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Mountain Madness
Carstensz

Carstensz Expedition soon to be underway!

We are excit­ed to be wrap­ping up final prepa­ra­tions for our jour­ney to Indone­sia. With a com­bi­na­tion of excel­lent climb­ing and the unique, exot­ic cul­ture of the Dani peo­ple, the Carsten­sz Pyra­mid Climb is tru­ly one of our most fas­ci­nat­ing adven­tures in one of the wildest remain­ing places on the plan­et. Locat­ed at lat­i­tude 4 degrees and 5 min­utes south by 137 degrees and 11 min­utes east lon­gi­tude in the west­ern cen­tral high­lands of New Guinea, the sec­ond largest island after Green­land, 16,023 foot Carsten­sz Pyra­mid is the high­est peak on the Ocea­nia con­ti­nent and one of the sev­en sum­mits. Our team is sched­uled to meet up in Den­pasar, Bali on Novem­ber 24th and con­sists of the fol­low­ing mem­bers:

Lead Guide: Mark Ryman from Seat­tle, WA
Sec­ond Guide: Pablo Purun­ca­jas is Ecuado­ri­an by birth and cur­rent­ly resides in Seat­tle, WA

  • Adri­aan Wes­sels from Her­wi­j­nen, the Netherlands

  • Bill Burd from Chica­go, IL 

  • Sylvia Moser from Vic­to­ria, British Columbia

  • Joe Bon­ner from Taco­ma, WA 

Pablo and I will be arriv­ing in Bali a cou­ple of days ear­ly to meet with our out­fit­ter and tie up loose ends on paper­work and pro­vi­sions. The beach­es there won’t do much for our acclima­ti­za­tion, but it should be good for set­tling in to a new time zone and get­ting a taste of Indone­sian cul­ture. We will be attempt­ing a new approach on this trip. In the past, our trips have accessed the peak either by heli­copter trans­port to the base of the moun­tain, or over­land through prop­er­ty owned by the Freeport Mine. For var­i­ous rea­sons, both of these options are not cur­rent­ly viable and we will be trekking in from a vil­lage that lies north of the peak. The trek will start in the jun­gle and take four to five days each way. It should be quite an adven­ture. I will be call­ing in dis­patch­es as fre­quent­ly as pos­si­ble, start­ing with arrival in Bali lat­er this week. Stay tuned and wish us luck! 

Look­ing up at Carstensz