5 days ago
Carne Wall landslide in Blue Mountains shaves off two climbing routes
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.
"We slept on a ledge, we lit a little fire," he said.
"We took some raw steaks, and we chucked them on the coals."
The cliff-side meal on the trio's first attempt to climb the route in 1995 inspired its name, Carnivore.
"The climbing was so loose and intimidating," Mr Darragh said.
"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."
The friends spent two days on the wall and bailed.
More than a week later, they returned to the base of Carne Wall, led by the dream of prominent climber John Ewbank.
"The walls he took on were really high-consequence climbs," Mr Darragh said.
Mr Ewbank had climbed the route next to Carnivore — dubbed The Big Loose Corner — two years earlier in 1993, and felt he had unfinished business with the wall.
"To go climbing with John, you were climbing with someone who dreamed big."
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.
"There's so much rockfall coming off as John's reaching these loose holds," he said.
"We're looking out and there's a curtain of rocks.
Mr Darragh said the trio was "stoked" to reach the top and headed off for a burger and a beer to celebrate.
"Some of these really steep cliffs, we think about them as being eternal … but everywhere there's a big cliff in the Blue Mountains, there's been a big collapse."
Carne Wall slipped away in a 200,000-cubic-metre rockfall overnight between August 1-2.
The landslide carved a giant sandstone scar in the landscape, which is visible from the popular Evans Lookout.
After the first ascents of Big Loose Corner in 1993 and Carnivore two years later, no known climber was able to complete them.
Geotechnical engineer Zack Tucker from engineering firm Jacobs has studied the behaviour of Blue Mountains landslides, and he said it was a significant event.
Mr Tucker said it was hard to determine the specific trigger for the landslide, but suggested the biggest cause was time.
"Cracks will grow, and eventually join up and form a release surface that will cause a block to detach from a cliff," he said.
"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."
Mr Tucker 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.
"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."
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.
Mr Darragh said the landslide and the loss of Carnivore had left him with an immense sense of gratitude.
"I'm fortunate to see things aren't always the same, and I think change is something we need to adapt to."
He said he felt deeply connected to Mr Monks and Mr Ewbank after such a significant climb.
"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.
"You can't ask the question about why do we climb, without considering the significance of the impact of those two things."
