Puncak Trikora, until 1963 Wilhelmina Peak, is a 4,730 or mountain in the

Highland Papua Highland Papua ( id, Papua Pegunungan) is a province of Indonesia, which roughly follows the borders of Papuan customary region of Lano-Pago, shortened to La Pago. It covers an area of and had a population of 1,408,641 according to the official es ...

province of

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu Hiri Motu, also known as Police Motu, Pidgin Motu, or just Hiri, is a language of Papua New Guinea, which is spoken in surrounding areas of Port Moresby (Capital of Papua New Guinea). It is a simplified version of ...

. It lies in the eastern part of the Sudirman (Nassau) Range of the

Maoke Mountains The Maoke Mountains is a mountain range in the province of Central Papua and Highland Papua. It extends over 692 km and is composed of the Sudirman and Jayawijaya ranges. It is part of the larger New Guinea Highlands or Central Cordillera. ...

. Behind

Puncak Jaya Puncak Jaya (; literally "Glorious Peak") or Carstensz Pyramid, Mount Jayawijaya or Mount Carstensz () on the island of New Guinea, with an elevation of , is the list of islands by highest point, highest mountain peak of an island on Earth. Th ...

(Carstensz Pyramid) at , it is either the second or third highest mountain on the island of

and the

Australasia Australasia is a region that comprises Australia, New Zealand and some neighbouring islands in the Pacific Ocean. The term is used in a number of different contexts, including geopolitically, physiogeographically, philologically, and ecologica ...

n continent. As such it appears on some

Seven Second Summits The Seven Second Summits are the second-highest mountains of each of the seven continents. All of these mountain peaks are separate peaks rather than a sub-peak of the continents' high point. The Seven Second Summits are considered by many mountain ...

lists, although

SRTM The Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) is an international research effort that obtained digital elevation models on a near-global scale from 56°S to 60°N, to generate the most complete high-resolution digital topographic database of Ea ...

-data support that Puncak Mandala (Juliana Peak) in the Jayawijaya (Orange) Range is higher with .See for example the lists a
peaklistpeakbagger.com
an
gunungbagging.com
/ref>Several other summits of Mount Carstensz besides Carstensz Pyramid, like Ngga Pulu (4,862 m) and Carstensz East (4,820 or 4,840 m) are higher than both Mandala and Trikora, but because of their low

prominence In topography, prominence (also referred to as autonomous height, relative height, and shoulder drop in US English, and drop or relative height in British English) measures the height of a mountain or hill's summit relative to the lowest contou ...

(200-300 m) and isolation (2.2-2.6 km) these are usually not regarded as separate mountains.

Name

The Dani living near lake Habbema call the mountain Ettiakup. Around 1905 the mountain was named after the Dutch

Queen Wilhelmina Wilhelmina (; Wilhelmina Helena Pauline Maria; 31 August 1880 – 28 November 1962) was Queen of the Netherlands from 1890 until her abdication in 1948. She reigned for nearly 58 years, longer than any other Dutch monarch. Her reign saw World Wa ...

. When Indonesia obtained control of

West New Guinea Western New Guinea, also known as Papua, Indonesian New Guinea, or Indonesian Papua, is the western half of the Melanesian island of New Guinea which is administered by Indonesia. Since the island is alternatively named as Papua, the region ...

in 1963 it changed the name of the mountain to Puncak Trikora, after the ''Trikora'' (''Tri Komando Rakyat'', "People’s Triple Command") speech by

Sukarno Sukarno). (; born Koesno Sosrodihardjo, ; 6 June 1901 – 21 June 1970) was an Indonesian statesman, orator, revolutionary, and nationalist who was the first president of Indonesia, serving from 1945 to 1967. Sukarno was the leader of ...

given in December 1961 at a mass meeting in

Yogyakarta Yogyakarta (; jv, ꦔꦪꦺꦴꦒꦾꦏꦂꦠ ; pey, Jogjakarta) is the capital city of Special Region of Yogyakarta in Indonesia, in the south-central part of the island of Java. As the only Indonesian royal city still ruled by a monarchy, ...

. The three commands were: to defeat the formation of an independent state of West Papua, raise the Indonesian flag in that country, and be ready for mobilization at any time.

Glaciation

At the beginning of the 20th century all the highest mountains in New Guinea, including Puncak Jaya (Carstensz Pyramid), Puncak Mandala (Juliana Peak), Ngga Pilimsit (Idenburg) and Puncak Trikora (Wilhelmina Peak), were covered by glaciers. The first expeditions to Maoke Mountains documented a strong recent retreat of all glaciers in the area. The

ice cap In glaciology, an ice cap is a mass of ice that covers less than of land area (usually covering a highland area). Larger ice masses covering more than are termed ice sheets. Description Ice caps are not constrained by topographical features ...

of Puncak Trikora melted between 1936 and 1962. In 1909 the ice cap still reached as low as .

Geology

Puncak Trikora is a high point on the central range (Sudirman (Nassau) Range), which was created in the late

Miocene The Miocene ( ) is the first geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and means "less recen ...

Melanesian orogeny, caused by oblique collision between the Australian and

Pacific plate The Pacific Plate is an oceanic tectonic plate that lies beneath the Pacific Ocean. At , it is the largest tectonic plate. The plate first came into existence 190 million years ago, at the triple junction between the Farallon, Phoenix, and Iza ...

s and is made of middle Miocene

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...

