Normal route

Page Type Page Type: Route
Location Lat/Lon: 4.0833°S / 137.18330°E
Additional Information Route Type: Scramble with technical Rock climbing in parts
Additional Information Time Required: A long day
Additional Information Difficulty: 5.10 & scrambling
Sign the Climber's Log

Approach


Starting from Basecamp you walk up and down the ridge separating the BC valley from the valley at the bottom of Carstensz.

Route Description


Traverse the valley until the 'sandy' spot at the bottom of the cliff. There are (old) fixed ropes up the first part which is already quite steep (75degrees) after this part there is a long stretch of scrambling with every now and then a steeper move. Can be done with or without ropes depending on your skills and nerves.

Two/thirds up the mountain you will cimb onto a flatter, scree, part. Follow the obvious line to the right and scramble all the way up to the western part of the summit ridge. You can see the mine from here and look down the Southern side for the first time.

On the (narrow and sharp!) summit ridge you will encounter a few cracks: the first one is only a few feet wide and a few meters deep. Too wide to jump safely though, so abseil down and climb up again. Continue along the ridge until the biggest gap. Abseil down and don't forget to leave the rope for the retreat! It's quite difficult getting up again otherwise.
Here you have two choices: climb up right away ofr traverse for another 100meters and climb up then (easier). When you climbed up you will soon encounter another gap: again not to wide (a few meters) but very deep! Enjoy the vertigo...
There might be some old ropes crossing this gap, make sure these are ok before you use them, because every mistake is fatal here.

Continue along the even sharper ridge and cross the last of the gaps: same story as the last one: narrow but deep and lethal...

Scramble up and over the ridge and continue on the sout side of it. You can now see the summit for the first time, continue towards it and scramble all the way to the summit over loose (!) scree. You have made it to the summit of one of the 7 summits!

Essential Gear


Full rockclimbing gear, depending on skills! So including plenty of rope, including some to leave at the gaps.
An ascender/jumar is very handy for climbing up again when you are tired or not skillful enough.
The climbing can be done on mountaineering boots; you can bring rockclimbing shoes for other routes, but beware of frostbite and falling off the ridge!

Also bring warm and rainproof clothes, it is not uncommon to encounter rain or snow. The weather is quite nasty up there.

The rock is extremely sharp, so cheap leather working gloves are perfect to protect your hands.

Miscellaneous Info


If you have information about this route that doesn't pertain to any of the other sections, please add it here.


Parents 

Parents

Parents refers to a larger category under which an object falls. For example, theAconcagua mountain page has the 'Aconcagua Group' and the 'Seven Summits' asparents and is a parent itself to many routes, photos, and Trip Reports.