Brightest of Silver Linings: Climbing Carstensz Pyramid In Papua At Age 65. Carol Masheter
They wanted to discuss it further. There is nothing more to discuss. Let’s move on, I thought impatiently. While the others sat listlessly sipping their drinks, my engines were racing. If I was going to figure out how to get to Australia and climb Mount Kosciuszko before meeting the press at the airport in Salt Lake in a few days, I needed to get on it – now.
Everything seemed to move in slow motion. Kevin said we could do nothing more today. He arranged for a driver to take us to a secure compound of restaurants and shops outside Timika. It was nice of Kevin to do this for us, as we all were sick of Timika. However, after we arrived, all I could do was walk in circles like a caged lion. Feeling an eruption of angry frustration building in my chest, I walked to the edge of the forest out of earshot from the others and roared into the nearby trees. It didn’t help; I felt no better. I wanted to be anywhere but here. I was bad company for my companions and myself. I knew it and felt bad about it, but my dark mood would not lift.
Blessings in Disguise
Back home in Salt Lake City I tried to reframe my disappointment and frustration about the aborted Carstensz Pyramid climb. If the other team members and the guide had been so reluctant to try the jungle hike, perhaps they had saved me from myself and my compulsion to complete a project, I reasoned.
A few weeks later Mountain Trip refunded less than half of what I had paid them. My anger bubbled up again, pulling me back into frustrations I had just started to move past. Mountain Trip claimed they had had “expenses.” I was sure the trip had cost them something, but I did not see how these “expenses” could add up to 9,500 USD. I considered suing them. However, I did not want a reputation among mountain guide companies as a trouble maker. I was angry, but I was also ready to put this experience behind me and try to find another Carstensz Pyramid expedition to join.
I learned that Adventure Consultants was planning a Carstensz Pyramid expedition in August, 2012. When I emailed them, they replied that their expedition was already full, but they could put me on a waiting list. This was too ironic. Their March trip had collapsed, after climbers had dropped out. Now I could not get on their August trip.
I wanted more certainty than being wait-listed, so I did an Internet search for other Carstensz Pyramid expeditions. International Mountain Guides (IMG) had a Carstensz Pyramid expedition beginning in early July, 2012. I had climbed both Aconcagua and Kilimanjaro with IMG in 2007. Both climbs had been good experiences. When I emailed IMG, they said they had room for me on their July Carstensz Pyramid expedition. I was back in the game!
IMG offered only the jungle hike option. Like Adventure Consultants, they had tried the helicopter option and had found it to be too unreliable. IMG described the jungle hike as a “real adventure.” On my March trip to Papua our guide’s descriptions of the jungle hike’s dangers had filled me with dread. Yet pictures on the IMG website intrigued me. Images of exotic forests, their trees furred with emerald green moss, climbers caked with mud grinning for the camera with barefoot Papuans fanned the embers of my decades-old dream of having a jungle experience. Clearly, IMG’s marketing of the jungle hike worked on me.
With only three months to prepare, I got right on it. I sold enough mutual funds to pay for the IMG expedition. I found airline tickets to Denpasar, Bali, where the expedition members would meet, at a good price and bought them. I read IMG’s training notes written by Jason Edwards, who had led several Carstensz Pyramid expeditions via the jungle hike. Jason wrote:
“Think of Carstensz Pyramid as the ultimate CrossFit or adventure challenge course in the world....we will jump, leap, slip on roots, drop suddenly hip deep into mud, have to balance on 30 foot historic stick bridges, which present opportunities for unexpected twists, strains, over-stretching, and various soft-tissue injuries. Being flexible is one of the most important things you can do to prepare for travelling through this kind of terrain.”
