There are, however, plenty of ill prepared tourists and loose rocks, which coupled together could potentially be more hazardous than sheep. I try to avoid climbing at weekends so as to mitigate this risk.
Last night, we climbed up Beerwah for sunset and boy, was it a sunset. I took some nice photos and a time lapse of the sun actually setting, and we made good time both up and down. It is actually quite safe and easy to descend in the darkness with the help of a good headtorch.
Next time, I am going to climb Tibro for sunset.
Tragically, a young hiker died on Tibro last week, having climbed too late, unprepared, and strayed off track on the descent and then fallen off a cliff. A girl was rescued just this past weekend who found herself in a similar quandary - but thankfully called for help before getting in worse trouble. Apparently there have been 160 rescues from the Glasshouses over the last year which is a pretty crazy and expensive statistic, seeing that a lot of them involve vertical rescue crews and helicopters.
In my backpack, I have a first aid kid, head torch (and last night a spare headtorch AND spare batteries), two bottles of water, energy bars (or bananas), and sunscreen. I always recommend to other people climbing that they carry this, and I always recommend never going up without somebody who has done it before. The number of people I have helped off Beerwah and Tibro is quite high - and these are all beginners / tourists.
The problem is that if these statistics keep rising, the likelihood is that these mountains will be closed to the public, which would be ever so sad. They aren’t dangerous, if treated with the respect they both deserve and demand.
And if the mountains are closed, how will we be able to bathe in sunsets such as these?
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