Nawok! The New Zealand Expedition to New Guinea's Highest Mountains

There are a few spoilers in here, but given the relative obscurity of this book, and the fact that some of this is given away in the Foreword it shouldn't be too much of an issue.

This is one of writer, explorer and mountaineer Philip Temple's earlier books, and describes what is his first major undertaking.
This is an exploration and mountaineering expedition to Dutch New Guinea in 1961, to reach the Carstensz range, and climb the Carstensz Pyramid. At the time there was little known about the area, maps were vague and there were only isolated missionary setups nearby.

The book covers the planning stages before the actual expedition, and here we find out some of the difficulties. The missionaries would not give permission for the expedition to use their airstrip, due to a prior bad experience with another team, and the alternative was to fly into another town 8 days trek distant. The other major organisational feat was arranging of an airdrop of food and equipment near the foot of the Carstensz range to supplement the actual climb.
On arrival in Hollandia (now Jayapura), and while organising their flights deeper into New Guinea, the arrangement for the airdrop fell through. They hastily had to change plans, and arranged another airdrop, but using a different plane mean risks around the goods being dropped from a far greater height.

The trekking, with native porters to assist is well described without being overburdened with details. Food is described, but not every meal. The scenery is variable, and the geology and botany are described well, again without excessive details.

They reach the Basins of Ijomba, from which they must determine their route onwards, and arrange the airdrop. Here they split into two man teams - two pairs carrying out reconnaissance treks, bivouacing out at night, the others selecting a location, contacting the plane and arranging the recovery. The groups on reconnaissance return having heard the plane, expecting a resupply of food cigarettes etc, only to find the plane arrived, carried out a lazy circle and headed back. No supply drop.

This immediately put an end to any further exploration, as they had only sufficient food for four days - one day less than their trip out from the last settlement. It was later revealed that it was pure lack of effort which prevented the airdrop, as the signal fires were seen.
Despite failing to climb the Pyramid, they were successful in other efforts - geological sampling, botanic sampling were both successful.

In the Epilogue, Philip Temple reveals that a year later he was a part of Heinrich Harrer's expedition which successfully climbed 31 local summits.
This experience then proved the basis of Temple's engagement to lead a search party into Papua New Guinea's unexplored highlands to recover the remains of American airmen lost during WWII, written about in his book The Last True Explorer: Into Darkest New Guinea.

Four stars for me.