Four Down, Three to Go!

November 10, 2007 by Lei.

Friday morning, we moved from Zebra Wall (3600m) to base camp (4000m), an easy two hour hike. To my surprise, 4000m here doesn’t feel bad at all, though by any standard, gaining 4000m elevation within a day is a very rapid ascent. So today, we skipped acclimatization, and headed for the summit at 4:30am.

Climbing

Carstensz is a big rocky mountain for which the summit can only be gained by “climbing” instead of “hiking” like many other big mountains. The climb is a mix of rock scrambling, and in some sections, up to 5.8 climbing. Since most vertical sections of the 800m climb already had fixed lines left by previous teams, we all moved un-roped, which made it very acrophobia-unfriendly when we moved along the sharp edge on the summit ridge.

Summit Ridge

Though 5.5-5.6 climb sounded trivial, it is quite strenuous when you have to climb 800m of that at 4800m elevation without much rest (there’s no belay break because of the fixed lines). So we used ascenders to aid through many sections to save strength. There were a few big gaps that I couldn’t jump over with my short legs, so I had to really make a 5.7 or 5.8 move to climb up, and those few moves would cost me 20 seconds of puff, puffing catching my breath.

Tyrolean Traverse on Summit Ridge

The most interesting and strenuous part of the climb is Tyrolean Traverse. Before this trip, I didn’t even know this word not to say the skill. Basically, in order to cross the largest gap on summit ridge, you have to climb a horizontal line of about 20m by hanging under the rope and pull yourself through. Hanging yourself in the air at 4800m itself is scary enough, not to say the upside-down positioning make it hard to breath at an already hard-to-breath altitude.

Lei on Summit

We summited about 10am, a pretty good speed. Then it started snowing and raining when we started descending. 800m drop requires endless rappel. The rain, the long stretch, the sharp rock, the complex route structure, the varying direction, all make repel in this situation a very, very, serious business. A split seconds relaxation could result in an accident. This is the first time I fully appreciated every little tip I gathered while I was learning the business – the comfort of harness, the helmet, the prussic, the extension of repel setup, and of course, keep yourself disciplined when you repeat the process so many times at a time that you are already tired and you are eager to escape to the safe ground.

Rappel

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