The Sky's the Limit by Anna Magnusson

Author:Anna Magnusson [Magnusson, Anna]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Climbing, Mountaineering, Munros, women, sport, outdoors, memoir, non fiction
Publisher: Luath Press Ltd
Published: 2017-08-04T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

The Dark Mountain – Carstensz Pyramid

When we climbed over the fence our vehicles were waiting to take us back through the mine, away from the mountain. But other men with guns were also standing by the jeeps. Frankie went forward to speak to them and we could see that urgent discussions were taking place. He turned away, circled behind me and hissed in my ear, ‘Vicky, you very sick. Altitude. You sick.’

I looked at him. ‘Pardon?’

‘You have a problem. Altitude. You must be sick.’ He was hissing even louder, and casting worried glances at the men with the guns.

I realised that something had gone wrong, and we were all in danger again. Apparently the only way we were going to get out of this situation was for me to pretend to be ill. Feeling awkward, I slumped to the ground, holding my head and groaning, and rocking backwards and forwards. The rest of the team looked at me in astonishment. They had no idea what was going on.

At this point, one of the men fired his gun.

IN THE SEVEN years Vicky spent climbing the Seven Summits, on only one trip was she so badly scared that she feared for her life. This was not like the adrenalin-charged battle through the blizzard in Antarctica, or the shock of falling off the ledge on Mount McKinley, or even the serious struggle for survival in the hostile conditions on Everest. On the expedition to Carstensz Pyramid (also known as Puncak Jaya) in Papua, Indonesia, she found herself more than once in a situation where her life was in physical danger – but not from the mountain: it was the journey to and from the mountain which proved so perilous, by a route which was forbidden and which could have ended in disaster. This was the hill Vicky had been apprehensive about all along, but her concern before she went was that she knew it to be the most technically demanding of the Seven Summits, involving the ascent of what is basically a 3,000-foot mass of rock. The climb did turn out to be a challenge but she could never have imagined the dangers she would face before she ever set foot on the mountain and after she had successfully summited it.

Actually, the ascent of Carstensz could be said to have taken nine months in total because Vicky attempted it twice: once in November 2000 when the group had to turn back before they got within 50 miles of the mountain, and then the return trip in August 2001. From beginning to end, the attempt to climb the sixth of the Seven Summits was frustrated and prolonged by a mixture of political unrest in the region, bureaucracy, changes of plan and itinerary, horrible weather and a little local difficulty involving armed guards and trespassing in the world’s largest open-cast mine.

Vicky was all set to go in November 2000, just five months after her return from Mount McKinley. 2000 had been a tough year. She had come back late from the trip to Vinson, arriving in Inverness on Christmas Eve, 1999.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.