Trip Reports

Wilhelm and Giluwe 2019

Giluwe 2019
Trip Report

Written by Leader Mara Larson, October 2019

Machetes, axes, fishing poles.

Only if you can embrace the unexpected is Papua New Guinea remotely for you.

This September Jagged Globe sent out what might be considered an exploratory mission. Not the usual mountain trip of days of slowly gaining in elevation punctuated with rest and recovery, tracking along a well-known, well-loved route. Papua was something else. An island of plain raw adventure - start to finish. Summits were conquered but that part is a far distant second in our memories.

It started with the airport on arrival. Papua is the second biggest island in the world. And outside of a band of beachfront villages around the island, the interior is a massive sweep of rainforest highlands, essentially too dense and remote for a road network. So instead, there are airstrips.

So from Lithuania, Newcastle, Tokyo, and Singapore our travels merged on the final leg of our flights, descending into the heart of the bush at an airstrip called Mt Hagan. Touching down after a turbulent and sharply banked landing set the tone for the trip ahead - no gate numbers to speak of, no uniformed staff waiving us off the runway— just steps down to an empty tarmac and our lonely JG duffels the only ones silently circling the luggage carousel. It certainly felt like the edge of civilization.

We emerged out to the opposite scene of a typical JG trip - no friendly staff member holding a sign board, no row of local tour operators and taxi drivers jostling for a fare. Instead an eerie silence. We became our own small tribe in this moment - our small JG clan -and I as our tribal tracker left the rest behind guarding kit, venturing forth stealth and light, on a mission of discovery.

…Discovery of our local contacts…

….a short time later all was resolved and with a firm clattering of the 9-man jeep locked shut, we were away. Criss-crossing the Papua Highlands in a series of reinforced 4 wheel drive Toyotas was a large part of our PNG adventure. Sometimes with local heroes like the legendary Betty spinning wild tales of her youth. Others with Andrew our driver-security-guard dipping off the road to find us a six-pack of the local SP lager. A memorable dust storm of barred-in-bandana-covered roadway got us to civilization looking more like a pack of festival-chasers en route to Coachella. And on one fateful journey we even gave a lift to an intrusion of cockroaches, descending from an old tape deck to speed their journey from the valley floor up the highland wilds with us. It was two weeks of adventure that easily felt like two months, in all the best possible ways. 

The first hiking phase of our trip was the western highlands of the Huli with some of the most fertile land any of us had seen on the planet. We settled into routines of days exploring the local villages, taking in tribal performances, and getting into the higher altitudes acclimatizing on the ridges of Mt Hagen itself towering over the central valley. The highlights for us were undoubtably the tribal farms drenched in fruits the sizes which we never imagined; avocado trees 30 feet high, coffee trees rather than shrubs, endless sweet potato, passion fruit, and of course the prized pigs - once and still the central currency of the island.

The hiking here was up our steepest rain forest tracks of the trip. Trekking through dense vegetation to 3500m with our local team, we had with us 4 local village kids geared up with machetes and flip-flops. This seemed pretty impractical initially, until we started climbing higher on a relatively unused paths. The machetes soon came in handy darting ahead slicing branches and literally hacking a path through dense forest. The ascent gave us ample time to improve footwork with muddy, wild trails. The descent saw Rolandas and I nearly swinging down a few sections branch-by-branch making better time launching over felled tree trunks than the otherwise delicate balancing sequences sliding step by step.

Our returns to our respective thatched bungalows at night was a treat - outside butterflies (and moths) the size of our faces. Inside hot showers, comfy beds, and running spring water from Magic Mountain outside our door.

We got settled into our routines of morning coffee with the sunrise, days out exploring, evenings with a little light sat on the porches. And then before we knew it, it was time to pack up and move out to phase two - volcanoes.

Our primary mission in Papua was a mountain called Mt. Giluwe. This is a dormant volcano deep in the southern highlands and rarely climbed - except that it also happens to be the highest volcano on the Oceana continent, thus one of the 7-volcanic summits of the planet. Maybe in a few more decades it’ll be as famous and as trafficked as Kilimanjaro. But for now it remains a little known gem.

So for all of us it was a mission of discovery heading up higher above cloud forests and along glaciated river gorges to just under 4000m. Here we established camp which unfortunately the photos can’t do justice. The setting was mostly down to the sights, the smells, and most importantly the character of our local crew. With over 800 clans with a non-too-distant history of fierce warfare and cannibalism, this is not yet a land where tribes come together to share in the spoils of a budding new economy of tourism. The opposite. There are hard and fast dividing lines one tribe to the next. So adventuring across vast stretches of Papua meant a complex choreography of handovers one tribe to the next to the next. (A major thanks to David Hamilton for having laid the ground work and tribal introductions over 3 years previous to this trip). We had moved now from the gentle support of the Huli’s enjoying tame land and productive soil to the clans of the Giluwe region - higher lands, more remote, far less tame. And tribes decidedly fierce not only in strength but in motivation and opinion. These guys were not characters of mellow ease like our days lower down.

We swapped out lounging on avocados and drowning in passion fruit in the gentle and fertile valley for a team now armed with sling shots, axes, bush meat, and bonfires! Stanley, the head local guide, embodied all the culture contrasts of modern Papua we’d read of for months building up to this expedition. His firebrand  preaching of the gospel at dawn was a true testament to the religion that’s shaped lives across the island. At other moments the glimpses of the village warrior chief he could easily be back home emerged. The speeches at daybreak on the highest volcano of Ocean remain highlights of the trip. Ramanta’s first rock scramble, and Sandy and Jessica’s impressive second-wind on the final push to the top were equally memorable. But our excitement was no match for our local team - even four of the porters decided to join in on the climb to the summit and got nearly as many photos as we did of the full team at the top. Our triumphant return to civilization the next afternoon was as much a celebration for us as the Giluwe guides. Again, so rarely climbed, we climbed our way back out of the rainforest with the staff now adorned with crowns of leaves and our 4x4s equally decked out - announcing our successful ascent to the local villages by the branches and leaves fluttering in our wake!

And then with almost no time to dry out mud-drenched kit it was a bleary early start the following day for another road trip across the highlands now heading east. This last stretch was an aim for Mt Wilhelm, the highest of PNG.  This top wasn’t meant to be as the wall of poor weather we’d nearly out run just caught us in our last days in country. But an adventure it still was. A night up at high camp listening to the storm roll in and making plans with our now third guide tribe. This time having set up shop in a grass hut again with bonfire warmth through the otherwise wet night. We made it part way up the mountain the following day to the second of the twin lakes where Jessica appropriated mudmen fashion half covered from our wild slip and slide clambering up mud-soaked trails, and alongside outstanding waterfalls.

A properly soaked return saw some of us don truly fashionable garbage-sack rain slickers, the story behind it one we might reveal to our readers over a pint but certainly not here! And then crashed out for some recovery at Betty’s legendary lodge over the local trout. Rolandas was once again charged with keeping the fire going. Sandy soaking up all the mystery books he could find by headlamp and fire light. And Jessica and I battling out over scrabble (and boxed wine). Ramanta making friends with the local kids and continuing to surprise with her spectacular photography.

In the best possible way, it’s a 2-week trip that feels like months away in an entirely different era. Our small tribe descended into the remote jungles of the Pacific and emerged with absolute awe and wonder of a raw adventure -the “recovery days” no less than the climbing ones.

Thank you to the exceptional team of Ramanta, Rolandas, Sandy, Jessica and all our Giluwe, Wilhelm and Hagen support staff. Without qualification one of the most fascinating places left on earth.

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