Java's highest peak Semeru only needs climbing once<\/p>\n
By Jeff Barrus<\/p>\n
MALANG, East Java (JP): When setting out on any climb, it is
\nwise to pay attention to the faces of the returning. I'd just
\nleft the sunny, thin-air vegetable village of Ranu Pani inside
\nEast Java's Bromo-Tengger-Semeru National Park to climb Mount
\nSemeru, Java's highest peak. I'd gazed up at this great smoking
\ncone every day for more than two years, dreaming of the moment
\nI'd stand on top of it.<\/p>\n
My pack was full but light on my shoulders. Finally, I was on
\nmy way. Then three climbers passed me in the other direction,
\nheading back to Ranu Pani. They looked like my Manichean
\nopposites. Their faces were dull with fatigue and dust. They
\nshuffled by like prisoners on a forced march, lumbering under the
\nburden of their depleted packs. It should have been my first clue
\nas to what lie ahead.<\/p>\n
There were five of us: Aloysius, Vhonte, Mawardi, Wayan and
\nmyself, an American, their English teacher. Vhonte was the only
\nreal mountaineer among us and thus our guide.<\/p>\n
It would take three days to reach the peak. The first day we
\nwalked from Ranu Pani to the alpine lake of Ranu Kumbolo. The
\ntrail was an easy incline that cut in and out of several small
\nvalleys as it worked through the smaller mountains bubbled up
\nbeneath Semeru. There was a lovely view of Java's southern
\ncoastline far below. We passed through tree ferns, wild palms and
\nwet thickets of inkberries. The ground was spongy humus, soft
\nunderfoot. It took us less than four hours on our fresh legs to
\nmake it to the lake.<\/p>\n
Ranu Kumbolo sat in a crater ringed by shaggy pine trees and
\nreflected a silvery blue in the twilight. Many hikers go only as
\nfar as this beautiful lake, pitching their tents in a cluster
\nbeside the water. Here I saw teenagers that made Wayan seem as
\nprepared as an Everest outfitter. They wore flip-flops and
\nshorts, and burned stacks of scavenged twigs trying to keep warm.
\nWe ourselves had no tent and so spent the night inside a wooden
\nshelter erected for the unprepared. By nightfall it was North-
\nAmerican-dead-of-winter cold. The dark shelter was smoky with
\nkretek lit by another group of climbers huddled across the room.
\nI slept on a wooden platform that had collapsed at one end,
\nleaving my head slightly lower than my feet, which induced
\nstrange dreams.<\/p>\n
We woke before dawn to the sound of one devout climber calling
\nout for the first prayer of the day. We drank coffee beside the
\nsteaming lake. I made instant oatmeal and advertised it to my
\nstudents, none of whom had tried it before, as bubur londo. After
\nbreakfast, we took a bracingly cold dip in the lake.<\/p>\n
The second day was harder. We hiked a full day from Ranu
\nKumbolo to Arcopodo, a base camp on the lower slopes of Semeru.
\nThe trail climbed steeply before descending into a large open
\nbasin that reminded me of the Montana grasslands. There was so
\nmuch open space and no one sharing it with us, and I thought,
\nsometimes mountains are like another country. The sun was still
\nlow and the sky pale blue as we crossed. A breeze bent and matted
\nthe tall grass in front of us.<\/p>\n
I invoked my "old man" privileges and stopped to rest just
\ninside a dry upland forest. We sat on a fallen log and ate salted
\nhardboiled eggs, which many mountain Javanese believe bring good
\nluck on a climb. With Ranu Kumbolo, the last source of water on
\nthe trail, behind us, we had resolved to drink sparingly. What we
\nwere carrying would have to last two days.<\/p>\n
We arrived in Kalimati, the second campsite on the trail,
\naround noon. From here we could see Semeru's perfect cone looming
\nrocky and bald above us.<\/p>\n
Smoke and ash<\/p>\n
Every 15 minutes or so it erupted in a massive, soundless
\ncloud of white smoke and ash. A group of climbers from Bandung
\nshared fire-charred sweet potatoes with us. I collapsed in the
\npowdery dust beside a sage plant and slept on my back in the sun.
\nWayan had a headache from altitude and sunshine. Mawardi, nearly
\nas sweaty as myself, bore the distant expression of a man in
\nrough surroundings dreaming of a girl. Aloysius, his mouth
\nfinally run dry, was swilling water like a rescued castaway. Only
\nVhonte acted like this mountain climbing was something one did
\nfor enjoyment. He looked as if he worked in an air-conditioned
\noffice a hundred meters away and had decided to skip up the
\nmountain on his lunch break.<\/p>\n
From Kalimati the trail crossed a wash and climbed steeply up
\ndry stairs made of ironwood tree roots another two or three hours
\nto Arcopodo. That night we slept in a nest of cut grass and dry
\npine boughs. We woke the next morning at 2 a.m -- time enough to
\nmake the peak by sunrise and get off before 10 o'clock when the
\nwinds change direction and blow deadly sulfurous gases down on
\nclimbers. I was wearing six layers of clothing, a knit ninja hood
\nand gloves, and was still cold. Wayan was in jeans and a light
\njacket.<\/p>\n
The stars, usually yellowish and far-off in the lowlands of
\nJava, were like brilliant white fires at this altitude. We left
\nthe timberline almost immediately and started climbing up steep
\nrock fissures filled with loose volcanic scree. Our feet slipped
\nso often that we frequently had to crawl on hands and knees. For
\nevery ten steps forward it seemed we had to draw a hundred
\nbreaths to get enough rarefied oxygen into our lungs. And every
\nexhalation misted up in front of our mouths -- an incongruous
\nsight anywhere in Indonesia. We stopped talking altogether.
\nWhenever the dust settled, I could see the flashlights of
\nclimbers above and below us moving in a slow straight line like
\nsome kind of midnight processional.<\/p>\n
We lost against the sun. It rose while we were still crawling
\nupward. I didn't care. Making the peak and going home were my
\nonly goals now. Then, just when the urge to sleep in the scree
\nhad settled on me like a devil's temptation, the ground
\nmiraculously stopped rising. I looked up from my feet and saw the
\nflat lunar top of Semeru and the Indonesian flag planted in a
\npile of rocks. I threw my arms around my students in a very
\nunrestrained Western celebration. Mawardi kissed the ground.
\nAloysius howled his happiness just as the volcano sent up another
\ncloud of ash and mustard-scented smoke in the background. We
\nhappily let the icy winds whip over us as we stood at 3,676
\nmeters and stared across Java -- from Mount Lawu in the west to
\nthe Bali Straits in the east.<\/p>\n
Beside the flag was a small plaque. All along the route we had
\nseen such memorials for climbers who had -- usually for reasons
\nof sickness, accident, dehydration, overexposure or stupidity --
\nnot left Semeru. Vhonte said half a dozen climbers a year died
\ntrying to get to this place. I was grateful I could now look up
\nat this mountain from my comfortable home in Malang knowing I had
\nstood on its top. And I wanted to savor this feeling. I couldn't
\nimagine coming back here again. Once was enough.<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/javas-highest-peak-semeru-only-needs-climbing-once-1447893297",
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