History

Wilhelmina Top New Guinea 1913 from south by P

The navigable

Noord River The Noord ("North") is a short tidal river in the western Netherlands, in the province of South Holland. The Noord starts at the city of Dordrecht where the Beneden Merwede river forks into the Oude Maas and the Noord. It joins the Lek at the ...

made the mountain more accessible than the other snow-covered peaks of

Dutch New Guinea Dutch New Guinea or Netherlands New Guinea ( nl, Nederlands-Nieuw-Guinea, id, Nugini Belanda) was the western half of the island of New Guinea that was a part of the Dutch East Indies until 1949, later an overseas territory of the Kingdo ...

and the Dutch organized a series of scientific expeditions in the early 20th century to reach the equatorial eternal snow and climb the mountain. The leader of the first two expeditions was the diplomat and amateur biologist H.A. Lorentz. Each expedition was accompanied by soldiers, porters and dayaks, who were employed for their expertise with boat journeys. In July 1907, the first expedition established ''Camp

Alkmaar Alkmaar () is a city and municipality in the Netherlands, located in the province of North Holland, about 30 km north of Amsterdam. Alkmaar is well known for its traditional cheese market. For tourists, it is a popular cultural destination. The ...

'' near where the Noord River, since 1910 known as the

Lorentz River The Lorentz River (also Unir or Undir in Indonesian, or Noordrivier in Dutch) is located in the Indonesian province of South Papua in Western New Guinea, about 3,500 km northeast of the Indonesian capital Jakarta.Second South New Guinea Expedition also used Camp Alkmaar, from where it left on October 9, 1909. A group of nine, including Lorentz and Jan Willem van Nouhuys, were the first to reach the eternal snow of New Guinea at a height of on November 8, 1909. From the ridge they observed a large lake to the north, which Lorentz named

Lake Habbema A lake is an area filled with water, localized in a Depression (geology), basin, surrounded by land, and distinct from any river or other outlet that serves to feed or drain the lake. Lakes lie on land and are not part of the World Ocean, oce ...

(), after a member of the expedition. No attempt was made to reach the Wilhelmina summit. The return trip was severe; with a loss of four expedition members, the explorers finally returned to Camp Alkmaar in mid-December. The summit was first reached in 1913 during the Third South New Guinea Expedition, which lasted from September 1912 to April 1913 and followed the same route. It was led by Alphons Franssen Herderschee, an officer of the

Royal Netherlands East Indies Army The Royal Netherlands East Indies Army ( nl, Koninklijk Nederlands Indisch Leger; KNIL, ) was the military force maintained by the Kingdom of the Netherlands in its colony of the Dutch East Indies, in areas that are now part of Indonesia. The ...

, and its aim was to research the soils, flora and fauna of the region that lay above 2,300 metres. Other expedition members were the zoologist Gerard Martinus Versteeg, the botanist August Adriaan Pulle, the geologist Paul François Hubrecht, and J.B. Sitanala, an Indonesian GP. Herderschee also took over the role of

ethnographer Ethnography (from Greek ''ethnos'' "folk, people, nation" and ''grapho'' "I write") is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. Ethnography explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject o ...

. Including soldiers, porters and dayaks, the

baggage train ''Wagon Train'' is an American Western series that aired 8 seasons: first on the NBC television network (1957–1962), and then on ABC (1962–1965). ''Wagon Train'' debuted on September 18, 1957, and became number one in the Nielsen ratings. It ...

had 241 members. They were divided up into several groups in order to carry out the different tasks in a time-effective way. Herderschee, Hubrecht and Versteeg formed the summit team, which reached the ''Wilhelminatop'' on 21 February 1913. The 1920-1922 Central New Guinea Expedition had as goal to reach the mountain from the north coast over a route partially explored in a 1914 military expedition. On February 7, 1920 the first exploration, under leadership of A.J.A. van Overeem started at the mouth of the

Mamberamo The Mamberamo (''Indonesian: Sungai Mamberamo'') is the second longest river on the island of New Guinea, after Sepik River (1,146 km) and third largest in Oceania by discharge (5,500 m3/s) volume after Fly River (7,500 m3/s) and Sepik (7,000 m3/ ...

and followed the

Idenburg River The Taritatu or Idenburg River also called Baliem River is a river in the northern part of the Indonesian province of Papua. It is the largest tributary of Mamberamo River with a total length of . Name During the Dutch colonial era it was known ...

. In October, they had climbed across the Doorman Mtns and reached the upper ''Swart Valley'' (now Toli Valley). Here they made first contact with the Lani people (a.k.a. the Western Dani people), an agricultural people with whom they stayed for six weeks. Running out of time and food provisions, this expedition returned without climbing Wilhelmina. A follow-up expedition starting in June 1921 and led by J.H.G. Kremer, who was surveyor the previous year, retraced the route, and via the upper

Baliem Valley The Baliem Valley ( id, Lembah Baliem; also spelled Balim and sometimes known as the Grand Valley) is a valley of the Central Highlands in Western New Guinea. Specifically in Highland Papua, Indonesia, which is inhabited mainly by the Dani peopl ...

and Lake Habbema reached the summit on 4 December 1921. Among the ascendants was Paul Hubrecht, who had been on the top in 1913 and noticed that the ice cap had retreated considerably since 8 years before.The Papua Insects Foundation
''The third South New Guinea Expedition (1912-1913)''
(www.papua-insects.nl), Retrieved 1 July 2015.

References

;Notes

External links

Puncak Trikora on Summitpost.org

Puncak Trikora on Peakbagger.com

Expedition to Puncak Jaya, mount Carstensz
{{Authority control Mountains of Western New Guinea Seven Third Summits Four-thousanders of New Guinea