The well-known American Erik Weihenmayer, who in 2001 became the first blind person to summit Everest, has recently climbed Carstensz Pyramid in Indonesia. This completes his odyssey on the seven main continental summits (Everest, Aconcagua, Denali, Elbrus, Vinson, Kilimanjaro and Carstensz, though Weihenmayer had also ascended Kosciuszko, which is sometimes substituted for Carstensz).

Weihenmayer's compatriots for this venture were Hans Florine and Charley Mace, and on the day of the ascent all three Americans with a local guide left Base Camp at 2.40am, started the technical climbing on the limestone face in the dark, and reached the summit in around four hours. The main difficulties occur on the exposed summit ridge but it is possible to bypass the crux pitch via a c20m Tyrolean, which the team did.

The four took a little longer to complete the descent but still made it back to base camp in a round trip of 10½ hours. It was a rare clear and dry day on Carstensz, rain only starting to fall 30 minutes after arrival back at camp. Their Indonesian guide, who had climbed the mountain about eight times previously, said that this was only the second ascent he'd made in the dry.

Weihenmayer lost his sight at the age of 13 due to the degenerative eye disorder retinoscheses. The long jungle approach to the mountain had been so difficult, and potentially dangerous for him, that the team decided to charter a helicopter to make their escape. However, while waiting, Florine and Mace took the opportunity to establish what they believe is a new route in the centre of the North Face.

Leaving the tents at 6.30am after a heavy rain shower, they were surprised to find the steep and notoriously abrasive limestone mostly dry. Finding abandoned fixed rope near the bottom of a prominent crack system, they decided to follow this line, which lay to the right of the 1972 British Route and crossed a huge roof on the second pitch. The roof looked simply awesome from below but went at a surprisingly moderate 5.9+.

Reaching the midway terrace in five pitches, they then traversed well to the right before forcing a direct line up the headwall in the vicinity of the 1973 American Direct. The pair reached the top after six and a half hours’ climbing and a total of 11 pitches (5.9+ max). They named the climb Root Matrix as they suspect it intersects with several existing climbs. But their time for the ascent, though rapid, is nearly double that taken by Bruce Carson on his solo ascent of a new 12-pitch route (5.8) in this vicinity during 1973.

There are around half-a-dozen routes on the central section of the c600m North Face and the last new line to be climbed on the mountain prior to 2008 is one of them. In 2001 Stephen Koch and the late Rob Milne, a well-known American living in Scotland, moved together up the first section of the American Direct, reaching the half-way terrace in just one and half hours. From here they climbed the headwall to the right of the Direct, mostly VS to HVS but with a short section of E1/E2 near the top.

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