safety bolt was 3.5m up and R from artwork.

The second incident involves the Black Range: As investigated by Vertical Life: “2018 – Climbing development at an unknown site in the Black Range sees a bolt placed “immediately adjacent” [Turns out to be 1.9m away, with no damage to the art] to a handprint, further angering Traditional Owners and inflaming the situation” (see the timeline).

Climbers universally condemn the act of placing any climbs or safety bolts over or near Aboriginal art sites; knowingly or unknowingly.

It’s important to stress, that these incidents are isolated and absolutely not representative of climbing development in the rest of the Grampians.  The situation now has vastly changed from pre 2018, and climbers need to show (and we can!) that this kind of development is NOT ok. 

While climbers don’t pretend these didn’t happen, the very fact that Parks Victoria did not closed the areas where these incidents occurred (until 3 years later in the new GGLMP), but rather, banned completely different areas (eg the Victoria Range over 50km away) is very confusing; especially while continuing to quote these incidents as the main reason for the closures.

3 Year and over 140 survey’s later (2022), no further evidence has been found of climbing safety bolts being anywhere near artworks.