Carstensz Pyramid
A Hillary Family Expedition

Overview

Papua Province sits at the far edge of the Indonesian archipelago–the western half to Papua New Guinea, a place where the jungle rises thick and fast. Above that jungle, hidden in the Sudirman Ranges, a vast limestone escarpment pushes through the equatorial cloud. Carstensz Pyramid. At 4,884 metres, the highest peak in Australasia and the most remote of the Seven Summits —aside from Mt Vinson in Antarctica. The mountain is flanked by receding equatorial glaciers, and rises like a shark’s fin out of the mist. It’s mysterious and relatively unvisited.

These expeditions have never been undertaken simply for the sake of reaching a destination. They have been shaped by preparation, partnership and a belief that achievement carries with it a responsibility to others. Exploration, in our tradition, is not about conquest. It is about character. It is about working alongside others, respecting the environments that test us and recognising that the true measure of success lies in what endures beyond the summit

The Seven Summits

The Seven Summits are the highest peakson each of the world’s seven continentsand have become a popular challenge for mountaineers seeking adventure and variety on mountains around the world. The Australasian summit has always been a point of debate. Many people citeit asMount Kosciuszko, the highest point in Australia at 2,228 metres.However, Kosciuszko is a gentle mountain accessible by boardwalk leaving themore demanding and geologically correct case, for Carstensz Pyramid. While Carstensz is the true high point, and a more technical climb, it’s true challenge lies in its remoteness.

My father Peter had climbed Carstensz Pyramid before, in 1995, as part of his own Seven Summits journey.

He has also climbed Kilimanjaro, which George and I climbed with him on his third ascent. Those shared summits had planted a seed, and when the idea surfaced of returning to Carstensz as a father and sons expedition, it didn’t take much convincing.

Some adventures are worth doing as a family.

The Approach

Our team assembled in Bali in early 2018. George had come from Melbourne, Peter from Auckland, and I arrived still adjusting from nine months in the south of Holland. Robert Mads Anderson –a close friend on many mountaineering adventures -and the American contingent completed the team. From Bali we pushed east towards Papua and then we waited.

Timika, a small bustling city in Western Papua, became our unplanned holding pen for several days while the weather refused to cooperate. Due to Tamika’s dangerous reputation, our guide had confined us to our hotel rooms. Eventually, we’d had enough and decided to venture out and explore the crowded markets and bustling streets. In the evening, we discussed our plan for the climb and the stories we’d heard aboutthe dense jungle surrounding the Carstensz massif which is home to native Papuan tribes who, the previous season, had kidnapped a group of climbers. For our expedition, we had opted to fly in rather than trek through that jungle, as the ransom option held little appeal.

On our third day of sitting by the helicopter in the morning, the weather finally relented, and we lifted off making our way towards threatening clouds. We had a Kiwi pilot who flew with spectacular skill as we made our way up through the cloudsover the jungle.We wove between towers of limestone, the helicopter threading through gaps in the cloud that appeared and closed again. Waterfalls poured off the mountain sides carrying a rich metallic slurry —hundreds of locals were panning on the alluvial flats far below, working the braided rivers that drained from one of the world’s largest open-cut mines. It was one of the most extraordinary approaches any of us had seen

The Climb

The climbing is technical and requires alpine competence withexposed limestone faces, steep traverses, allat altitude in conditions that far from reliable. Apart from that, the holds are steady, the rock is good, and the climbing flows beautifully. We summitedwith cloud around us which occasionally offered us corridors of view down into the jungle, far below and across at mountains opposite us on the massif. Towards the top of the peak, there were fixed ropes that had been left along the climbing route, which had been frozen into the ice. We chatted as we climbed, puffing as the altitude was gained, crossing the famous Tyrolean Traverse before ascending the final ridge line to the summit. George and I reached the summit, thrilled at sharing the summit together. Dad joined us shortly after, and we spent some time at the summit beforereturningto camp. The next day,with energy to spare, we turnedour sights to two other significant peaks opposite Carstensz: Ngga Pulu and Sumantri. As the second highest peak, we headed off for Ngga Pulu but after a few hours, we realised we had a problem. Our local Indonesian guide, who had scrambled up Carstensz rock with us, had no experience with crampons, and the large glaciated approach to Nga Pulu was going to be slow and dangerous. This was disappointing, as equatorial glaciers are a rarity, and with every year, their existence becomes more unlikely.

We turned our attention to Sumantri, which at 4,870 metres is rarely visited. We had a magnificent day climbing through beautifully glacially-carved rock. Amongst the crevices, we foundseashells embedded into the limestone at 4,000m above sea level. A reminder that these mountains were once an ancient seabed, now pushed up into the sky on the edge of the Australasian and Pacific tectonic plates.

Weatherbound

After this wonderful day the weather closed in properly. Our helicopter exfiltration was due to collect us and had no chance of getting through. We settled in to wait. As the days passed, some members of the team began to feel the pressure, and satellite phones came out to explore whether the nearby Freeport mine might offer an exit. We had read the cautionary tale of a fellow New Zealander who had tried exactly that – walked onto the mine’s property and been locked in a shipping container by the Indonesian military for trespassing. We agreed as a team to wait it out instead.We settled into camp, beset by blizzards, and to our surprise, in the night, found ourselves surrounded by howling dingoes.It is always interesting, on an expedition, to watch how outside stress can work on a expedition. The lesson from those days in camp is a familiar one: in the mountains, you roll with the punches. Weather and delays are not failures of the expedition, they are the expedition. You stay patient and trust that the window will come. It did, the helicopter found us, and we flew home to plan our next expedition.