Trip Reports

Carstensz Pyramid - 4 to 21 Jul '06

Written by Leader Neal Short, July 2006

The High One in Australasia.

In summary; the Carstensz Pyramid trip proved to be a brilliant adventure with terrific interactions with local people and an absorbing technical climb on a continental summit that requires, like most expedition peaks, some patience.

The Team:
Mike, Janet, Doug aka: Suduko Man and Fredrik aka: Luke Skywalker.

After a series of long flights we touched down in Irian Jaya (Papua) which is the western half of New Guinea, the world’s largest island after Greenland. Our goal Carstensz Pyramid (4884m) or locally referred to as Puncak Jaya (Victory Peak) was still some distance and one very crucial helicopter flight away. The mountain, the highest in Australasia, has always proved an elusive summit though not always for the climbing but rather for the logistics (permits & flights) and so we arrived with the mantra of being ‘flexible and patient’.

We initially based ourselves in Wamena (1600m). It was here that we first came into contact with the Dani, one of the many tribes of indigenous people who inhabit Papua. The Dani proved to be friendly but at times quite shy which is not surprising considering the huge gulf between our lifestyles. We visited a number of Dani villages and through our local interpreter found out much about their culture and customs.

After a couple of days resting in Wamena we headed off on a 3 hour jeep journey to Habema Lake (3200m). The winding gravel road cut through a forest until reaching a more sparse landscape at around 2700m. The lake with views of Trikora 4750m (the third highest peak) proved to be a beautiful spot for acclimatising.

The highlight of this part of the trip was meeting two tribesmen who were fully equipped with bows and arrows and were just returning from collecting crawfish from the lake. One of our local helpers, Freddie, was able to purchase some and cooked them for dinner over the next few nights.

We then travelled back to Wamena to get ready for flying into Carstensz Pyramid Base Camp (4050m). We were always aware that the helicopter flights to and from BC would in some way be the crux’s of the trip. Therefore it was no real surprise that we had to delay our journey to the mountain by one day due to poor flying conditions.

On the 13th July at 8am we landed at BC, which is only an hour’s walk from the foot of the route and spent a short while setting up and organising camp.

Another anticipated difficulty for climbing the mountain was the weather and by mid-day, having flown to BC in glorious sunshine, it started to rain. It continued to rain for long periods over the next three days which was not too much of a problem as we still had to acclimatise. The poor weather also gave the opportunity for Doug to complete even more Killer Suduko’s and for Fredrik to save us all from the Dark Side on his PSP Star Wars game.

The wet weather persisted for longer than anticipated and it gradually started to impact on our tight schedule. However our local assistant called Frankie became convinced that the 18th July was going to be our summit window. And true to his word we had absolutely the best weather we could have ever imagined. We left camp at just after 1am and made good time to the foot of the route. In the darkness we started up the fixed lines at 2.25.

Our first aim was to hit the summit ridge, about 500m above us, by day break. The initial section of the route was slabby and then corner systems took us to a leftwards traverse into a broad gully until a final steep couple of pitches (freed by a number of the team) led to the ridge.

Once on the ridge the vista opened up. Across the valley the second highest peak in Australasia, Ngga Pula (4862m), with its snow covered summit looked fantastic; down the ridge we saw the astounding site of the huge Freeport Mine and above us lay an intricate, Cuillin like, weaving ridge with a number of ‘gaps’ for us to negotiate. We moved quite quickly along the ridge, completing a few abseils and crossing the infamous gaps with relative ease.

Doug, Janet, Fredrik and I reached summit at 11am and we took our time to celebrate the achievement. For Fredrik it was his third continental summit in as many months as he tried to become the fastest person to climb them all [which he subsequently succeeding in doing], for Janet her fourth and for Doug his fifth.

Mike had decided to turn back at the first gap. Once we left the summit the clouds started to roll in and it wasn’t long before we were putting on our waterproofs. Light drizzle fell for much of the descent, which was made swiftly due to the fixed lines and we reached camp at 5.30pm.

The last remaining problem was getting out of BC and we went to bed that night with our fingers crossed for good weather the following morning. Amazingly it was clear at first light and the helicopter was called in. The Russian crew were a skilled bunch of guys landing the powerful twin rotor blade helicopter within a 50m of BC. The rotor wash was immense and it took some effort to drag the kit bags to helicopter. Soon after take off we were passing the magnificent sweep of limestone that makes up the central section of Carstensz and we tried to spot parts of the route that only a day before we had been scaling. Upon landing the warmth of Wamena was a welcome change to BC and after of brief stop, for some refreshments, we immediately started our journey home.

Congratulations and well done team.

Leader: Neal Short

Further reading:
Excellent team member report written by 7 Summits climber, Janet Picket: http://www.jagged-globe.co.uk/news/report.php?id=461

First ascent book, I Come From The Stone Age by Heinrich Harrer. « Previous report | Next report »

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