As part of his Seven Summits challenge, Lorenzo Gariano was scheduled to climb Carstensz Pyramid on Irian Jaya, Indonesia in early December 2006. Carstensz Pyramid was first climbed in the 1960s by the legendary mountaineer Heinrich Harrer. Lorenzo climbed with Cliff Dargonne, who summited Everest from Nepal in 2003 when Lorenzo was climbing Lhotse. They were accompanied by two guides.
Spaniard Ynigo Ortiz de Retes, in 1545, gave the name Nueva Guinea to a strip of land on the north coast of the world's second largest island (Greenland being the largest). That island is now half Indonesian, half Papua New Guinean territory. Irian Jaya, the western half of the island, is Indonesia's biggest province of about 410 thousand square kilometers, representing almost 21 percent of the country's total land area. More than 75 percent of the land is covered by dense tropical forests.
A central East-West mountain range, over 1600 km long, dominates the geography; the western section is around 600km long and 100km across. Steep mountains above 3000m high along the range ensures a steady supply of rain from the tropical atmosphere. Lorenzo's target, Puncak Jaya (Carstensz Pyramid) is the tallest mountain at 4884m. The tree line is around 4000m elevation and despite being close to the equator, the tallest peaks are snowbound year round.
Lorenzo and team successfully summited on 15th December 2006 at around 02:00 GMT.
Most recent recording Sat 23 Dec 2006 01:50 UK time.
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