Piunde-Aunde 79 Saturday, June 27. Max. 12.5, min. 3 C. Heavy frost followed by a perfectly clear day; the first cloudless day since the 18th. Ice is unusual at this camp, but this morning shady wet spots of ground in camp were crunchy until after 9 o'clock. Wind up valley. High peaks of our mountain covered on and off with mist after 4 pm. I have spent the day in camp, working on collections, catching some insects, writing letters, etc. It has been another of those blackish days. Radiation and evaporations are so high that my typewriter ribbon dried out as it unrolled from the reel, and the carbon paper curled between the pages. At camp the soil is a brown, fine grained peat for over a foot down. Our whole establishment is slowly sinking into this. I now have barely knee room under a bush table I had built in my work tent. I can no longer stand erect under a drying rack suspended from the peak of the tent, where formerly I had two inches of clearance. This has been a binatang (insect) day for my boys. Had one on the beating sheet, the other after butterflies, etc. with a hand net. Results have been fairly good for this locality. This is not insect country. Only the one species of damselfly has turned up in Odonata. Have only 4 examples of one of the four spp. of butterflies seen (they are rapid, dodgy fliers, hard to get near). Night flying insects are so few that a light trap has been rigged only once. John has climbed the main peak again. Left camp about 10 am. with the intention of attempting the climb via the Ramu-Wahgi Divide. Had had going from about my 13,200 ft. powition of a few days ago. Made several attempts to follow the rocky crest of the divide, and finally had to drop down considerably into the valley of Gilliard's Box Canyon. Much more difficult than the regular route. John would seem to be the first man (white at any rate) to climb the peak three times. Patrol Officer Viall (or Vial) who made the first ascent in 1938, repeated it the following year. In 1957 or 58, Patrol Officer Lucas made two ascents. John made the altitude of the main peak 15,050 feet today; he made no aneroid reading beforeleaving camp. He copied records which others had deposited at the Dinner Pass. With John was Tobram, younger brother of Wak, and another native. The ascent took 3 3/4 hours.