November 8, 2007 by Lei.

We flew into Timika yesterday afternoon, and the town looked pretty calm, no trace of the riots. Upon arrival, we got the confirmation that we were going to cross the mine in the evening. However, it became a “no go” after four hours of waiting. The explanation was “the car broke down”. But I suspect the real reason was to wait for another team (Alpine Ascents) to combine two trips in one to further increase the profit margin for the local cartel operator.

Again, the plan is to go in the evening. Why evening and waste a whole day in town? I began to suspect that the rumored story I read before would happen on this trip. Steven, the local guide, simply advised “stay away from the window”. I later confirmed that our approach is only “semi legal”.

Originally, after paying a hefty fee to gain permits from the Indonesia Tourist Office, the Indonesia Army, and the Indonesia Papua Police, we were assured a “fully legal” approach to cross the mine. Due to the recent riot in Timika, Freeport Mine revoked their consent for fear of being held responsible if the climbers got into trouble with aboriginals in the area. After negotiation, Papua police promised to take responsibility in escorting us while crossing the mine. Why would they want to take such a responsibility? Actually the hefty fee for “permits” is largely a cash transaction, so the real big money is only to be earned if we can cross. Based on the stories I read before, I wonedered if there were ever a “fully legal” approach to cross the mine.

View of Freeport Mine from top of Carstensz

Around 7pm, when it’s already completely dark, cars taking two teams of climbers including us arrived at the police station. We were immediately boarded on to an old bus that obviously was used to transfer mine workers. Then some armed police or army people joined us, and ordered each of us to sit at a certain position, basically, one person in each row of seats. Later I understood that it was to make it convenient for us to duck down. We were also ordered to put on a baseball cap and a jacket despite 90F hot and humid temperature, because that’s how the mine workers would dress to go to work. They also pulled several long metal boards to block the lower half of the side window.

For two hours, the bus roared through rain and dark country roads that climbed up towards the center of Freeport Mine. Every once in a while, maybe six or seven times, whenever we passed a check point, one police would yell at us to duck down. I wished I could sneak a few pictures, but seeing how freaked out some team members were, I didn’t want them to think I was trying to murder the team.

Two hours later, we changed into two vans that seemed to belong to the security office of Freeport Mine, and everyone put on a worker’s vest and helmet. For the next hour, we crossed the heart of Freeport Mine, passing by many giant trucks, whose tires were taller than our van; crossing through lands full of modern industrial frameworks and pipelines. I’m actually very impressed with how modern and how orderly the mine field was. Though we saw very few people moving around, all the working equipment looked well maintained, and all kinds of trucks moved around diligently with a seemly clear purpose. Near the top of the mine, there’s also a large residence area that looked like a fair sized modern town. Its modernly structured apartment buildings were a sharp contrast to the simple or shabby local residence I saw in Timika or Jakarta.

During a big portion of this last hour, we were driving with a dim head light in an endless narrow tunnel. The tunnel construction was quite rough that I couldn’t stop imagining what would happen if the tunnel collapsed. When we were at the exit of the tunnel or certain turning points, the driver would turn off the headlights, and drove to a hidden corner or spot, then came out again with headlights on to disguise the actual direction we came from.

It was already 10ish when we were dropped off at Zebra Wall, the end of the smuggling journey. However, the car behind us was no where to be seen. Were they caught? Were they lost? It turned out that their car broke down at a traffic light and had to wait for our car’s return to “rescue” them. A traffic light was a funny spot to have a “semi legal” car break down. They have to keep ducked down for a long time until no cars/people around, and then ran to hide behind a wall!

From Zebra Wall towards the Mine

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November 6, 2007 by Lei.

Yesterday afternoon, after sitting in traffic breathing the suffocating air for hours, I confidently stood in front of the reception desk at the airport transit hotel again. It’s a different receptionist this time, he looked up and down the reservation table, and shook his head, “No, I can’t find your reservation.” “That’s not possible. I was here yesterday, and you told me that I have a reservation for tonight”. He searched more carefully again, “Ah, found it. It’s canceled!” But this time, he was able to reach my local agent on phone.

