Indonesian Adventure

Expedition to the high mountains and wild frontiers of New Guinea

The Indonesian archipelago spans 5,000 km and includes some 17,500 islands. On the archipelago’s far-flung Eastern fringes sits the world’s second biggest island, covering an area of 786,000 km², more than three times the size of the UK. By any measure, the island of New Guinea is simply enormous. Ignored for centuries, it remains ethereal, conjuring up images of dripping montane forests, Stone Age tribes and tales of intrepid expeditions into a lost world inhabited by cannibals and exotic Birds of Paradise.

Along the spine of the island runs a chain of mountain ranges that stretch almost 1,600 km and which rise to almost 5,000m, where atmospheric pressure is roughly half that at sea level. These central ranges have formed a formidable barrier to many expeditions over the last hundred years and contain the highest mountains between the Himalayas and the Andes. The combination of extreme height and equatorial latitude also generates an exceptionally high rainfall – up to 5,000mm per year. The tallest peaks hold permanent equatorial glaciers, which are currently receding dramatically due to the impact of global warming. In November and December this year, I am planning to lead a two-person expedition with bold objectives into this uncharted territory.

The island itself is split politically in two: the eastern half hosts the state of Papua New Guinea (PNG), which gained independence in 1975, having previously been under United Nations and Australian administration. The western portion, formerly Dutch New Guinea, was brought under Indonesian control in 1963, in controversial circumstances. Initially named Irian Jaya - “victorious hot land” – the western half of the island now incorporates two Indonesian provinces; West Papua comprises the Bird’s Head Peninsula in the western extremity; the sparsely populated but much larger Papua Province lies to the East and borders PNG. This province is huge, but is home to only two million people, a population density of only 4.7 souls per square kilometre. The UK, in comparison, which boasts a population of 62 million, has a population density of 255 people per square kilometre. 

The island’s political divide is a source of ongoing tension, particularly in the central highlands, where native Papuans representing disparate pro-independence groups frequently clash with Indonesian security forces. A small band of separatist guerrillas, the Organisasi Papua Merdeke (OPM), or Free Papua Movement, still operates near the PNG border. 

My team will spend two months in the largely uncharted central highlands of Papua Province, travelling between mountain ranges by light aircraft to remote airstrips that have been hacked out of the forest and trekking in to the base of cloud-wreathed mountains on foot.

Melting glaciers

During the 20th century, New Guinea’s tallest peaks are known to have supported glaciers. Since the 1970s the retreat of these glaciers has been mapped using advances in satellite imagery. Puncak Jaya (Carstensz Pyramid, 4,884m) is known to still support glaciers and these are heavily studied; Puncak Trikora supported a small ice cap which disappeared during the period 1939–62; Puncak Mandala held an ice cap that researchers believe disappeared entirely before March 2003. However, research on Mandala has been limited to a desktop review of existing satellite imagery.

Research has been constrained by almost permanent cloud cover, which makes a definitive interpretation of the satellite images extremely difficult. Our expedition aims to verify the extent of ice cap cover on the ground on these peaks to support this ongoing research. We will create a photographic record for analysis by the World Glacier Monitoring Service and researchers in Texas and Indiana.

We will also collect water and other samples throughout the expedition to assist with ongoing research into past climate change in the western equatorial Pacific. And finally, we will monitor the presence of lichen cover and lakes to help map and date the extent of ice cover over the last few hundred years.

This expedition aims to help fill those data gaps that prevent researchers from fully understanding the mechanics of climate change in the region.

Of the seven summits

Papua province’s three highest mountains have the distinction of being the highest in Indonesia, the highest on the island of New Guinea and the highest in the continent of Australasia. The island of New Guinea sits on the Australian continental plate. This explains the predominance of marsupials on the island, in stark contrast to many of islands in the archipelago to the west, where mammals prevail. Geologists believe that New Guinea became separated from the Australian mainland only 20,000 years ago; the shallow Torres Strait now covers the land bridges.

Some readers may be familiar with New Guinea’s Puncak Jaya (4,884m), formerly called Carstensz Pyramid after Dutch explorer Jan Carstensz who was the first to identify the peak’s glaciers in 1623. It's summited frequently by Western climbers, although from time to time the mountain is closed for security reasons. It was first climbed by Heinrich Harrer in 1962 and this first ascent is recorded in his fine book ‘I come from the Stone Age’. It is considered to have the highest technical rating of any of the Seven Summits.

Conquering the abyss

Puncak Mandala (4,640m) is the highest peak in the remote and undeveloped Star Mountains regency in the east of Papua province. The northern aspect of the mountain appears like a giant swelling in the forest. To get to it you have to trek from the northern village of Bime along local hunting trails. Nevertheless, an Australian team attempting this route in 1996 failed to even reach the mountain – the approach was too arduous. In stark contrast to the gentle incline from the north, the steep limestone cliffs of the South Face present a true challenge to the committed climber. The first expedition to reach Mandala’s summit - from the north – was a large-scale Dutch expedition in 1953. They described the view to the south as like looking into a “stupendous abyss”. This description inspired the first and only team to find a route up the steep southern cliffs – in 1990, Bruce Parry and Mark Anstice reached the summit after trekking in from the south coast of the island. We hope to complete the second ascent and the first female ascent of this remote mountain.

