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Sunday, July 2, 2006
Climbing Pyramid is memorable experience

By NANCY HAGGERTY

When it wasn't raining, there was constant humidity. That was the jungle — day after day of it and its 100-plus-degree heat.

Then there was the mountain itself. At about 32, the temperature wasn't so bad. But there was rain, falling snow, knee-deep snow and, when the 16,223-foot summit was finally reached, an almost total lack of visibility.

For Marty Molitoris, all of this adds up to one thing: A reason to return.
Molitoris, 33, of Rosendale, the owner of Alpine Endeavors guide service and author of "An Ice Climber's Guide to the Catskill Mountains," has climbed throughout the country and in South America.

Nothing, though, has been like his recent expedition to West New Guinea's Carstensz Pyramid, one of the so-called seven summits of the world.

Already isolated by geography, strict visitor controls imposed by the Indonesian government and unpredictable hurdles like tribal conflicts and mudslides, the area is one of the world's least traveled places.
In fact, village natives, primarily the Moni, were the only people Molitoris encountered outside his small party.

"We didn't even see anybody on the mountain," Molitoris explained.
"There are guys literally still living in the Stone Age, eating potatoes, sugarcane and roots to sustain themselves," Molitoris said of the locals.
Molitoris visited the area at the urging of longtime client Amy Meredith of New Jersey, who accompanied him along with her brother, John Cutts. The siblings were raised in the area by missionary parents and Cutts, who'd never climbed before, continues to live there, doing community development work.

A main part of this mission was simple adventure. But Meredith and Cutts also wanted to spread their parents' ashes on the summit, allowing them, in a sense, to also experience it.

Molitoris and the others walked through jungle six to eight hours a day for six days, accompanied by seven natives who served as porters.
The porters led the group along hunting paths and also cut their own paths. "The maps have huge white sections ... Here is the Land of No Data Available and I'm blindly following a guy and I can't even speak his language," Molitoris joked.

Few animals at high altitude

Because of the altitude, the group didn't encounter the poisonous snakes and spiders that inhabit the lower jungle. Save for a couple of parrots, other birds and humongous butterflies, whatever was about wasn't evident.
"The jungle was so thick. You could hear things. But the canopy was so dark," said Molitoris.

The going was sometimes rough. Wearing shoes that remained wet from day one, the three had difficulty traversing slippery, fallen trees, some 10 feet off the jungle floor. Meanwhile, the porters, who led them onto the logs to avoid deep mud, used their bare feet, providing greater traction, Molitoris said.

But due to decreasing temperatures, the porters left at about 13,500 feet, as the three did the one-day walk to the 14,200-foot base camp.
"With it snowing like crazy," they failed in their first attempt to summit on April 8. After a day off, they left in the early morning dark of April 10 and again encountered bad weather, first rain, then snow.

"If it had been any worse we would have turned around," Molitoris said.
But instead they went on, rappelling, as planned, in two areas and making their way up very sharp rock and along a lengthy, two-foot-wide ridge.
Carstensz is regarded as the most technical climb of the seven summits but, despite the conditions, they succeeded.

"There was no visibility. We literally spent two minutes there," Molitoris said. With thunder rumbling below and wanting to limit their time returning in the dark, they left after the ashes were spread and photos were taken.
The round-trip, tent-to-summit-to-tent, excursion took 17 hours. The three subsequently hiked by themselves out of the jungle a different way.

Now, at the request of the natives, he tells people about their wonderful land. He's giving slide shows, with the $5 per-person entry fee being sent to villagers. Fondly remembering his interaction with the villagers and the remoteness of it all, he hopes to return next year.

"It's so different," Molitoris said. "When I came back it was like, 'Was I really there?' "

Nancy Haggerty's Without Limits column appears on Sundays in the lPoughkeepsie Journal.