Historical records suggest that Europeans probably began bushwalking at Mount Barney for recreation in about the 1880s, when the region became more closely settled. During the first decade or so of the 20th century, the peak became popular with a small number of self-styled 'mountaineers', such as Boonah school teachers Harry Johns (1877-1943) and William Gaylard (1880-1930), Ipswich Technical College Principal R.A. Wearne (1870-1932), and some of the selectors who lived close by, such as the Doherty family at 'Lilydale'. However it was probably not until the early 1930s, with the formation of groups such as the National Parks Association, and the appearance of a new breed of outdoor adventurers such as Bert Salmon (1899-1982), who made the first recorded ascent of Leaning Peak in 1932, Cliff Wilson (who was probably the first European to climb all of the Mount Barney peaks and lesser pinnacles) and Arthur Groom (1904-1953), and also botanists such as Cyril White (1890-1950) and Lindsay Smith (1917-1970), that bushwalkers began visiting the peak in numbers, and even then, much of Mount Barney remained unexplored until the late 1940s and early 1950s, when groups such as the University of Queensland Bushwalking Club, and the Brisbane Bushwalkers began making regular bushwalking and camping trips to the peak.