We plan to fly into Sumtamon, the nearest village with an airstrip to the south. We’ll follow local trails for a week, initially south-west until we meet the mighty Eilanden river. Then we will head north until we reach one of the spurs that Mandala throws out from her mighty flank. With no existing photographs of the route and the tree-line extending to 4,000m, we will rely on a ‘rough’ route description from Mark Anstice:

“The men from the village of Tabasyk have a hunting trail that goes up one of the spurs and we just kept going once it had run out.  I think it was the third spur and we pretty much followed it until it ended just beneath the final escarpment climb.”

Puncak Trikora (4,750m) is the second highest mountain in Australasia. It lies south-west of the world-famous Baliem Valley and the bustling town of Wamena. The Baliem Valley is a high altitude agricultural wonder. When it was first discovered by outsiders in 1938 on a reconnaissance flight, they were amazed to discover a large, settled population of 50,000 agriculturalists, who nevertheless were using Stone Age tools.

we will start our ascent of Trikora at Lake Habbema – essentially a trekking and scrambling peak – from where we will collect further scientific samples. With a round-trip time of six days, ascending Trikora will provide us with solid acclimatisation before we tackle our last challenge – the technical ascent of Carstensz Pyramid.

The trouble with Carstensz

Carstensz Pyramid Base Camp can be reached in a one-hour flight by chartering a helicopter from Nabire, on Papua’s west coast. However, we intend to approach it on foot, by trekking in from one of two villages that boast airstrips; Sugapa to the North, or Ilaga to the East. Neither route is straightforward and reliable mapping is scarce. Local Indonesian operators effectively run a cartel to allow expeditions access to base camp, which allows them to dramatically inflate prices (I have recently been quoted $21,000 per person!). Negotiations with local tribal leaders in Sugapa and with the local leader of the OPM in Ilaga can be tortuous and expensive. Last year, an expedition organised by a UK-based company tried and failed to negotiate access through these villages; flying back to the town of Nabire and chartering a helicopter at the rate of $4,500 per hour was their only other option.

Should we successfully negotiate access, the trek in is an arduous 6-day uphill slog along primitive trails. The terrain has been compared to the permanently saturated Rwenzori Mountains of south-west Uganda, which I know from experience to be some of the toughest trekking anywhere on earth. If we make it this far, we intend to collect scientific samples en route. Once at Base Camp, we will carry out some basic scientific fieldwork and make an early morning a summit bid on Carstensz Pyramid. The summit ridge has several deep notches, one of which is normally crossed by completing what's known as a 'Tyrolean traverse'; Hanging upside down over thin air at 4,700 m is sure to be an unsettling experience. The following day, we will continue our scientific fieldwork and will ascend the glacier on Ngga Pulu, collecting water samples from the glacier as we climb.

Supporting vulnerable children

Thirty-two-year-old Canadian citizen Carol Sparks, the second team member, has a very special reason for undertaking the expedition. She will be raising funds for Camp Quality Canada, a non-profit, volunteer organisation that provides year-round support for children with cancer (either receiving treatment or in remission) and their families. Having survived childhood cancer at the age of 14, she understands how important it is for children to feel supported even when their treatment ends.

Realising that she shouldn’t waste a day of her life, she set herself some challenging life goals and started checking them off one by one; guiding canoeing trips in Northern Ontario; working as a raft guide in Alberta; leading tour groups in Alaska; backpacking solo through West Africa; competing in half marathons and triathlons; and leading a 40-day canoe trip in Northern Ontario to raise funds for Camp Quality. She has checked off everything that was on her list and now wants to undertake this expedition to create opportunities for other children with cancer. Carol currently works for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees in Sudan.

From a personal perspective, the expedition is something of a return to my own expedition roots. In 1994, at the age of 17, I was given the opportunity to join an environmental expedition to Kalimantan with the aim of upgrading the facilities in Tanjung Putting National Park. At the time, I was deeply committed to the preservation of the natural world. Since then, my adventures (Marathon des Sables - 2004, Scottish Khan Tengri Expedition - 2006, Africa 3 Peaks Expedition - 2008) have lacked any real environmental considerations. I hope the photographic record we create and the data we collect will make a huge contribution to the research we are supporting.

Coming from an underprivileged background, I now want to give other disadvantaged young people the opportunity to join a life-changing expedition. That’s why we’re fundraising in the UK for Raleigh’s Youth Agency Partnership Programme. I understand how difficult it can be for young people from underprivileged backgrounds to get an opportunity like that; I also understand that they are likely to get the most benefit out of such an opportunity.

I’m also following something of a family tradition of climbing - my great, great Uncle Don Munday, along with his wife Phyllis, was renowned for his explorations of the Coast Mountains of British Columbia. They were the first to identify Mount Waddington, and nearby Mount Munday was named in their honour. My cousin, Mark McGowan, was one of the UK’s leading climbers in the 1990s and climbed the North Face of Eiger in 1992. He has recently resumed climbing after a 15-year break and has now committed to join our expedition for the Carstensz Pyramid. They have set the family bar exceptionally high and provide me with a real source of inspiration. Having led the Africa 3 Peaks expedition in 2008, which attempted to climb Africa’s 3 highest peaks in only 20 days, I feel ready for the next leg of my ground-breaking long-term project – to climb the 3 highest mountains on every continent.

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