The northern end of the Indonesian island of Lombok is dominated by an active volcano which looms 3700m over the surrounding countryside. The order of the day was to climb the volcano and sleep overnight on the crater rim. It would be a fantastic couple of days off the bike.
The night before as part of the tour package Huzni, who owns Rinjani Tropis, had arranged for me to stay at a guesthouse in the village of Senaru. It had been a hard slog on the bike climbing to Senaru the previous day but the view from the hostel where I was staying was definitely worth it.
It was an early start the following morning as I needed to get breakfast before cycling back down the mountain to meet Huzni at his tour shop as I would be leaving my bike there for the next couple of days.
I left my bike at the shop and sat with a cuppa chatting with Huzni while we waited for the transport to arrive to take me to Sembaleon where the trek would start from. About 20 minutes later a flatbed truck arrived with loads of westerners sat on the back which would be my fellow trekkers.
There were 14 of us in total and we were split into 2 groups – those that would be doing the trek in 2 days and those who would be doing it in 3. In my group there would be 6 – a Canadian couple, 3 girls from Czech Republic and me. Once everybody had stored their luggage at the shop that they did not need on the trek we loaded back into the back of the truck and headed for Sambaleon.
A quick stop to register with the trekking service and then we went in search of our guide and porters. Once we had found Wadi, our guide for the trek, he went to check whether the porters were ready. The porters with the food had apparently already left so that they would be ahead of us, and have lunch ready when we arrived at the first stop which was a couple of hours away.
The porters with the tents were now ready and so we were all set for our adventure to the top of Mount Rinjani.
The first hour was spent treking through meadows with mount Rinjani in front of us. The clouds had descended over Rinjani to obscure our view of the top, and the only real company we had was the odd cow who wandered over to say hello.
Just before the gradient on the trail started to increase we caught up with the porters that were carrying the food and stopped for lunch at one of the rain shelters that have been built along the way.
Lunch was rice, noodles, chicken and vegetable. To be honest we could have waited another hour before food as we had only been walking for a couple of hours but as the porters had to carry it all on their backs the sooner that they offloaded lunch the lighter their loads would be.
The trail from this point up to the crater rim was obvious so if you fancied doing it on your own you could quite easily do so but it would mean that you would need to carry your food, water and camping stuff with you.
The people that I was passing on the trail were a mix of Asian tourists and westerners and as the going wasn’t that tough everybody still had a smile on their faces. There was a great camaraderie with lots of people offering me cigarettes and coffee along the way.
For some reason, and I never discovered why, most of the Asian men were carrying knives with them. They were not machetes, more ceremonial knives and very proud they were of them.
The westerners seemed to be dressed for the occasion with climbing shoes and trekking pants while most of the locals were trekking in flip flops and jeans.
After about 4 hours we entered the clouds and this is where the going got steep – it was more scrambling like goats up the side of the volcano than hiking. I would not have liked to have completed the trek in rainy season that is for sure. The first photo below is looking back down the valley from where we had came and as you can see the view was completely obscured now that we were in the clouds.
The porters had one pace – slow and steady – and I have no idea how they managed to get up the steeper sections carrying the fully loaded baskets on their shoulders. I had enough difficulty and all I was carrying was a couple of warm layers of clothes and snacks for along the way. We didn’t even have to carry water as our guide and porters did that for us.
The different trekking groups had fragmented by now with the guides staying with the slowest in the group while the rest pushed on for the rim. There is really only one trail to follow and we were like a line of ants making for a single point in the distance.
The steepest part was soon upon us and we were scrambling on our hands and knees; estimates along the ‘ant line’ of the amount of time left to the top ranged from 30 minutes to an hour before we finally reached the rim of the crater where we would sleep the night.
We were now starting to emerge out of the clouds and it was weird to see the tops of clouds all around you. A pretty surreal experience on its own.
Around 5pm I reached the crater rim and it was a pretty spectacular view – on one side was a view all the way to the ocean and below us on the other side of the rim was the volcano. You couldn’t see much as the clouds were covering most of it but just knowing where we were put a smile on people’s faces.
As more and more people emerged out of the clouds people started to arrange their camps for the nights. It seemed that if you paid more money then the tour company would send porters ahead to set up the tents for when you arrived at the rim. As I had gone ‘cheap’ then our poor porters had to carry everything – lunch, food, water, tents etc and so we had to wait for them to arrive before our tents were finally set up.
We were not quite at the top summit though as that was still another 3 hours climb away, and for those who wanted to reach the summit to watch sunrise would need to get up at 2am the following morning.
For now, we could all sit back and relax as the sun set over the opposite rim.
