Helmut, Alastair, Bill, Kurt and Kevin on top.




Vivian, Tim, Helmut, Bill, Alastair, Chris, and Kevin after the climb. Kurt is behind the lens and Biff is ???

Some Pictures

The Tyrolean Traverse!!! A memorable part of the climb for everyone.

Chris and Alastair on the summit.

Wrap Up

Well we are all back home after a successful expedition with all 9 of us standing on the summit of Carstensz Pyramid!

Our summit night/day turned out to be pretty nice. We woke up at about 11:00pm and after a few cups of coffee and some breakfast we switched on our headlamps and started towards the base of the climb. We start the climb very early in an effort to be back down before the afternoon rains that are typical in the highlands of Papua. This was not the beautiful clear night that we had hoped for, but it wasn't raining so we set off. The weather that day turned out to be kind to us, we had some clouds and wind on the way up, but the rain held off.

The climb was fun, and everyone did a great job getting up to the summit ridge. On the ridge leading to the summit is where we find the more technical challenges. There are a couple of big "gaps" that we pass on the ridge to the summit. The first one is the most exciting, it is about 20 meters across, with 300 meters of air below. We pass this gap by a Tyrolean Traverse, which is always exciting at almost 16,000 feet on Carstensz. The team all summited in just over 7 hours, and we were able to enjoy some nice views as clouds blew threw the tops of the peaks. After taking pictures, signing the summit register, and calling home on the sat phone, we started the long descent.

On the descent we finally got the rain and snow that had been threatening us for several hours. The many rappels back down the North face gully that we climbed up were made more interesting by the water flowing down everywhere around us. It took almost as long to go down as it did to get up, but by the afternoon we were all safely back in base camp enjoying a hot drink and a good dinner.

We made our way back to Bali over the next couple of days, and everyone began to go their separate ways. Vivian headed for a relaxing Yoga retreat, Biff got a flight straight on home to Texas, and the rest of us enjoyed a great meal in a restaurant on the beach in Bali and began to talk and dream about the next climb...

Congratulations to all:

Alastair Sutcliffe (completed the 7 summits!)
Chris Nichols
Biff Palmer
Kurt Gusinde
Vivian Rigney
Helmut Linzbichler
Tim Ralph
Kevin Koprek (guide)
Bill Allen (guide)

The team is out of the mountains.

I just heard from Bill that everyone is down, out of the mountains. Everyone is happy to have stood on the top of Carstensz Pyramid and should be heading back to Bali later today.

Bill will post more detailed versions of these updates when he gets back home, ad we'l post photos from the climb as well.

Congratulations to the team and safe travels back to your respective homes.

On the Summit!!!!

Bill just called from the summit of Carstensz Pyramid!

He reports that all the climbers made it to the top by 8:30 in the morning. It was a cloudy day, but so far it has not rained on the group. There was a fair amount of snow on the route, which made the fixed lines pretty tricky to negotiate.

They will descend in a few minutes and probably head back to Timika this afternoon.

A hearty congratulations to all the climbers on gaining the top of this most elusive of the 7 Summits!

Carstensz Basecamp is a surreal moonscape punctuated with stunningly beautiful lakes.

Second time's a charm!

Bill called during the night and said that they were on the move towards Basecamp. He said everything looked good for getting in and that he would call if there were any reason that they did not make it.

No calls, makes me think that they are snuggled down in their tents near the beautiful azure lakes of Basecamp!