Update: Bali

Heres a few more photos from Carstensz! Almost everyone is travelling home now…or off to climb Kosiosco in Australia! Moises, Veronique and I are all that’s left of the team as of last night. Moises and I had a great paddlesurf session this morning on the reef off the beach here at the Sanur Beach Hotel. Really amazing place. Scott reporting from Bali.

near the summit

sanur beach

scott and moises on ridge

moises and veronique at the sanur beach hotel

ngga pulu second highest peak

The Team is in Bali!

Yahoo, everyone is here or starting their journey home. We are all happy to be here after a very long day of flight connections on our way back from Papua. Everything went as scheduled leaving Nabire, stopping in Kaimana, Ambon, Udang, Makassar, then Bali! We were impressed with the very nice airplanes we had while flying with Lion Air and Wings Air. We’llbe having a celebration dinner here at the hotel on the beach later!
Scott Reporting from Bali, Indonesia.

flying across indonseia

flying over bali at sunset

leaving papua

Successful Carstensz Team in Nabire!

We had a long day today, which began at Carstensz Base Camp and ended with us making it all the way to Nabire! The whole team flew out this morning via 4 helicopter flights to the small jungle village of Sugapa. From there we had a chartered Twin Otter take us across Papua to the frontier settlement of Nabire. This little town definitely feels like a very remote corner of the world, but lo-and-behold, it has internet!

So, we spent a total of 5 days and 4 nights up at Base Camp, which resulted in everyone summiting during two great summit days back to back.  Our good luck held, and the weather did as well, so we had good day for flights out as well!  It is a rare occasion on a Carstensz expedition that, not only does all your travel and logistics stay on schedule, but you are actually ahead of schedule!  The whole team is very happy right now, and we only have only one more day of flying before we are on the beach in Bali!

I will post more photos and some video when we arrive tomorrow as the internet here is challenging at best! It is now 11pm and we are all ready to crash tonight!

Scott Woolums reporting from Nabire, West Papua, Indonesia.

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Audio Dispatch from Nabire Part 2

Here’s the continuation of Scott’s call from Nabire this evening.

Audio Post from Nabire #1

The team flew out from base camp back to Sugapa today in 4 helicopter flights, and continued on by charter flight to the town of Nabire on the northern coast of Papua.   Everything went amazingly well to get the entire team out in one day considering all of the logistics, and moving parts involved.   They’ll be spending the night in Nabire tonight, and catching regular commercial flights back to Bali tomorrow.   They covered a lot of ground today, and saw a lot of the jungle, highlands of Papua.   Everyone is thrilled to be moving on after a super successful trip.

Here’s the first half of the call tonight, Scott was cut off, and called back, so look to the next post for the rest of his evening dispatch from Nabire.

Another Summit!!

Scott called from the top of Oceania once again!  The second team, consisting of Jon Reiter, Michael Crowley and Moises Nava all stood on summit of Carstensz Pyramid on a beautiful, clear day.  They made very good time to the summit and all climbed very well.

Congratulations to the team!!  Six climbers reached the top, and Scott Woolums summitted twice.  This was Scott’s fourth rotation of reaching the Seven Summits, and with two summits, he might well be the first person to have climbed the Seven Summits FIVE times!  We’ll await confirmation…

Here is Scott, calling from the top of Carstensz:

Team #1 back to Base Camp!

Here’s Scott’s call after returning from a very successful summit day on Carstensz!   Alan, Chuck, Veronique, Scott and our Indonesian guide Jimmy all reached the top, and are back down in base camp enjoying a beautiful day.