Australian Story on ABC and ABC iview profiles Gus Taylor – Gus Taylor understands the risks of rock climbing better than most. The 34-year-old has been involved in two devastating accidents but each time he’s returned to the rockface, determined to “turn mistakes into gold”.
Taylor turned his back on a promising career as a drummer following the breakdown of his marriage nine years ago and immersed himself in climbing. “It sounds ridiculous,” he laughs, “but I really needed something to hold on to.”
He took off on a pilgrimage to the US to conquer some of the most iconic climbs. It was the trip of a lifetime but on the last day he fell while climbing a notorious boulder called The White Rastafarian. “My leg was spaghetti,” Taylor tells Australian Story. “The bones had completely shattered; they’d come out of my leg.”
For three years doctors battled to save his leg but after 11 surgeries it was clear it had to be amputated. It wasn’t long, though, before he’d returned to climbing with a special prosthetic leg gifted to him by members of the Blue Mountains climbing community. But more misfortune was to come.
Taylor agreed to take his friend Richard Mills to the Blue Mountains for his first outdoor climb.
The route, called “Sweet Dreams”, is considered one of the safest but in a freak accident a loose rock struck Mills and he died.
The accident left Taylor in a dark place, wrestling with guilt and disillusioned with the activity he most loved. “The idea of climbing revolted me just thinking about it,” Taylor says.
But he could hear Mills’s voice in his head, urging him on and after seven months of therapy, he returned to climbing, “reconnecting with myself, like plugging in the lamp”.
In this moving and inspiring Australian Story, Taylor meets with Mills’s parents, whose compassion he finds difficult to accept. “I just feel like I’m at the centre of the most painful moment of their lives and that’s hard to sit with,” he says.
Recently Taylor has thrown himself into competitive climbing and is on track for selection in the national Paraclimbing team for the 2028 Paralympics in Los Angeles.
Despite the toll, Taylor is convinced climbing has given more than it’s taken and is still the best teacher he’s ever had. “It doesn’t just teach you the things necessary to get to the top of a climb,” he explains. “It’s taught me how to push through, how to deal with failure, how to grow, how to improve.”
Producer: Ian Walker.
Australian Story on ABC and ABC iview – Monday 7 October, 2024 at 8:00pm
Media Release – ABC
TV Central ABC content HERE
Australian Story on ABC and ABC iview profiles Gus Taylor
