BRIGHTEST
OF
SILVER LININGS
Climbing Carstensz Pyramid in Papua at Age 65
CAROL JEAN MASHETER PH.D.
Copyright © 2014 by Carol Jean Masheter, Ph.D.
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.
Published in eBook format by eBookIt.com
ISBN: 9781456623388
In memory of Tendi Sherpa of Gudel VDC-4, Nepal, my climbing partner on Mt. Everest in May, 2008, who died in an avalanche on Mount Himlung in Nepal on September 29, 2013, at age 43 years. Rest in peace, Tendi Bai.
Acknowledgements
Many people helped to make this book possible as well as the experiences upon which it is based. I owe them deep gratitude. I would like to acknowledge at least a few of the many.
Thank you, Linda, for your tolerance of my passion for climbing mountains. I am blessed to have a sister like you.
Jason, I appreciate the knowledge you gained during your previous expeditions and your eagerness to share it. You shared valuable information, such as what we could expect in Papua and how to behave in unfamiliar and uncomfortable situations.
Dan, you took charge under difficult circumstances and led us capably. You fostered a cooperative spirit among strong personalities without being a dictator. I am grateful for your leadership and kindness.
Steven, I appreciate your quiet competence in managing local guides, your path finding through the jungle, and your familiarity with the climbing route. You kept us safe in an unsafe part of the world.
Jemmy, your skillful management of our volatile porters saved the day repeatedly. Thank you for reminding me to smile, especially when that was the last thing I wanted to do.
Raymond, your ready humor buoyed our spirits, and your creative cooking kept us well fueled. Good luck with finishing seminary and helping Papuans to live less difficult and more peaceful lives.
Dave, I am grateful for your friendship, humor, compassion, and dedication to supporting other team members, especially me. You inspire me to be a better person.
Pal, your patience and surrender of your accustomed leadership role for the sake of our team set a high standard for me to try to match. Thank you, too, for sharing your many fine photographs of our time in Papua.
Ivan, you have a special gift for connecting with local people and photographing their beauty and dignity. Thank you for your energy, honesty, and encouragement.
Denis, your quiet strength, courage, and determination inspired me believe in myself, when the going got tough. I respect your tenacious efforts to deal with the challenges of our jungle hike and the climb, as well as the capriciousness of the English language.
Dan, Dave, Pal, Ivan, and Denis, huge thanks for sharing your photographs, which are especially precious, as my camera stopped working before we got to the mountain.
Dale, Dori, Ben, Jeremy, Josh, and Nano, I enjoyed your curiosity and enthusiasm for adventure. Good luck with future family and individual explorations.
I am indebted to each of the Papuan porters from the Dani, Moni, and Dawa tribes for their invaluable help and many kindnesses. You taught me lessons in resourcefulness, compassion, and true generosity, which I will treasure always.
Carina, your positive energy helped me manage the frustration of repeated delays in Timika. Thank you.
Anna, your patience was awesome during our practice rock climbs. Alex, during our climb, I sometimes felt like a fool, but you never treated me like one. You both are awesome guides.
Thank you, John, for locating the only size small, 50-liter Gregory Alpinisto pack in North America and getting it to me before I left for Papua. The pack performed admirably in challenging conditions. Its bright yellow color made me very visible both in the jungle and during the climb, which the guides appreciated.
I am especially grateful to all the readers who enjoyed my first book and encouraged me to write this one.
Addy, thank you for doing the kind of editing I requested. Your criticisms were fair and honest, exactly what I needed, even if I did not always want to hear them.
Off My Rocker
I was furious. I paced in tight circles under a large gazebo near a cluster of posh shops and restaurants outside the gritty town of Timika in Papua, Indonesia. I had moved away from my companions to avoid spattering them with verbal acid. I had flown half way round the world at considerable expense to climb Carstensz Pyramid, a steep fin of limestone that rises to 16,000 feet elevation in mountainous jungle. After many delays and “guarantees” that failed to deliver, my companions and I had gotten nowhere near the mountain. The climb was over before it had begun.
I had heard that climbing Carstensz Pyramid could be challenging. Many things could go wrong and often did go wrong. However, lots of mountains are challenging. Take Mount Everest for example. Hundreds of people have died on Everest, since Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay summited it in 1953. Yet every year Everest lures hundreds more. As the highest mountain in the world, it has a certain cache, and many people have heard of it. Why, then, would anyone bother to climb a little-known, troublesome peak like Carstensz Pyramid? The short answer is the Seven Summits.
In the early 1980s a wealthy Texan businessman and amateur outdoorsman, Dick Bass, came up with the bold idea of climbing the highest peak in each of the seven continents, which he called the Seven Summits. However, some members of the mountaineering community have regarded the highest peak in Australia, Mount Kosciuszko at 7,310 feet elevation, as more of a hill than a mountain. The legendary mountaineer, Reinhold Messner, proposed that Carstensz Pyramid in Papua, Indonesia, a steep limestone fin of over 16,000 feet elevation, which he argued was the highest peak on the same tectonic plate as Australia, replace Mount Kosciuszko in the Bass list of the Seven Summits. In recent years increasing numbers of Seven Summiters have tried to climb the more challenging and inaccessible Carstensz Pyramid instead of Mount Kosciuszko. For additional details, please see the Appendix of this book and mountain guide Mike Hamill’s recently published book, “Climbing the Seven Summits.”
Why would a woman in her mid-60s who is afraid of heights risk life and limb to go to a troubled part of the world, like Papua, to climb a mountain? Why not stop with Mount Kosciuszko? Why climb at all? This book describes my reasons for wanting to climb Carstensz Pyramid, my preparation for the climb, the climb itself, and lessons learned along the way. It is based on entries in my travel journal as well as experiences as best as I can remember them. My companions may have experienced the same events and conditions differently.
I discuss some of the reasons for my involvement in high-altitude mountaineering in more detail in my first book, “No Magic Helicopter: An Aging Amazon’s Climb of Everest.” Briefly, when my life fell apart at age 50, I went to the Bolivian Andes for a break from the stress, loss, and anger I was experiencing. There I learned to climb and began to heal. I have learned some of the most powerful and valuable lessons of my life in the mountains.
One climb led to another. At age 60, I climbed Aconcagua, the highest peak in South America and my first of the Seven Summits. I had no plans to climb the entire list at that time, but the idea of climbing the highest peak in the Western Hemisphere intrigued me. Then I climbed Kilimanjaro as a test of a new fitness program I was using to prepare for trying Everest. Summiting Everest six months later was the happiest day of my life. When I returned home, a local TV reporter asked