My anxiety began to resurface. I was not sure my 65-year-old body was up to the challenges Jason described. I had a bit of wear-and-tear arthritis and tendonitis in my knees as well as facet arthritis in my lower back. My balance and agility had diminished over the years. Deterioration in my depth perception had compromised my ability to estimate distances, especially while down climbing and jumping across gaps. Would I be able to keep up with the rest of the team through the jungle? I wondered. Are my rock climbing skills good enough to reach the summit?
Jason’s experience gave him a lot of credibility, so I took his training suggestions to heart. To counter my anxiety, I trained regularly at a local gym and increased the difficulty of my workouts. I added an agility drill of my own design to help prepare myself for the jungle hike. At the gym I set a bench-press bar crotch high, then practiced climbing under and over it as quickly as possible, first in my running shoes, then in my mud boots and while carrying my climbing pack loaded with increasing amounts of weight.
For the summit climb I sharpened my skills on actual rock. Starting in late spring, when my friends started climbing outside, I joined them. My climbs were embarrassingly awkward and unskilled. I was shocked by how much I had forgotten about climbing rock, something I had done regularly a decade previously. What had happened? How had my skills deteriorated so much? Duh, I reminded myself, when I had not practiced speaking the little French, Spanish, or Hindi I knew, it had slipped into less accessible corners of my mind. Why would rock climbing be any different? I realized that the opportunity to climb outside on rock before another try at Carstensz Pyramid could be a blessing in disguise from the failed March trip.
My climber friends were patient and did not seem to judge me, as I crept timidly up easy climbs. When climbing once a week did not improve my skills, I hired Anna Keeling, a local, certified mountain guide. Anna and I were about the same height, but she was leaner, more muscular, stronger, and at least 20 years younger than I. Though I was fit and strong for a woman of my age, next to Anna I felt like a weakling with too much fat around my middle. Friends later told me that Anna was a nationally rated mountain bike racer and expert skier who certified other professional guides. She was too modest to mention these impressive accomplishments.
Anna was patient with my hesitant climbing. On one steep wall, I gouged my knee, as I lunged for a hand hold. The knee bled, dripping down my leg and onto the rock face. It was not serious, just messy, but that day it freaked me out. I froze, unable to get my mind in gear and find holds I could trust. My anxiety grew from a dull buzz to a shrill scream inside my head, I’m scared, I can’t do this, I hate climbing, why am I doing this!? Though I had not said a word aloud, Anna read me like a book. She called down, “Carol, you have to get your game face on and just do it.” She was right. I clinched my teeth and made a move, then another, and another. It wasn’t pretty, but I got up that climb.
Over the weeks, my confidence waxed and waned like some kind of weird moon. During the waning phases, I felt unqualified to climb Carstensz Pyramid and wondered whether I had been nuts to sign up for it. During the waxing phases, I told myself, I just need to tell the negative self-talk to shut up and get on with my training. A new climbing friend, Ellen Leis, and Anna both said my climbing was slow but okay. Their assessment helped prevent my self-doubt from overwhelming me.
My short rock climbs helped refresh my skills, but I needed a dress rehearsal for the long day of climbing on summit day. I wanted to practice wearing the leather belay gloves and the mountain boots I planned to use on Carstensz Pyramid, which would be too cold to climb with bare hands and light-weight rock climbing shoes. The West Slabs on Mount Olympus in the Wasatch Mountains near where I live was a logical choice. Though this route was rated only 5.5 according to the Yosemite rating system, and was easier than the normal Carstensz Pyramid route, the West Slabs ascends 1,600 vertical feet and could take all day, like Carstensz Pyramid. About two weeks before I left for Papua, I arranged to climb the West Slabs with Alex LeMieux, another local, certified guide, as Anna had already left for New Zealand, where she, her husband, and their young son lived for six months of the year.
Alex and I started early in the morning. Our approach to the climb involved a bit of bushwhacking and route finding. After a couple of minor wrong turns, we scrambled up a shady couloir (a narrow, mountainside gully) with patches of hard, steep snow, then to the base of the climb, where we each tied into a 60-meter rope. What I could see