PUNCAK JAYA

'Puncak Jaya' (IPA: ), sometimes called 'Mount Carstensz' or the 'Carstensz Pyramid', is the highest mountain on the island of New Guinea, on the Australia-New Guinea continent and in Oceania. It is the highest point between the Himalayas and the Andes and the highest island peak in the world. The peak is located in what is variously called the Sudirman Range or the ''Dugunduguoo'', in the western central highlands of Papua, the Indonesian western half of the island, and is the highest peak in the country.

Contents

History

Access

Glaciers

Climbing

External links

References

History

Puncak Jaya was originally called 'Carstensz Pyramid', after Dutch explorer Jan Carstensz who first sighted the glaciers on the peak of the mountain on a rare clear day in 1623 (Carstensz was ridiculed in Europe when he said he had seen snow near the equator). This name is still used among mountaineers. Although the snowfield of Puncak Jaya was reached as early as 1909 by a Dutch explorer, Hendrik A. Lorentz, the peak was not climbed until 1962, by an expedition led by the Austrian mountaineer Heinrich Harrer (of ''Seven Years in Tibet'' fame) with three friends — Temple, Kippax and Huizenga.
When Indonesia took control of the province in the 1960s, the peak was renamed 'Puntjak Soekarno' (Simplified Indonesian: Puncak Sukarno) or Sukarno Peak, after the first President of Indonesia, later this was changed to Puncak Jaya. ''Puncak'' means peak or mountain and ''Jaya'' means 'victory', 'victorious' or 'glorious').

Access

Access to the peak requires a government permit. As of 2006, access is possible through various adventure tourism agencies ^[2].

Glaciers

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While Puncak Jaya’s peak is free of ice, there are several glaciers on its slopes, including the Carstensz Glacier, the Meren Glacier (gone by 2000), and the Northwall Firn. Being equatorial, there is little variation in the mean temperature during the year (around 0.5°C) and the glaciers fluctuate on a seasonal basis only slightly. However, analysis of the extent of these rare equatorial glaciers from historical records show significant retreat since the 1850s, indicating a regional warming of around 0.6° C per century between 1850 and 1972.
The glacier on Puncak Trikora in the Pegunungan Maoke disappeared completely some time between 1939 and 1962^[3]. Since the 1970s, evidence from satellite imagery indicates the Puncak Jaya glaciers have been retreating rapidly. The Meren Glacier melted away sometime between 1994 and 2000^[4].

Climbing

Puncak Jaya is one of the more demanding of the two principal Seven Summits peak-bagging lists. It is held to have the highest technical rating, though not the greatest physical demands of that list's ascents. The standard route is up the north face and along the summit ridge, which is all hard rock surface. Despite the large mine, the area is highly inaccessible to hikers and the general public, requiring a 100-km hike from the nearest town with an airport, Timika, to the base camp, which usually takes about four or five days each way.

External links

★ Puncak Jaya on Peakware

★ Puncak Jaya on Peakbagger

References

1. The elevation given here was determined by the 1971-73 Australian Universities' Expedition and is supported by the Seven Summits authorities and modern high resolution radar data. An older but still often quoted elevation of is obsolete.
2.
Seven Summits Page
3. Glaciers of Irian Jaya, Indonesia and New Zealand Ian Allison and James A. Peterson
4. Retreat of the Irian Jaya Glaciers from 2000 to 2002 as Measured from IKONOS Satellite Images Joni L. Kincaid and Andrew G. Klein