An Intro: Mt. Kosciusko vs. Carstensz Pyramid

As some of you might know, there are two different Seven Summit lists: the original Bass List and the Messner List. These two lists differ only in one way: their Oceania summit. Dick Bass, when he first climbed the Seven Summits, selected Kosciusko as Oceania’s summit since it is the highest peak of Australia. Reinhold Messner argued later that the continent of Oceania included several other higher peaks, the biggest of which was Carstensz Pyramid—a very technically difficult granite peak in the province of Western Papua in Indonesia. Most Seven Summit climbers do only Kosciusko, which, at a height of 2,228m, is a cake-walk. Roughly 30% of Seven Summit aspirants climb Carstensz Pyramid instead of in addition to Kosciusko. I plan on doing both of these mountains this month. I leave now for Sydney, Australia, which is about 7 hours from the base of Kosciusko. A week later,  I will fly to Bali to prepare for my assault on Carstensz Pyramid. Hopefully, by the end of the month I will have knocked off both of the Oceania peaks.