The agent thought I was to arrive on Monday, so canceled my reservation after he couldn’t find me at the airport in the afternoon. Then he said, “Anyway, there’s some changes. We are not flying tomorrow, thus we will stay in downtown tonight. Dave (the guide) will explain everything when he arrives tonight”. That doesn’t sound good.

It’s almost 11pm when the guide Dave and two other climbers from the UK arrived at the hotel. While I was on my flight to Indonesia, a riot erupted in Timika of Indonesia Papua due to conflicts between local tribes and the police. Quoting from one news report, “normally such fights stop when the death toll on both sides become equal or one tribe pays a hefty fee”

So here I am stuck in Jakarta for an extra day. A couple of other teams who were one or two days ahead of us are still stuck in Timika.

Today’s latest update seems not bad. The local police, who we paid a hefty fee to in order to obtain permits, guaranteed full responsibility for our safety. So we are flying to Timika early tomorrow morning, and then we plan to head into the jungle directly.

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November 5, 2007 by Lei.

Shortly before 5am, I woke up to the prayer chanting in the neighborhood.

I finally studied the city map to orient myself, and called a taxi to visit the famous Plaza Indonesia, an upscale mall in the heart of downtown. The flawless design and luxurious decoration, the shining display of jewelry and brand name merchants would qualify this mall as a high end mall in the US as well. Well, my main purpose was to come to have lunch at Sari Ratu, an Indonesian restaurant recommended by my colleague Petty.

Plaza Indonesia, a modern shopping mall in Jakarta downtown

The moment I sat down, several waiters came up and dumped nearly 20 plates of various dishes on my table, including a large bowl of rice that was enough for 10 people, then left me with just one smiling waiter, who was holding out a menu to me. “These are all for me?” I can’t believe it! He nodded with a smile. “You are not joking with me?” He sincerely replied “No”. I took a quick glance at the menu, then pushed back to him, “Then I don’t need to order anything. This is too much for me already!” He still insisted on handing me the menu and pointed at the prices on the menu. I finally figured out that he does not understand English that well, so I resorted to guessing plus gesture language to communicate.

It turns out that they serve lunch in the opposite way Chinese dim sum is served. Instead of you picking what you want from a cart, you choose what you don’t want on the table and tell them to take it away. Out of my habitual curiosity, I picked dishes that I never had, including a plate of brain! “What animal’s brain?” I asked. “Ah, yes, animal.” He was happy to catch the key word. “Is it pig? Sheep? Cow?” He shook his head and tried hard to think, then finally found the right word, “Yes, Beef!” “Ah, cow! Mad Cow?” I jokingly asked him. Again, he happily nodded his head. Even though I knew he probably didn’t get what I was joking about, it felt kind of scary to me, especially since I just read “Deadly Feast” a few weeks ago. I took a bite from each of the two pieces of brain in the plate, and calculated my chance of catching Mad Cow disease. The thoughts made me less excited about the dish.

Once the city wakes up, its traffic seems to be in rush-hour mode until late night. When I hired a taxi to go back airport in the mid afternoon, the highway was jammed all the way from the city to airport. So my taxi driver took some local roads to bypass. Now I finally see why Indonesians have so many motorbikes. A two lane two way local road is often monopolized by the vehicles from the dominating direction. In this case, there are three or four outbound vehicles on this little two lane local road so that only motorbikes can pass from the opposite direction. Occasionally a car that tried to come from the other direction would cause deadlock for a while. But drivers are really skillful too. They often quickly jump onto the side walk of the opposite direction to make room for the opposite traffic, then continue back in the wrong lane.

