Three men spend more than 10 hours stuck on Uluru

Three men are stuck on Uluru after ignoring pleas by the site’s traditional owners not to climb it.

Rescue volunteers reached the men via helicopter and abseiled them to safety early on Tuesday.

The men ventured off the designated pathway on Monday and became stuck in a crevice on the rock formation in the Northern Territory.

The climb follows a route taken by ancestral Mala men on their arrival at Uluru, and traditional owners believe tourists who take the walk are disrespecting the spiritual significance of the rock.

Tourists who visit Uluru are also warned that the climb can be unsafe.

“So our guys had to start from the top of the rock to where they were and pluck them off, now while that sounds very easy, it’s actually very arduous and very hard”, she said.

Emergency services reported that they were uninjured and had enough water until they were rescued.

“Where they were situated was very steep and we couldn’t get them to climb up from where they were, they were actually stuck”, Claire Barker, Northern Territory’s southern regional manager for the emergency services, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. “It’s wear and tear on equipment and it does cost a lot of money”, the spokesperson said.

Rescuers battled strong winds abseiled 320 metres (1,049 feet) to reach the stranded Australians, all aged 22, after they reportedly wandered off a well-worn path while climbing the iconic symbol of the Outback, also known as Ayers Rock, on Monday.

“It’s really important that people stay within the designated areas when they’re doing bushwalks so that they don’t come into harm’s way”, she said.

Melbourne man David Rowe is holidaying at Uluru with his family and using a camera zoom lens could see the stranded men stuck about 100 metres from the base of the rock. Last year, a Taiwanese tourist was trapped in a crevice in the rock for more than 24 hours before they were rescued. There’s even a pretty blunt page, titled “Please don’t climb Uluru”, on the government’s Parks Australia website.

The story Three men rescued from Uluru first appeared on The Sydney Morning Herald.