Tuktuai Peak
- Tuktuai Peak (Mount Bondewit?)
- 3889 m.
- Primary factor: 819 m
- Finisterre, Papua New Guinea
- Location: South 5:59.422, East 146:29.582 (GPS at the summit)
- Difficulty: (YDS) class 2+
- Climbed June 4, 2012.
Tuktuai Peak
|
|
How to get there:
This is indeed not simple. The only reasonable starting point is the
town of Madang in Papua New Guinea.
Flying there tends to be expensive.
One may perhaps be able to continue with a small airplane (or helicopter?) to
the village of Teptep. However, after first providing a quote the local airline MAF
turned around and refused to do the flights, see more details in the trip report.
Route description:
In order to walk to Teptep, one must first get to the
village of Malalamai on
the Rai coast of Finisterre.
This can be done by chartering
a small, open boat (called a dingy),
with an outboard engine. This crossing requires reasonably good conditions, the trip is
about 30 kilometer across open sea, then 80 more kilometer along the Rai coast.
From Malalamai, one can follow the
main (and only!) trail that the native use to walk to Teptep.
This trail is mostly (except for the start)
a very rough jungle trail. The trail ascends to
almost 3000 meter of elevation
before descending to the Teptep village.
A party in good shape
for hiking in rough terrain can do this trek in about 15 hours.
That is, at least one overnight stop is required.
From Teptep, one can ascend the jungle slopes that
connects with the high range of the Finisterre mountains.
This requires a local guide that is capable
of finding a way through the jungle. A fair amount of
cutting the way with a proper machete knife will be needed.
There are several smaller jungle trails, but due to
infrequent use, they do not always connect.
The jungle is so dense that a GPS unit will not work, visibility is
limited and navigation is generally difficult.
Once above the treeline,
navigation becomes more obvious,
but progress is still difficult because of extended
patches of high grass (and small bushes) that cover
a very rough ground having numerous holes. Hiking here is
somewhat similar to walking on deep snow with variable layers of crust.
Very difficult to predict what the next
step will be like. The terrain is easier as you
reach higher elevation, but the remaining distance to the peak
is then quite small.
Comments:
I did this climb with my
son Pål Jørgen. Additionally,
our party consisted of chief Dopeke Dakop and
one porter. Our main objective was to climb
the highest peak in
the Finisterre range, however this turned out
to be beyond our capacity, due to a combination of several factors.
This trip will be more fully documented in
a separate trip report.
Comments 2014:
The Nankina people claim that the border to the Teptep area follows
a river they call Kom (means water in Nankina). They list a mountain
they call Mount Bondewit, then Mount Kawam, then Mount Boising and indicate
that the Nankina river originates between Mount Bondewit and Mount Kawam.
I shall investigate this more closely, but this information may indicate that
we actually climbed Mount Bondewit.
Credits:
Credits are due to professor Olaf H. Smedal for providing
me with some initial information that made me continue
the research and actually decide to carry out this trip.
Mr. Jonathan Bluhdorn, an Australian volunter with
the Madang Visitors & Cultural Bureau,
carried out invaluable local research, beyond what one normally would expect. Without his
optimistic advice, the trip would not have been possible.
The Bergen Turlag, DNT (Bergen mountaineering club) for
providing me with one of their Irridium satelite phones.
Critics:
Strong critisism is hereby issued to the Chinese Embassy, Via Travel Agency and MAF, their behavior and actions caused
serious financial loss and seriously contributed to our failure in achieving the main objective.
This is all expanded and better explained at the end of the trip report.