Jakarta Traffic

Traffic also causes bad air. Like many cities in China, Jakarta is a very populated city with a large urban/suburban area, but the public transportation appears to be very limited or not efficient. In this big city, nothing is really close to other things. Thus, the motorbike is as popular as the bicycle is in China, and many people cover their face with a bandana while riding; so do traffic police and workers at toll booths.

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November 4, 2007 by Lei.

After numerous stops (Boston –JFK-Anchorage-Taipei-Jakarta), almost two days since I left Boston, I finally arrived in Indonesia. There are many things I need to adjust to, such as the hot and humid air, switch of time zone, and the numerous 0s I have to count for money (1 USD = 9000 Rp).

After lengthy waiting for landing visa and luggage, I walked out of customs one hour after our landing, but nowhere was I able to find the local agent I expected to meet. Luckily, it turned out that our assumed reservation is at the airport hotel, which is just above the terminal. But the bad news is, there’s no reservation for me here tonight! I guess my local agent must have been suffering from jet lag.

So I decided to venture into the downtown area to enjoy my only day in the city. I got a cheap hotel called Sparks in a low-end section near the old city. It turned out to be very nice inside, and they are very thoughtful – not only do they welcome guests with tasty drinks in the lobby, they also supply ample condoms of various flavors and lubricants in each room!

Thoughtful Supplies in my Hotel Room

Jakarta is a big city. The urban sprawl is comparable to the major cities in the world, and the modern part is just like any metropolitan cities in the western world. Though drivers do cut through the traffic at will like they do in China, they do respect police a lot! For example, the taxi driver dare not stop to pick up clients in departure zone at airport, so I ended up jumping into a moving taxi when no policeman was in sight.

Poor and Rich of Jakarta, view from Hotel Sparks

My hotel is located on a busy local road, like the one that crosses an old farmer’s market, such as Xin Jiang Village, in Beijing 10 years ago or even worse. The surrounding area looks like residence for a poor labor class, which is in sharp contrast to the modern high rises in the back drop when looking out from my hotel window. Despite my initial nervousness about safety concerns in Indonesia, I ventured out for dinner after 6pm, and it was already dark outside. To be safe, I didn’t even carry my camera.

I actually felt quite comfortable and soon relaxed while I carefully picked my steps over dirty puddles, holes, and bumps, to navigate through food/merchant stands, random round-ups of stuff or properties on side walk, and intimidating traffic that was not afraid to cut by within just an inch of pedestrians. Each side of the street is lined with all kinds of not-so-tidy shops and street venders, and numerous motorbikes cut between the traffic to make the two-lane street wide enough for 10 motor mobiles. My biggest challenge was crossing the street, which takes a lot of courage, patience, and luck among this no-rule no-light river of traffic.

Three-Wheeled Taksi in Jakarta

What impressed me most in this area is the creativeness and pervasiveness of the “taksi” system here. At a hotel or airport, you can see the standard taxis like those in any other city; then there are numerous three-wheeled little motor carriage that can stuff in 4 or more people in a space as big as one square meter; yet, there still are numerous motorbikes providing individual “taksi” services. When I was in Russia, I was afraid to look at men on the street because I was afraid of arousing troubles with those ubiquitous drunk guys; Here, I also had to avoid looking at men on the street, because almost every brief glance at them would get an offer for “taksi”!

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November 2, 2007 by Lei.

It was a quick decision to take on a trip today to climb Carstensz Pyramid (4884m / 16,023ft), the highest peak of Oceania (Austral-Asian continent).

Carstensz Pyramid is on the island of New Guinea, the world’s third largest island, in the province of Papua (formerly Irian Jaya), a remote corner of Indonesia. Though it’s not so high compared to other mountains, it involves fifth class rock climbing on beautiful limestone structures with some sections up to 5.8 in difficulty, and it takes 16 rappels to get off the summit ridge. This makes it the most technical peak among the seven summits, and this peak is what motivated me to start rock climbing three years ago.

