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The massive, open cut Grasberg gold and copper mine, the world's second-largest gold mine, is four kilometres (2+1⁄2 miles) west of Puncak Jaya.
Other summits are East Carstensz Peak (4,808 m [15,774 ft]), Sumantri (4,870 m [15,980 ft]) and Ngga Pulu (4,863 m [15,955 ft]). Other names include Nemangkawi in the Amungkal language, Carstensz Toppen and Gunung Soekarno.[3] It is also the highest point between the Himalayas and the Andes.
Etymology
The name of the mountain in the indigenous Amungme peoples' language is Nemangkawi Ninggok meaning Peak of the White Arrow. The name Puncak Jaya is Indonesian for 'Glorious Peak'. It is also known as the Carstensz Pyramid, Mount Jayawijaya, or Mount Carstensz.
History
The highlands surrounding the peak were inhabited before European contact, and the peak is known as Nemangkawi in Amungkal.
Dutch discovery
Puncak Jaya was named "Carstensz Pyramid" after Dutch explorer Jan Carstenszoon, who was the first European to sight the glaciers on the peak of the mountain on a rare clear day in 1623.[4] The sighting went unverified for over two centuries, and Carstensz was ridiculed in Europe when he said he had seen snow near the equator. It appeared on maps of the time as Sneebergh.[5]
While Puncak Jaya's peak is free of ice, there are several glaciers on its slopes, including the Carstensz Glacier, West Northwall Firn, East Northwall Firn and the recently vanished Meren Glacier in the Meren Valley (meren is Dutch for "lakes").[9]
Being equatorial, there is little variation in the mean temperature during the year (around 0.5 °C [0.90 °F]) 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, around the time of the Little Ice Age Maximum which primarily affected the Northern Hemisphere, indicating a regional warming of around 0.6 °C (1.1 °F) per century between 1850 and 1972.
The glacier on Puncak Trikora in the Maoke Mountains disappeared completely some time between 1939 and 1962.[10] 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.[9]
An expedition led by paleoclimatologist Lonnie Thompson in 2010 found that the glaciers are disappearing at a rate of seven metres (23 ft) thickness per year and in 2018 they were predicted to vanish in the 2020s.[11][12]
The highland area in 2005, with the Grasberg copper mine pit in the foreground. Its summit is at the far end of the central rib.
Puncak Jaya is one of the more demanding climbs in one version of the Seven Summits, despite having the lowest elevation. It is held to have the highest technical rating, though not the greatest physical demands of that list's ascents.
The standard route to climb the peak from its base camp is up the north face and along the summit ridge, which is all hard rock surface.[14] Despite the large mine, the area is highly inaccessible to hikers and the general public. The standard route to access base camp as of 2013 is to fly into the nearest major town with an airport, Timika, and then take a small aircraft over the mountain range and onto an unimproved runway at one of the local villages far down from the peak. It is then typically a five-day hike via the Jungle route to the base camp through very dense rainforest and with regular rainfall, making the approach probably the "most miserable" of the Seven Summits. Rain during most days of the hike inbound and out are not uncommon. Unlike the other Seven Summits, if one sustains an injury on the inbound hike, there is little or no ability to get rescued via helicopter. Anyone injured must evacuate by foot over very difficult and slippery terrain.
The descent from the peak's base camp can take three to four days. Anecdotally, it appears most injuries occur during the descent due to a combination of exhaustion and difficulty controlling hiking speed on the wet and slippery terrain.
An additional complication is relatively common work strikes by the climbing porters that accompany most expeditions, occasionally halting their work to demand (and usually receive) higher pay before agreeing to continue. The one-day summit bid is technically challenging for those with little rock climbing experience, and it can be quite cold with temperatures at or below freezing near the summit. Patches of snow sometimes appear on the route up or on the ropes of the Tyrolean traverse just below the summit.
In 1936, the Dutch Carstensz expedition, unable to establish definitively which of the three summits was the highest, attempted to climb each. Anton Colijn, Jean Jacques Dozy, and Frits Wissel reached both the glacier-covered East Carstensz and Ngga Pulu summits on December 5, but, due to bad weather, failed in their attempts to climb the bare Carstensz Pyramid. Because of extensive snow melt, Ngga Pulu has become a 4,862 m (15,951 ft) subsidiary peak, but it has been estimated that in 1936 (when glaciers still covered 13 km2 (5.0 sq mi) of the mountain; see map) Ngga Pulu was indeed the highest summit, reaching over 4,900 m (16,100 ft).[15]
The now-highest Carstensz Pyramid summit was not climbed until 1962, by an expedition led by the Austrian mountaineer Heinrich Harrer, New Zealand mountaineer Philip Temple, Australian rock climber Russell Kippax, and Dutch patrol officer Albertus (Bert) Huizenga. Temple had previously led an expedition into the area and pioneered the access route to the mountains.[16]
When Indonesia took control of the province in 1963, the peak was renamed Poentja' Soekarno (Simplified Indonesian: Puncak Sukarno) or Sukarno Peak, after the then-President of IndonesiaSukarno; later this was changed to Puncak Jaya due to the subsequent de-Sukarnoization. Puncak means peak or mountain and Jaya means 'victory', 'victorious', or 'glorious'. The name Carstensz Pyramid is still used among mountaineers.[17]
Access
Access to the peak requires a government permit. The mountain was closed to tourists and climbers between 1995 and 2005. As of 2006, access is possible through various adventure tourism agencies.[18] Despite being among the lowest of the Seven Summits, Puncak Jaya is considered to be a technically difficult climb, requiring extensive planning, acclimatisation, mountaineering skills, and support services, due to its remoteness and sheer limestone faces. Located in an isolated area of central Papua, there are no nearby facilities, and climbers have the option to take a helicopter to the base camp and reach the summit within three to four days, or spend an additional four to five days to trek to base camp from the nearest town, Sugapa.[19]
Incidents
In 2016, Erik Airlangga died of hypothermia while attempting the peak after getting caught in extreme weather.[20]
In 2017, Ahmad Hadi died of hypoxemia while climbing the peak.[21]
In the 2024 climbing season, two climbers died while attempting the summit. The first died of a suspected heart attack on 29 September. The second climber, Chinese mountaineer Dong Fei died of a fall while on the descent.[22]
^The elevation given here was determined by the 1971–73 Australian Universities' ExpeditionArchived 3 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine and is supported by the Seven Summits authorities and modern high resolution radar data. An older but still often quoted elevation of 5,030 metres (16,503 ft) is obsolete.
^Wang, Shan-shan; Veettil, Bijeesh Kozhikkodan (1 March 2018). "State and fate of the remaining tropical mountain glaciers in australasia using satellite imagery". Journal of Mountain Science. 15 (3): 495–503. doi:10.1007/s11629-017-4539-0. ISSN1993-0321. S2CID135211598.
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