GEORGE HAS-ALL OF US WORRIED. He has developed dangerous skin ulcers on both legs. Despite the pain, he insists on trying to complete the remaining three days of the trek, but we need to get him out of the jungle fast. Jack isn't in great shape either. His feet are cracked and bleeding. Cal's knee is giving him trouble. Lee looks pale and tired (is it the onset of malaria?). For all intents and purposes, I'm walking on one leg. Only Dave, Samu, and Philipp are holding up, but if the trail lives up to its reputation, their turn is bound to come.

The thing about the jungle is that often you can see nothing but more jungle. But on day 14, having negotiated the fierce currents of the Musa River and the crumbling, volcanic slopes of 5,512-foot Mount Lamington—which erupted in 1951, killing 3,000 people—we reach the Girua River. The clouds have lifted, and we look up the river valley, getting our first glimpse of the territory we've covered. Ahead, the flat coastal plain sprawls north under a battering tropical sun. Though the worst is behind us, from here the trail slices through fields of head-high, razor-sharp kunai grass and wanders back and forth across the river. It will not be easy, but the end is in sight.

Two days later, after 16 days in the jungle, we reach Buna.

The Kapa Kapa, which we've renamed the Ghost Mountain Trail, is, as Lee concludes, "the Kokoda on steroids." For the weary soldiers and the hundreds of New Guineans who served as carriers and scouts for the Army, the end of the trail was the beginning of a long nightmare. When they arrived in Buna, they entered tangled, tea-black swamps and a battle that General MacArthur described as a "head-on collision of the bloody, grinding type."

Papua New Guinea tourism officials told me that they hope to promote this history and, in light of our success, turn the route into something like a national historic trail. The World Wildlife Fund currently has plans to incorporate the Ghost Mountain Trail into its blueprint for conservation and tourism in the Owen Stanley Range.

For their part, the WWII veterans can't imagine anyone ever choosing to walk across Papua New Guinea. "Are you kidding?" 32nd Division member Stanley Jastrzembski said to me. "I would have taken an enemy bullet before going back into those mountains."

But none of us regretted a mile of it.