Recap from Hans
[Intro from Darrel: You don't know me, and I hope this email didn't go to your spam mail! My name is Darrell Lindgren and our Carstensz Pyramid climbing team intersected with Hans, Eric and Charles' (Charles right?)'team. Hans asked me to send you this schedule once I got to Bali..we arrived here just last night so you have probably heard via satellite phone already.. but I promised Hans I would send this..... ]
August 16... flew in twin engine otter and landed in the remote village of Sagupa, New Guinea, where the locals hang out at the airport, and the penis gourds fashion show was on!
August 17 rest day, and Independence Day in Indonesia.. so no porters available
August 18. we started our trek today at 11am and hiked about 6-7 hours, overnight in a small village called Sawagamma (or something like that)
August 19 started hiking at 8am and continued for 11.5 hours, mostly through the jungle. The jungle trekking was very difficult, with steep mud and tree root obstacles, awkward log bridges over a rushing river, side hills, more water and mud, tropical downpours during the day, more mud... and some bugs and leeches... and then some more mud
August 20 began hiking at 730AM and continued for another 11.5 hours again through the upper part of the jungle which was the same or worse than the first half. The previous team (Darrell's team) had porters with machetes'clearing away vines and undergrowth on the path.. which there is very little of.. you just follow the water and mud route, and the broken down trees..some we crawled under, yes.. through the mud
August 21. Hiked 5.5 hours and met the team coming off the mountain (Darrell's team) that had summitted successfully a few days previous. All 5 team members reached the summit on an unusually nice day on the mountain. They were lucky. We talked some at camp and Darrell's group was grateful to be where they were, and of course, to meet Eric and company. (Darrell comment.. Hans, Eric and Charles are an incredible team and I was honored to meet them and to meet Eric... I guess I shouldn't complain about the mud too much..how Eric does it is beyond me)
We plan to hike August 22, 23, and 24 and aim to summit on the 25th 26th or 27th... we will probably make a satellite call from the summit... (from Darrell.. by the time yuo get this email you may altready have heard from Hans and team... I wish them the best and hope they are able to get a helicopter to fly them out from base camp. Hiking back down through the jungle was every bit as miserable as hiking up) The climb itself is essentially a semi technical rock climb.. with fixed ropes on the steeper sections up to the summit ridge. Once on the summit ridge, you traverse carefully along the very exposed ridge to a large notch... on which a tyrolean traverse has been created... about 4 ropes strung across the notch (65 ftt or so across and about 150 feet deep, with major drop offs on both sides of that... we hooked our harnesses onto the ropes and hung under the ropes and pulled ourselves across to the other side).. a couple of other smaller notches were equally challenging for us non experts, but we all made it safely)
We send our love
Hans
Eric
Charles
Thank you Auroraphotos
Updates:
- 26 August: Summit!!
- 24 August: everyone in base camp and feeling healthy.
- 23 August: The team has arrived at Lake Larson camp. Will arrive at base camp tomorrow
- 18 August: team starts treking. Estimate Aug 23 arrival at base camp
Partners:
ACOPA
ASOLO
BLACK DIAMOND
BLUEWATER
CYTOMAX
HIGHGEAR
KINESYS
LEKI
LUMBER LIQUIDATORS
MOUNTAIN HARDWEAR
NUUN
OBOZ
OUTDOOR RESEARCH
PETZL
POWERBAR
SMARTWOOL
SMITH
STERIPEN
TOUCHSTONE CLIMBING
TRANGO
TRANSYSTEMS
YATES GEAR
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