Gaining access to Carstensz Pyramid is also very challenging, complicated by it’s proximity to the Freeport Mine, the world’s largest open pit gold mine. From 2002 through 2005, the peak was off limits to climbers because of conflicts between local authorities. Starting in 2005, climbers finally could obtain legal permits to fly in via helicopter after paying a sky-high fee. Even so, the local authorities still sometimes obstruct the operation of helicopters, thus some climbing groups have dressed up like dirty mine worker to cross the mine field in the night in a vehicle without headlights.

The climbing part aside, gaining access itself is a gamble, which is what stressed me most for this trip. We originally planned to fly in via helicopter, but less than two weeks before the trip, we were told that the helicopter operation was halted indefinitely because locals are having issues with the landing and refueling of helicopters. The good news is, we were granted legal permit to cross Freeport Mine in a “legal” vehicle provided by them. Just as it is in China, rules are made by humans here and can be changed by humans at any time. You never know what will happen on this cartel controlled land.

The island of New Guinea itself is one of the most exotic and fascinating places left to travel in the world. A few weeks ago, I read a book called “Deadly Feast”, which talks about the origin of diseases such as Mad Cow that have spread through cannibalism. Cannibalism sounded like an ancient practice, but it actually was still in practice just a decade ago on this island! But don’t worry, they have stopped such practices today, and are now known for their colorful aboriginal culture. Our schedule on this trip is very tight, though I hope to have a chance to visit the Dani tribe, where the men still wear the traditional penis gourd and little else.

Dani Porters

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July 3, 2007 by Lei.

I’m at Denver airport on my way back. We did make the summit on the second attempt on June 30th after helping the member that collapsed back to camp. So many things happened on this trip that I was practically holding my breath until I stood on the summit at midnight that day, and I couldn’t relax until I finally got off the glacier.

After a midnight summit that coincided with the arrival of another storm, we made a slow and long descent through white-out conditions and didn’t reach the camp until 6-7am the next morning. Then after a couple hours rest, we descended with full loads to the camp at 14,000ft, our whole bodies still exhausted.

On Sunday, we woke up at 6:30am, then walked over numerous nerve-racking crevasses to finally arrive at base camp at midnight.

Detailed report will come soon! So glad to be back to the world of restaurants and flushing toilets.

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June 13, 2007 by Lei.

Same drill in the morning. Stick at airport waiting for the landing window. 11:30, Dave came to announce: we need 3 people be ready to go! So Ian (bristish climber), Christian (german) and I, plus guide Zach got ready to go. we load stuff on to the airplane, changed into climbing boots, and stand by the airplane.
12:30, pilot came, but instead, started to unload our stuff from the airplane. So we took off boots, and went off to lunch. We put in order, but before the meal even arrived, Zach (assistant guide) showed up: we need 2 people to go! 4 others already there, just need 2 to go. So we all hurried the waitress to pack up our lunch and run back (Zach actually came with shuttle van to pick us up even it’s just 10 minutes walk from airport). When we got to the airport, we learned that the place already left with 3 climbers. So we now got more time to enjoy the last lunch. While I’m typing this email, I heard that plane already landed in basecamp and is on the way back (2:15pm). So highly likely, we will be all at base camp today (otherwise, the other 3 climbers would stuck there because the guides are here), though unlikely to move up the hill as I had hopefully wished.

A funny story heard from Jeff: once at the base camp airport, there are a lot of fresh snow that plane can’t land. So the base camp manager announced: who wants to go home? put on your snow shoes and run on the runway! So all climbers packed in lines to run to pack down the run way. Another time, the plane can’t land because of clouds. The plane made several dancing in the clouds to disturb the dynamics of cloud, finally break up an opening to land.

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June 13, 2007 by Lei.

There was one brief window this morning at 6am, but pilot said it was too brief that it would have been closed when we arrive there even if we tried to fly. So the waiting game again. The pilot said that normally June is flyable every day, the weather pattern is abnormal this year. Al Gore should have done somethings much earlier!:)

the condition on upper mountain is getting warm and calm these days. I read that a few teams are going for summit today, though 50 climbers from earlier expeditions are waiting at base camp to get get out as anxious as we are to get in.

