Jaya Peak

Jaya Peak, highest mountain on the island of New Guinea, in the Sudirman Range, western central highlands. Located in the Indonesian province of Central Papua, the 16,024-foot (4,884-meter) summit is the highest in the southwestern Pacific and the highest island peak in the world. It marks the terminus of a ridge 8 miles (13 km) long that extends eastward from Mount Pilimsit (Ngga Pilimsit; formerly Mount Idenburg). The ridge, which falls sheer for some 10,000 feet (3,050 meters) on its northern and southern slopes, was once capped by glaciers; however, by 2025, more than 99 percent of the ice had melted due to climate change. Although the snowfield of Jaya Peak was reached as early as 1909 by a Dutch explorer, Hendrik A. Lorentz, the peak was not climbed until 1962, by an expedition led by an Austrian mountaineer, Heinrich Harrer.