You had to be careful where you sat though as every tour company sets up a field toilet each day and there were old holes everywhere. Many of the tour companies are now advertising that they leave no rubbish behind them but there is still a fair amount of trash up where you camp and the majority seems to be bits of toilet paper. Many local people trek without using a tour company and I suppose that much of the rubbish left behind belongs to them. I know that this is a complete stereotype but recycling is not big in asia – wrappings and empty packets just get dumped behind you when empty.
After another hour or so we were all assembled on the rim and our porters had arrived to set up the tents and make dinner. My tent companion that night was Marketa, who was one of the Czech girls.
Once the sun had set it soon got really cold on the side of the mountain and the wind was starting to whip through. Everybody retreated to their tents to wait for dinner to be served.
Marketa had been on Lombok for a couple of months volunteering in Kouta, which has some of the best beaches that I have seen anywhere in Asia. She had been completing a community placement in a village – teaching some English at the local school, helping local families to organize projects in their village etc. She had some great stories from her time on Lombok and would definitely miss the place when she returned with her friends back to the Czech Republic in a week or so.
Around 8pm dinner was served in the tents – hot tea, fried noodles with a fried egg – simple food but it was hot and filling. After food everybody was ready for bed and got their heads down as it was going to be a 2am start for those who wanted to go to the summit.
At 2am, our guide Wadi, woke us and the porters served breakfast which was salted biscuits and hot tea. Man, it was bloody freezing, even with the warm jacket that Huzni had lent me. The plan was to hike for an hour or so to the higher crater rim where there was a flat section similar to where we had slept. Wadi said that this was a difficult section as it was a scree slope where you went two steps forward and then slid back one step. From this flat section there would be another hour of scree slope to the summit.
Wadi said that the views from the second rim and the summit were the same, and this sealed it for me. I was getting back in my warm sleeping bag and staying in bed for another few hours. I would climb on my own to the second rim and not bother with the summit. The rest headed off into the darkness and I set my alarm for 5am and went back to sleep.
At 5am I got up and although still bloody freezing the sun would be up in an hour. When I looked out of my tent there was a line of head torches stretching up the mountain all the way to the summit area.
I headed out into the night to get up and over the first scree slope before sunrise and this was tough enough going. It was more 2 steps forward and three steps back in many parts as there was no traction at all on the scree slope and you literally slid backwards in many sections. I couldn’t imagine trying to get up here with 100 other people.
Just before sunrise the scree slope ended and I climbed up onto the main crater rim. The view from here down into the crater was spectacular and definitely worth the extra effort it took to scramble up the scree slope.
The view on the other side of the crater rim was pretty spectacular too as you could clearly see the the line of tents on the ridge line where we had slept the night before:
I continued walking along the rim up to the second scree slope which would have taken me to the summit and was being passed by a constant stream of trekers who had got up at 2 am and had not managed to get up the second scree slope and had given up trying to get to the summit.
There was only one thing to do before heading back down to the tent and that was one last selfie
Here is a video that I shot of the climb to the crater rim:
Out of our group of 6 only one of the Czech girls made it to the top with everybody else turning around along the way. All of the people that I spoke to later that day said that it wasn’t worth the effort to get up at 2am and climb all the way to the top as the view of the volcano was the same as from the second rim. Especially, those who still had another 11 hours of trekking ahead of them as they descended into the crater and climbed to the rim on the otherside where they would camp for another night.
For our group, after a breakfast of pancakes and toast it was time to head back down the way we came. The Canadian couple had a connection to make and so were going to head straight down to SEMBOLEUN rather than have lunch along the way. I decided to join them as I wanted to get on the road and cycle out of Senaru towards the ferry port for Sumbawa before dark that day.
Going down with gravity in our favour was much faster and I literally ran down the side of the volcano. This was the first time that I had run since being on the bike and it felt good. I arrived in SEMBOLEUN in a less than a quarter of the time it had taken me to get to the top.
I sat with a drink waiting for the Canadians to join me in the village and when they arrived we jumped a pick-up back to Senaru where I would pick up my bike and they their luggage.
When I looked in the mirror back at the tour shop I was black from all of the dust on the trail, and before going any further a bucket shower was in order.
A great couple of days with lovely people and a sense of commaderie that is special. I had finally been to the crater rim of Mount Rinjani and looked down into an active volcano. Something that I didn’thave enough time to do the last time I was on Lombok and another item ticked off my todo list on this trip.
It was now time to get back on the road, and slightly unbelievably after nearly 4000km, catch a ferry to an island that I had never been to before.
On the way I would go to a wedding and have a front row seat at a circumcision but those adventures are for another day.
Cheers
Stewart
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