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INTRODUCTION: The trek that is planned for May 2009 will be the first commercial trek by any operator that has climbed Mount Victoria, the highest mountain in the Owen Stanley Ranges, from the North West face. The trek takes 12 14 days Kokoda back to Kokoda in a circuit: no tracks are retraced during the journey. One other operator has taken a small group from the south face – a shorter trip but boring and exhausting. Komplete Kokodas trek attempts to follow in the footsteps of Sir William McGregors second climb to the summit in the 1890s. Soc Kienzle has completed the entire journey once in 2007, his associate Peter Barrett has done it three times and Soc also spent many days in the area in the 1960s.
The purpose of this inaugural trek is to assist the Kanga people who do not benefit from the Kokoda Trail industry to set up something of their own in the way of tourism. This is a magnificent journey through amazing variations of scenery, flora and fauna. It is physically more demanding but no more dangerous, and much more interesting and pristine than the climb of Mt Wilhelm in New Guinea. The only added risk to those that occur on the Kokoda Trail is the possibility of altitude sickness ( as there is on Mt Wihelm) but, as can be seen by the itinerary, there is plenty of time to acclimatize and as each trekker is allocated 2.5 porters, should they not be able to adjust, 2 porters would return with them to Kanga village or Kokoda where they could rest until the remainder of the party rejoined them.
We have allowed 14 days to complete the trek to allow for weather and acclimatization delays. It is an amazing and new experience for the porters that is a source of pride to have completed and worth many stories by the campfire.
In summary, this is a worthwhile project as a future alternative or next step adventure to offer to tourists while spreading the wealth in the Yodda Valley.
BARRETT__S_VICTORIA_013.jpg
BARRETT__S_VICTORIA_014.jpgIf you have any interest in walking Mt Victoria, please email me:
We are proud to have this trek to offer to our clients and to work alongside Soc Kienzle as our KTL boys of Kokoda train the Kanga boys how to look after trekkers in the same way they do on the Kokoda Track.
It is another way of giving back to the local community of Kokoda and providing work for the Kanga people to grow tourism.
Russell Eroro (Kokoda) and Michael Lucas (Kanga) old school mates, have agreed to work together to achieve this. Some Kanga boys will be employed as porters with Kokoda Trekking in April and some of our staff will in turn walk Mt Victoria.
With Soc on the track with clients and myself back in Port Moresby monitoring the treks, it is hoped that if you have enjoyed walking Kokoda that you may want to come back and experience another great trek.
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