Getting Ready for Carstensz Pyramid Expedition

We are settled back in to our beautiful home of Ophir, Colorado for a couple of weeks, but preparations are on for the upcoming Carstensz Pyramid trip. I am looking forward to going back over for my yearly trip to Indonesia for this adventure. I missed going over last year due to a knee injury that has healed up just fine now. I say it all the time, but it is always an adventure traveling to the remote island of Papua and navigating the logistics and politics that it takes just to get to base camp. This will be my 6th trip to Indonesia, and it makes it something like 10 for Mt Trip. It has been different every time.

This time we are going to be flying in by helicopter from the village of Nabire. It's over an hour flight to base camp from this village over some of the most remote jungle left on the planet. The island of Papua is split in half by the border between Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. The Surinam range runs East to West across the island, and Carstensz Pyramid is the highest peak in the range at just over 16,000 ft. The climb is a one day push from our base camp at a beautiful lake at the base of the mountain.
The climb is a fun outing climbing about 4,000 ft up a limestone peak. Most of the climbing is really pretty straight forward low 5th class climbing with a fixed rope for protection. The real excitement starts when we gain the ridge and need to pass over several gaps along the way to the top. The first of these gaps is by far the biggest, and we will be using a "Tyrolean Traverse" to get across it, instead of rappelling down 20 meters, and climbing back out the other side. The tyrolean is really pretty fun, but it definitely get's your heart beating fast as you look down several thousand feet while suspended by a rope (or two).

This spot is the technical crux of the entire 7 summit journey.

Most of the climbers coming to Carstensz are working towards climbing the highest peak on each continent, these peaks have been dubbed the "7 Summits" It's a great excuse to travel all around this planet to extremely different places for some fun climbing, and incredible cultural experiences.

The culture and people of the island of Papua are some of the most fascinating on the planet. I don't really claim to grasp the complexity of their varied cultures, but the island is home to the most different languages, and tribal groups left in the world. It is truly a sense of stepping back into the stone age when you get into some of the more remote villages, where there first contact with the western world occurred in the last 50 years or so.

This picture was from a small village outside of Wamena in the central mountains of Papua. They put on a bit of a show for us with their ritualized war ceremony. It's the real deal over there, as there are still local tribal wars that break out with some regularity. This is a Dani tribe, one of the largest groups in the highlands.


The Mountain Trip team for this adventure:
1) Ben Swart. South Africa
2) Elsi Bezudinhout. South Africa
3) Ephi Gildor. Aspen, Colorado
4) William Hanlon. Alberta, Canada
5) Chris Davenport (guide). Aspen, Colorado
6) Bill Allen (guide). Ophir, Colorado/Anchorage, Alaksa

We are meeting in Bali in early October for a day or two of surfing fun, and then it's off to Papua!

I'll be posting and updating a trip blog when the trip starts. We're planning to head back over for a couple of trips in March of next year if you are interested in heading over for an adventure of your own.

Cheers,
Bill