How to get there:
To get to Papua, you need to fly to Port Moresby. The national airline,
Air Niugini is the only airline serving the country and tickets are generally
quite expensive.
From Port Moresby, continue with a domestic flight to the town of Mount Hagen, the third
largest city in Papua. This flight is one hour. The most convenient way to have a supported
climb is to organize this via Betty. She has been running Betty's Lodge supporting climbers
since 1996. Her email is xxx@gmail.com. Her Whatsapp is yyyyy.
Her lodge is located at S05.816571, E145.087402, elevation slightly below 2800 meter. This is
also a good trailhead. From Mount Hagen, you first drive the main Hwy. signed for Lae.
Turn left at Kundiawa, location S6.018076, E144.972074.
From here, a high clearance car is recommended.
Turn left again near location S05.8839, E145.0886. The last small village is called Keglsugl,
location S05.8330, E145.1023, the road to Betty's lodge forks left here.
This last part of
the road required a 4WD in 2023.
Betty will organize transport from Mount Hagen if requested.
In 2023, Betty was
building a new, larger lodge.
It was near completed and will
likely be available in 2024.
Route:
From Betty's Lodge, (the old one)
head up the steps just right of
her hot water boiler.
Cross to the left side of a fence and follow it uphill. The trail continues and soon
meets "the main trail", turn right here. The trail follows a small ridge, then zig-zags uphill
eventually gaining more open grass areas ascending a final section left of a small waterfall
to the lower lake.
Bettys base camp huts are located slightly higher to the left. The main
hut being an A-frame construction.
This location is
S05.792865, E145.057846, elevation near 3590 meter.
The normal climb will stay overnight here, Betty will provide meals at this hut. There are
matresses, but climbers are supposed to bring their own sleeping bags.
The summit route continues from the lake along a trail on its left side. Next, an ascent to the
upper lake, then more ascent followed by an ascending traverse right will reach a local
col on the main crest. The route now continues below this crest passing several summit points,
two with some small antennas, finally turning left and the summit of Mount Wilhelm comes
into view, quite close. The final ascent requires some (YDS) class 3 climbing, the crux
section can be bypassed in a tunnel under a large boulder (class 2). There are a few easy
class 3 sections also along the route before the final summit block.
Comments:
Pål and I left Bergen, Norway, on June 6th. Our trip back to PNG was a 10th.
anniversary since our great adventure in 2012 and 2014, when we made a first ascent
of the most prominent, unclimbed peak in the world, Mount Boising.
After 5 flights, we arrived in Mount Hagen around 0930 on June 8th. Betty came to the
airport to pick us up. Raphael, that would organize our second climb, Mount Giluwe,
was also there. I had made a money transfer to him, but the PNG bank, BSP, had not yet
cleared the transfer. This was a slight concern since we had agreed that Raphael would also
pay Betty. We made a visit to the bank, but obviously, patience was the only way forward.
Next, we drove to Betty. She had hired a Landcruiser, the last section of the road was
in pretty bad shape and such a vehicle is really needed. We had nice trout for dinner,
directly from Betty's trout farm. Breakfast was
scheduled for 0800 and we planned to start our hike at 0900.
The trek from Betty to the camp site was quite easy, we walked on a good trail with
no rush and arrived at the A-frame hut that Betty owns after about 2.5 hours. Bettys lodge
is near 2800 m of elevation while the camp is near 3600 m, thus about 800 m of vertical
gain. We had one porter and one guide, additionally Betty sent up a young woman that would
cook and serve our meals.
The next morning, we left at 0415.
I had requested 0500, since hiking in the dark is really no fun. One could be
anywhere, we like to see the nature and the peaks when here in PNG. However, there
was talk from the locals all night, they did not seem to sleep and obviously were
eager to get going. Our guide came into our room and announced breakfast already
before 0400.
This meant almost 2 hours with torch light hiking, we made the main crest before
daylight. There, we caught up with a party that included a man from Finland. We never
met them again, so they must have turned back before the summit.
We continued below the crest and scrambled the last few meter to arrive on top
of Wilhelm at 0755, so 3:40 up. Good weather and nice views all around.
We stayed on top about 25 minutes before descending. We had met several local people
just before the summit, nice to see that this peak is popular also with people from
PNG.
The return hike was nice and we arrived back at camp around
1110. Lunch was served and we enjoyed a long, sunny rest. Finally leaving,
we descended back down to Betty in 1:50 hours.
Another trout dinner, then good sleep, the plan was to start driving
back to Mount Hagen the next day at 0900. We had lunch together in
Mount Hagen after meeting Raphael. Then goodbye to Betty, a woman with
vision and energy, her activity employs 30 people. She did remember that
I called her on my satellite phone from Gwarawon, back in 2014. At that
time looking into a possible climb provided that we could get a bush plane
to fly us directly from Gwarawon to Mount Hagen. This did not work and we
ended up using our last days in 2014 walking back to the coast.
