To climb Indonesia’s Puncak Jaya (4,870m), you fly in a small aircraft to a village near the peak, then walk 5 days through “very dense jungle” with “regular rainfall” to reach the base of the peak. Reaching the summit requires another day, at which point, you’re: (a) about 500km from the equator; (b) surrounded by glaciers (!); and © 4km from Grasberg Mine, one of the largest open pit mines in the world (map) (!!).
I suppose the workers get in and out of the mine via helicopter but there must also be some sort of road–? Climbing mountains isn’t supposed to be easy, but this does remind me of the Goon Show: “For a hundred miles Bloodnok and his party hacked their way through the jungle that ran alongside the arterial road.”