Mt Wilhelm & Mt Giluwe, PNG, 30th Sept 17

Mount Wilhelm and Mount Giluwe, Papua New Guinea

30th September – 15th October 2017

Leader: Carrie Gibson

13th October

Carrie has sent some great photos of the team’s adventures on Mt Wilhelm and Mt Giluwe

9th October

The team transferred over to the lodge yesterday. This was quite a challenging journey involving quite a bit of bumpy off road travel. Today the team had a relaxing walk up to base camp of Mt Wilhelm. They will set off at 2am loacal time for their summit bid. They are hoping it will take around 5 hours to reach the summit. Hopefully the weather is more kind to them compared to what they experienced on Mt Giluwe.

6th October

Carrie has texted to say the team reached the summit of Mt Giluwe this morning. Yesterday was a very long day especially after the challenging conditions on Mt Hagen. Jaime decided to head back 2 hours in to the walk to Mt Giluwe BC, having not recovered from the previous day’s walk. It took the rest of the team 10 hours to reach the Giluwe base camp with a lot of ascent and descent along the ridge. This morning they set off just after 8am, after a night of rain. They were rewarded with the occasional sunny burst through the clouds. They reached the summit in under 3 hours. Unfortunately the weather closed in at the summit, so they didn’t manage to get any spectacular views; very Scottish according to Carrie. After returning to base camp the intensity of the rain has increased, so the walk back to the road head will be arduous. However the thought of a nice hot shower and a comfy bed for the night is always a good moral booster after attaining a summit.

4th October

We walked through the rainforest today over fallen trees, through the mud and up some very steep steps made out of the tree roots. We spotted some birds, which we named a green pigeon, and then a bird of paradise as well as some orchids. The forest eventually opened out and we walked up on the grassy slops until we reached our high point of 3660m on Mt Hagen and enjoyed clear views around including Mt Giluwe, tomorrow’s destination.

2nd October

There is no denying it Papua New Guinea is a long way away! That said, even after our four flights we have all arrived with our luggage! I had envisioned Mt Hagen airport to be a small shed similar to Lukla (Nepal) and to arrive on a small prop plane. There has been a significant investment into the airport and everything looks very well cared for.  We arrived on a Fokker 100 which covered the 300 miles from Port Moresby in about 50 minutes. There is none of the hustle and bustle of arriving at other airports as only those with tickets are allowed through the gates of the car park.

Our hotel in Mt Hagen serves great food and is a very comfortable place to reset our time clocks.

Will send you a team shot tomorrow!

Find out more about our Mount Wilhelm and Mount Giluwe Expeditions here