Text and photos Louise Fairfax

During the Western Arthurs traverse - a beautiful routeJohn Whiteley

An Abel is a Tasmanian mountain over 1100 metres in height with at least a 150 metre drop off on all sides. On 8 February 2022 Louise Fairfax became the third woman and twentieth person to climb all Abels. We asked Louise to write about her journey.

Climbing Abels

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I adore mountains, big or not so, steep or less so, although I have to admit, the more shapely they are, the greater is my pleasure. I love the play of light as the shapes create shadows at the start and end of a day, and I love the kind of view you get from the top - the way you can see to eternity. And, perverse as it may seem to some, I revel in the physicality of the climb, whether we are thinking about getting to the base with my huge rucksack (often a task lasting five days) or the actual scramble to the top. A mountain that plays hard to get is all the more rewarding when you unveil her secrets.

Yes, I have completed all the Abels but that was never actually my quest. I have now climbed all the Wainwrights in the UK as well, and both journeys share a common pattern. Each had as its premise my love of mountains (I used to be paid to run up them all over the world, and was dubbed Mountain Made by The Australian Runner magazine), but, maybe amusingly, each began with the simple step of buying a book. Both books had information about each of the mountains, and route suggestions. Now, books have

indexes and this little mountain maid likes to tick mountains she has climbed, fungi she has seen, waterfalls she has bagged. One tick led to another and soon there were not many mountains left.

When that happened in England, that was a lot easier than in Tasmania. In the UK, I had left easy ones until last, so the only drama was my huge emotional response to the fact that I absolutely adore all those mountains and just couldn’t believe I had climbed everything I could see, no matter where I was. The Brits threw me a party to commemorate.

Sharlands and Precipitous BluffIn Tassie, with four to go I still had no sense that I would climb all the Abels, and thus no feeling of compulsion to do the impossible. The fourth mountain from the end was Sharlands Peak, somewhat near Frenchmans Cap. Every birthday, as part of my present, my first-born daughter, Kirsten, joins me on a mountain expedition of my choice, so last year I chose Sharlands as I hadn’t yet done it. We had a glorious few days camping high and summitting together, relaxing in the wilderness surrounded by magnificence.

Breeding them tough in Tassie

Three generations on top of Abel, Mount King William I. This was a snow climb. Gus was 8

Kirsten in front of the final section of Sharlands Peak

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And now there were three. Trouble is, the three that remained were all doozies, so I still believed completion was a mission impossible, and it is rather demoralising to wish for that. I was content with what I had.

I had tried to reach PB (Precipitous Bluff) on six occasions, each time being blasted off the mountain by gales and/or blizzards, and once broke my wrist in a solo attempt. I had been quite near the base on the final time I got weathered out, and the trip back of many days through deep mud and scratchy scoparia was enough for my climbing partner of that trip and I to agree we would never do that route again (well, not past Pindars Peak). I thought that was it. I would finish my life with three to go. The other two left were Federation Peak, the idea of which scared me to death, and Camp Hill, which no sane person would do unless they needed to complete a list of Abels. It is scratchy and thick in extremis. I have no armour bequeathed to me by a knightly ancestor, and without that, who would endure the pain?

And so, with the final three being impossible (or intolerable), I didn’t bother dreaming of completion. The fact that I did complete is due to my having extraordinarily nice friends. The first friend to help me was a guy I’d done several hard expeditions with, named Andrew. He suggested we attack PB from the base, having failed so spectacularly from above, and invited me to join him to see how this went. This seemed a good idea, except for the fact that the base is guarded by a 7.5 kilometre stretch of freezing cold, waist-deep-in-places lagoon. Shudder. I feel the cold. What I didn’t know in advance was that dragging sodden, triply heavy boots through such a

Louise on Precipitous Bluff

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Returning along the beach after climbing Precipitous Bluff

long distance was stunningly tiring. I am a fit person, but my glutes in particular ached and ached with this unfamiliar exercise.

Be that as it may, and despite (predictably?) falling in the drink, we got there. The climb was easy – you just had to go steeply upwards from sea level for 1145 metres. I love doing that. I had the visible world to myself as I approached the cairn that would confirm that I had done it. I was filled with joy, possibly more by the amazing scenery from such a position than by the fact that I had earned

another tick. I sang “You raise me up” as I took the last twenty or so metres. Oh boy, what a view!!! And, perhaps unbelievably for those who know the Southern Ranges, the wind was not raging just now. It would start that game after Andrew arrived, before we left. I had imagined that I might have to crawl or even snake the last 500 metres or so, as I had had to do to get to some peaks in the UK, but no, I could sing and dance my way to the top.

