Episode 7 – David Reeve – What Future Are We Leaving

In Episode 7 of the Lay Back Podcast, I sit down with David Reeve – Long time climber and president of the Australian Climbing Association of Queensland. Outside Dave’s long history of climbing and mountaineering, he’s amassed an array of experience as a botanist, an academic, an engineer, an entrepreneur and in his role at the ACAQ. I was eager to pick his brain on a range of topics, and we ended up recording for 3 hours – This will be an epic – I’ve trimmed it back a bit and split the episode into two parts.

We start with Dave’s early climbing in the Queensland climbing scene in the 60s, and he shares some of his experiences in Alpinism and Mountaineering. We get into Dave’s professional career, which I think gives us a feel for how Dave approaches access issues.

The rest of the podcast we cover off on Access in climbing – We cover Dave’s contribution and experience as the head of ACAQ, and we get deep – the commodification of climbing and life in general, the rule of lord Makita – ethics around bolting, and Dave’s thoughts on how an access body should or should not get involved in those issues.

We talk ‘managing the stage’ and the power of legislation in ensuring outdoor recreation has a voice in the use of public land. We get into politics and Dave explains his thoughts on peacockery. We discuss cultural heritage, and the history and philosophy underpinning national parks and public land that forms the context of access issues today. It’s hard for me to summarise, because we cover a lot and it can get a bit free flowing at times.

Dave has shared many of his thoughts here at the ACAQ Facebook Page. You can join the ACA for Queensland here or the ACA for Victoria here.

You can get stuck into the YouTube rabbit whole that is archival footage and find the footage referenced at the end of the podcast here and here.

Thanks to Lee Cujes for use of his photos.