Humans love to climb things; sometimes the stupider and more dangerous an activity is, the longer the line of idiots clamouring to try it will be. Climbing Uluru has always been very dangerous; at least 35 people have died attempting it. (An ironic side note: Lindy Chamberlain, the woman who was convicted of murder after her baby daughter was killed by a dingo at Uluru, was finally exonerated after a climber fell to his death there and searchers looking for his body discovered the baby's jacket near some dingo dens.)
But in addition to being dangerous—and the fact that there's really nothing to see from up there except flat, mostly featureless outback in every direction—climbing Uluru was also disrepectful to the owners, the Aṉangu people, to whom it is sacred. They requested for decades that visitors respect their traditions by not climbing (and also not leaving their garbage and shit at the summit if they did) but it wasn't actually forbidden until 2019.
In 2016 people were still climbing, and if you look closely at the picture on the left you can see a few of them. The picture on the right zooms in on a few climbers taking a break, sitting on that hot, sun-baked rock. Definitely not my idea of a good time.
But in addition to being dangerous—and the fact that there's really nothing to see from up there except flat, mostly featureless outback in every direction—climbing Uluru was also disrepectful to the owners, the Aṉangu people, to whom it is sacred. They requested for decades that visitors respect their traditions by not climbing (and also not leaving their garbage and shit at the summit if they did) but it wasn't actually forbidden until 2019.
In 2016 people were still climbing, and if you look closely at the picture on the left you can see a few of them. The picture on the right zooms in on a few climbers taking a break, sitting on that hot, sun-baked rock. Definitely not my idea of a good time.
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