FederationTwo to go. The next hurdle, one I felt was too big to jump, was Federation Peak, called by demanding people such as Sir Edmund Hillary “Australia’s only real mountain”. I couldn’t dream of completion when I had a 4 metre bar to jump.

Unbelievably, an email arrived from friends from the bushwalking forum, Alex and Nitya, saying that they were going to have an attempt on Feder and asking if I would like to join in. That’s akin to saying: “Hi Louise. I have a spare $20,000 I feel like tossing away. Would you like it?”

So, I was going to have an attempt. But, I didn’t commit myself to summitting, and therefore the goal of completion was not yet prominent. Don’t disappoint yourself by wanting what you can’t have, Louise. All I really wanted from this trip was to sleep on Bechervaise Plateau. I thought that would be brilliant. And, well, I’d at least do a recce and go up Feds as far as I dared.

We pitched our tents on Bechervaise, had lunch and then D-hour arrived. Alex, Nitya, Andrew and a great guy from Victoria we met along the way, Rob, all packed their daypacks and set out. Like a robot I did the same. Still no hopes of summitting.

“Alex. I can’t do that. You guys go on without me”, I proclaimed when faced with going over an edge with a clear 500 metres below me.

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We hadn’t even started the climb proper yet! How could I do the climb when the approach freaked me out? I am the luckiest person imaginable. Alex didn’t accept my kind offer to withdraw, but gently informed me that this was reputed to be possibly the worst moment in the whole climb. Could I see that I could do any of it? Yes, I could do the first maybe 20 metres. We went there and, yes, I could go further. I could keep taking steps, and that I did. The shocking danger was now behind us, and all we were doing at this point was climb. I was no longer afraid. We got to The Ledge, and I concentrated hard on not looking down and keeping totally focussed on a world reduced to my physical body and not much more. I did not look down at the sheer, seemingly infinite drop (now 600 metres). We all know if you let go or slip, you die.

Soon enough, Alex, who had been kind enough to go last, just behind me, was telling me I had done the hard work. I could just

saunter from here to the summit. I was dazed. I couldn’t believe this was reality and not a dream. I’m good at dreaming. Pinch. Nope, that hurt. Here I was. Little Louise Fairfax standing on an impossible piece of this planet that didn’t accommodate the likes of me. And I wasn’t one scrap scared of going down. What I had to conquer was me, not a mountain, and by dint of standing there, I had done that.

Camp HillCamp Hill remained, and at last I could realistically entertain the goal of completion. The trouble with Camp Hill is that nobody who is sane wants to go back if they’ve already been, and the only people who haven’t climbed it, don’t want to, and for a good reason. I thought I’d have to do it solo, which would have been no fun. However, Andrew came to the rescue, and then I got an email from a girl we had passed on the way out from Feder, who knew me mostly through

Federation. We have to drop directly down that gully for 60 metres or more, and then traverse before climbing againRobert Ham

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the web, Rita. Nitya had jokingly told her she should join me to go to Camp, and possibly not knowing exactly what she was in for, she said she’d come. It was so bad we laughed as we snaked our way under the relentless mass of scoparia bushes. It seemed belly wriggling was the only way through this mess. But we did it, and what the scrub threw at us to repel us, the weather made up for by flanking the adventure with two sunsets of pure magic. Rita and I sat on the summit of Rocky Hill, which we had camped on (despite its name it is an Abel with a view to die for), photographing the sunset and just enjoying

being in the moment on such a wonderful, remote part of the world.

Mission complete. In the final stage, it had become a goal, and now I had done it, the third woman and twentieth person. It took ten years of expeditions and fabulous adventures in the wilderness. However, I am very aware that I did so only because I have amazing friends who jollied me back into action after I stopped doing anything much following the death of my husband, who issued the above invitations, and made completing such fun. Thank you, kind friends.

Rita on the evening before we climbed Camp Hill

Louise has represented Australia at world level in five different sports, winning many international golds, and has held a world record. Her Australian Masters record in Athletics has stood for 20 years. In 2012, recovering from six years of viral illness, and with a husband who was deteriorating rapidly

from Parkinson’s Disease, she took to the mountains with Bruce, to do this while his health held out. He died before she finished her Abel journey. Her favourite things in life are spending time with her family, pitching her tent on top of a mountain and being under way in the wilderness.

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