He documented all his adventures in a series of novels including I Come from the Stone Age about his ascent of Carstensz Pyramid.
He was also a professional geographer, exploring the Amazon River in South America and the Congo River in Africa before leading the expedition to Carstensz Pyramid.įurthermore, he wrote 20 books in his time, a couple of which turned out to be best sellers. Interestingly, Heinrich Harrer wasn’t just an avid mountaineer, but also a Austrian national champion in golf, and almost represented Austria in downhill skiing in the 1936 Winter Olympic Games (but Austria did not compete that year). He also made the first ascent of Ausangate ( 6,384 m) in the Andes of Peru. He travelled to Alaska and became the first to summit Mount Deborah ( 3,761m), Mount Hunter ( 4,442 m) and Mount Drum ( 3,661 m). Upon his return, Harrer returned to his mountaineering expeditions. Eventually, with the war ended, and with war with Communist China looming on Tibet’s horizon, Harrer returned to Austria. It was during this time that Harrer also became the Dalai Lama’s tutor and close friend. He would eventually be drawn into doing a series of odd jobs for his Tibetan hosts, such as working as a translator, and as the official photographer of the royal court. With the Japanese being fought out of China, Harrer instead spent a total of, you guessed it, 7 years in Tibet. But after a harrowing journey best described in his famous book “7 Years in Tibet,” he managed to smuggle himself into the Tibetan capital of Lhasa, and this led to the next chapter of his life. His initial goal was to continue into Japanese occupied China, where the Japanese authorities – allied with Germany at the time – would take him in and send him home. He evaded the British-Indian authorities to head North, over the Himalayas to Tibet. Harrer managed to escape, was recaptured, and then escaped again, this time for good. When attempting to find an easier way to summit Pakistan’s Nanga Parbat in 1939, the Second World War broke out and Harrer and his team were put under arrest by the British in Dehradun in Northern India, where he would remain for 6 years. However, the glory of this victorious summit was short-lived for Harrer. This was during a time when climbing the almost completely vertical wall was banned by the authorities after so many lives had been claimed whilst trying to summit the icy peak.
Many years before his feats on Puncak Jaya in 1938, Harrer, together with friend Fritz Kasparek and fellow German mountaineers Ludwig Vörg and Anderl Heckmair, became the first to summit the North Face of the Eiger in the Bernese Alps located in western Switzerland. Heinrich Harrer always had a passion for conquering great heights. Of course this wasn’t Harrer’s first time making history in the mountaineering world. It would later become the biggest gold mine in the world.
He was also joined by a geologist Jean Jaques Dozy, who when spotting an oddly dark and green-tinged peak, realised it was a mountain of gold and copper ore. Harrer was accompanied by a diverse team including New Zealand mountaineer Philip Temple, Australian rock climber Russell Kippax and Dutch patrol officer Albertus Huizenga. Despite being able to successfully summit the first two glacier covered peaks, the expedition did not make its way to the top of Carstensz Pyramid due to the bad weather.Įventually, in 1962 Austrian mountaineer Heinrich Harrer was able to successfully lead an expedition to summit Puncak Jaya. The group of mountaineers were unable to verify which of the three summits in the range was the highest, so they attempted to climb East Carstensz, Ngga Pulu and Carstensz Pyramid. Mountaineers Anton Colijn, Frist Wissel and Jean Jacques Dozy started their journey in the then-Dutch territory known as Dutch New Guinea. Due to much misbelief that snow-capped mountains could even exist in the region, it was only in 1936 that the Dutch Carstensz Expedition began. If the first summit was completed by Heinrich Harrer, why is Puncak Jaya more commonly known as Carstensz Pyramid?Ĭontrary to popular belief at the time, Dutch seafarer Jan Carstensz was the first to discover the snow-capped mountain along the equator in 1623. Mount Everest may be the world’s tallest mountain, but Southeast Asia’s Carstensz Pyramid is considered the world’s most challenging climb! Rising 4,884m (16,024ft) above sea level, Carstensz Pyramid is the highest mountain in all of Indonesia and the 5 th highest mountain in Southeast Asia following the mountains in Himalayan region of Myanmar.