Trekking up Rinjani volcano in Indonesia

In this post I'll tell you about trekking up the active volcano Rinjani, which we did way back in 2009: the climb up Mount Rinjani took 4 days and 3 nights.

Trekking up Rinjani volcano

The active Rinjani volcano is on the island of Lombok, next door to Bali. Lombok is the complete opposite of Bali. There are practically no tourists. No exaggeration: about 40 tourists on the whole island. Unlike Bali, where 90% are Hindus, here 90% are Muslims. The Balinese are the kindest, most open, at times naive people, but Lombok is a different world. Maybe it's because there are no tourists, and so no money and no good mood, maybe it's the religion, or maybe something else. But the fact is that the people there are completely different. Starting with the hotel, continuing with the tours and ending with the boat back, every other local tries to squeeze money out of you by every honest and dishonest means. On top of that, you can count on your fingers the people who have even the slightest idea of English. But despite all the negatives, the island is quite distinctive and beautiful. Prices are about 2 times lower than on Bali.

In area Lombok is comparable to Bali, and in population too, but there is several times less livable land: half the island is taken up by the volcano.
The active volcano Rinjani is the second-highest volcano in Indonesia. We waited 2 days for a group to come together.
We haggled it down to $100 per person for 3 nights, meals and the tour itself. Not much at all, even by Indonesian standards. As it turned out later, the others paid a bit more. The group was 5 people: the two of us, two Finns and a Singaporean. They drove us to the foot of the mountain, gave us 2 porters (who were also the guides), and off we went. There was no briefing. There was no gear either… Although they did give each of us an old, smelly down jacket. I decided not to take mine and relied on my sweater, which I bitterly regretted later. The girl from Finland walked the whole way up sheer cliffs in sneakers. Frankly speaking, this kind of fun isn't for everyone. The entire first day, and for about 1 km of elevation, we made our way through rainforest that at times looked like scenes from Silent Hill, and we got no raincoats or any rain protection at all. And there was rain… Clothes soaked through, gadgets hidden in plastic bags…

We did get through that forest, though. Then the mountains began. No ice axes, of course, but at times we used ropes. Our legs were falling off. The hardest part was the last 300-meter climb to the summit. Only I and one of the Finns dared to do it. At 3600 m we set up another camp, and at 3 a.m. we headed to the summit to see the sunrise.

We had to cover the last 300 meters in 2 hours at most so as not to miss the sunrise. Altitude acclimatization, thin air and so on: none of that. It was just terribly cold and windy, 2 degrees above zero, as the guide's thermometer showed. If the volcano had been 200 meters or so higher, it most likely would have been a snowy peak.

The way back took about 12 hours, with no overnight stop. In total, 4 days and 3 nights.

By the way, the guides mentioned more than once that the volcano is active and nobody knows when the next eruption will be. As it turned out later, 2 weeks after our climb, on May 3, there was a small eruption, after which the volcano was closed to tourists. (http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2009/05/03/mount-rinjani-alert-status-closed-tourists.html)

Enjoy some photos from that time, from the trek itself, Lombok and Bali: