Our Carstensz Pyramid team reached the summit and has now returned to Bali today, after a helicopter flight early this morning from the base camp.  The weather over the last 48 hours since we got down from the summit has been very stormy, so we were laying low at our base camp until the storm passed and the clouds and rain cleared up for a brief window to let the helicopter fly in.  Most of the kitchen and dining tents in the base camp were destroyed in the wind storm, but our personal tents held up fine throughout the storm, thanks to the great engineering from Mountain Hardwear for our Trango 3 tents!

The climb was an epic day on the tallest peak in Australasia, a rock pyramid jutting out of the surrounding jungle landscape.  We departed before dawn, climbing up the route over varying degrees of steepness on sustained slopes until we reached the summit ridge.  We then traversed the ridge to the famous “abyss” crossing, where we tip toed across a wire cable to the other side.  That wasn’t the crux, as there were a couple more challenging crossings where we literally had to leap across to the other side!  We lucked out with great weather the whole day and reached the top around 9 AM, then began the long series of rappels back down to base camp.  This has truly been an epic adventure!  We are all now on our way home after a wonderful time in Indonesia, climbing one of the world’s “7 summits“!

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Garrett checks in with the Carstensz Pyramid team after a safe descent from the summit yesterday. Currently our team is socked in at base camp waiting for suitable weather to fly back to Timika and then to Bali. Stay tuned!

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Our autumn 2017 Carstensz Pyramid expedition has launched!! Our team flew by helicopter and arrived safely at Yellow Valley base camp today. Listen in below for a audio dispatch from Garrett and climbers Audrey and George as they prepare for the ascent. Onward and upward!

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After a few days patiently waiting for the sky to clear we are off to the mountain! Carstensz Pyramid here we come!

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Hello and greetings from Timika, the island of Papua. While on standby for the last couple of days waiting for good weather to fly into the base camp of Carstensz Pyramid, we have made the most of our time here by visiting some nice restaurants and touring the town & surrounding areas.  Our climbing team is very eager to get to the mountain and begin climbing, however, we must wait for good flying conditions.  So we are playing the waiting game, keeping our spirits up, and anticipating with positive hopes for a flight in the next day or two.  As soon as we are able to fly to the base camp we will be poised to make our climb of the famed Carstensz Pyramid rock wall!