July 20, 2011

Jason was pretty excited last night when he called to say that the team had all reached Pinapa, safe and sound.  The title of Heinrich Harrer’s famous story of the first ascent of Carstensz seems appropriate for this final dispatch for the Carstensz team.

The Dani village of Pinapa (Photo by Jim Walkley)

Mark, Jeff, Chris, Ted, Colin, Andrew, IMG guide Jason, and our Indonesian guides Steven and Joshua  have had a heck of an adventure.  This afternoon they will have a final farewell meeting with their porters and then share a big dinner with them in the village.  Then, early tomorrow they do the short hike to Ilaga, and hopefully catch the first of a string of flights that will take them back to friends and family, jobs, the internet, and all the things they have missed for the last couple weeks.

It has been a challenging trip for everyone, but they all pulled together and were a strong and competent team (everyone lost quite a bit of weight with 15 consecutive days of hard work, with little rest).  Now they can all sit back, relax, and do some power eating.

Well done, team!!

Eric Simonson

July 19, 2011

Dani porters in the forest (Photo by Jim Walkley)

IMG guide Jason Edwards reports that yesterday the team put in over 12 miles of ups and downs crossing the plateau, which included 3 river crossings, 2700 feet of climbing, and 3000 feet of descent to their camp on the edge of the forest.  Today they have two more river crossings, a climb back up to over 12,500 feet to cross a ridge, then a big drop down to the first forest camp at 10,000 feet.  Tomorrow will be a long forest day, and with a bit of luck they hope to reach the Dani village of Pinapa which is the first/last outpost of civilization.

The weather has been pretty good overall on the trip, but Jason says that the rain has finally caught up with them the last couple days and they have seen quite a bit of precipitation, which has made the river crossings more sporty.

Eric Simonson