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June 12, 2007 by Lei.

The weather has been improving over the day, and we got more and more optimistic as time passes by. Earlier in the day, we were told to check back every hour if we
were to wander around in the town. So some people made several back and forth walk between the town of Talkeetna and the little airport. Later in the afternoon, we
were told to stick around, no one goes anywhere. 7:30, we were told to get ready. 8pm, we loaded up all our luggage by the loading area, changed into climbing boots.
Then Dave came back with a “cut-off” signal, no go again! The sky is definitely clearing up, but the word is that the cloud is still hanging around at the base camp level
that can’t land the airplane. We were a bit dissapointed, but think about those tired climbers who had stuck in the storm for weeks, now stuck at base camp waiting for
their flights out, how much dissapointment they have. At least, we can still enjoy a bed and shower here, and nice meals and drinks. Hopefully, we will go early
tomorrow morning, then possiblly skip base camp to go for camp 0.5 or camp 1 directly.
 
This morning, Dave went over the techniques about rigging sleds. There’re a lot of tricks to make sled traveling safe, especially when one falls into crevasse, it’s
important to prevent double jeapody (sled hitting the fallen one), rather, by using the double tag line connected by zip pull, sled can be used to help hold up the
fall, and make it easier for the person behind to hold the fallen one. Dave also shared funny stories of sleds traveling by themselves. Often climbers left the
sled unattended after untied it at camp site, the sled could start going by itself, and dissapeared off the crevasse . Once a sled with three sleeping bags on it
went off by itself, the unlucky three climbers had to call off their climb. So at least, don’t put your personal essentials on the sled!
 
Stories from yesterday, just in case I forgot later: Dave once discovered a cache at high camp marked “THEMIS project”, which had many air-dropped millatary style cardborad
cases of all kinds of supplies. No one knows what that project is. Until one day, in an accidental chat, someone said “I used to work on THEMIS project”, turned out it
stands for “The Men In Space” project the government (NASA) secretly experimented during cold war (1960s?) crisis time. They were trying to simulate human in space
by doing that on thin-aired mountain top.  There were a lot of abandoned cache stories.

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June 12, 2007 by Lei.

We drove up to Talkeetna yesterday morning. After enjoyed a sunny weekend, we got a cloudy anad breezy start for the week. On the way up, the condition looked very
marginal for flying. We stopped by the airoport first once we got in Talkeetna. To our excitement, it was said that the “airport” on glacier is open. But we still
have to check in with the park ranger’s office first. There we got a brief introduction about the climbing routes and leave no trace practice. There’re brochers
about Denali in all kinds of language, including Japanese and Korean, but no Chinese. I talked to the ranger, Chinese climbers are rare on Denali.
 
At noon, we checked in at airport, but it’s already closed because of weather on glacier. Anyway, we all changed into our climbing clothes, so we could jump on the
plane immediately when the cloud breaks. Unfortunately, the whole afternoon passed just in waiting. Lead guide Dave used this time to teach us glacier travel and self
rescue. I volunteered to be the first victim. But there was one little move that required me to do a quick short pullup with my 50lb pack on my back. I couldn’t
even move up a few inches. So we had a good laugh and had to modify my self rescue system. Dave spent quite some time to cutomize my system to accomodate my
narrower chest size and weaker arm strength.
 
We waited until 7pm when the pilots all went home, then called off the night.
 
Tuesday morning, it’s again cloudy. Pilots require line of vision to land on glacier. So we are just waiting here for a break in the clouds. Yesterday, only one
flight was able to fly in and fly out. Sometimes, the flight had to turn around half way when the condition sunddenly changed. Sometimes, half of the team was able
to fly in, the other half was left behind. So we had to be flexible and be ready to jump on plane at a short notice. 

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