by Aardvark » Mon 05 Sep, 2022 10:03 pm
Well i've only ever known the one route up Lindesay. It is definitely a chimney. The grave site of Vidler is close. A matter of twenty metres or so if i recall correctly. Back to the west a little.
I believe the gravesite had a refurbishment some years back.
I also heard someone else died trying to pioneer an alternative route. Sometime within the last twenty years. I always assumed that must have been on the northern side and perhaps a little west of the chimney. I have circumnavigated the whole mountain at the base of the cliffline and i can't imagine anyone ascending anywhere else.
We first started climbing Lindesay from Collins Gap, reaching the westernmost cliff face and traversing around the north to the chimney in the northeast.
I also followed a route up from the forestry road on the south. I was reaching the cliff line on the southeast of the mountain before traversing around to Vidlers.
But the most direct route was always straight up from Glennie Gap to pretty much come to the base of the chimney.
Steve Turner used to tell me he always went straight up the northern flanks of the mountain from the highway well into Qld. I'm sure he would have steered a little eastward around the thickest of the vegetation staying within the cleared paddocks for as long as possible. Suggesting he would have eventually come onto the route up from Glennie Gap.
It's been a while since i was at the cliff line but i always have believed there to be only one feasible way up and that is via Vidlers Chimney. In all my discussions with anyone else who has ever climbed it, no one ever bothered to carry more than a short rope to descend the chimney. It was always dirty, crumbly and strewn with loose rocks but once you got to the big tree exiting westward there were holds a plenty. A couple of sketchy moments requiring good balance further up but the foot holds were there. I always thought the worst part was when leaving the top and taking the first steep drop over several metres to land on a narrow ledge as wide as a small foot track. We would be facing outward and leap the last metre onto that track. The vegetation below and behind that provided no barrier for a fall if you kept falling forward. It just hid the view and that was at least hundred metre drop.
Last edited by
Aardvark on Tue 06 Sep, 2022 10:53 am, edited 1 time in total.
Ever on the search for a one ended stick.