We started driving from the town at 5:30 am, arrived at the entry point at 7:00 and started running at 08:00. There were 28 members, most of us carried small backpack loaded with personal provision. I fulfilled my Deuter rucksack with headlamp, hand towel, one liter of water, and small amount of food. I actually brought myself two food containers consist of fruits for snacks and salad for lunch, but I was really hungry, that I took them all as breakfast, leaving only two granola bars as my only survival stock. We ran leisurely through the jungle, arrived at the crater at 09:00, half an hour faster than estimated time. We were optimistic to reach the peak at noon.
We did not waste time at the crater, took only few pictures, then continued hiking through the dense forest. The beginning of the trail is hidden by thick bedrock. I had to literally climb the sulfuric boulders and cling on the roots of dead tree. I began sweating and panting. A few kilometers afterwards I scanned the landscape, there were jutted trees and sharp rocks along the trail. My feet already went numb and my palm blistered for embracing trunks and prickly branches. The trail gets harder, each step was a toil, as I ascended higher and higher still, interfered with only short occasional descents, which were not so much break. I was not walking, more like falling and skidding and trudging along. My pants covered with mud, my trail running shoes went wet and dry and wet again. I walked carefully, couldn't help but hitting the sharp branches and knife-edge stones. The elevation gets higher, the trail gets more precipitous. I was astounded just by the view of it, felt uneasy with my situation, yet didn't have any option other than to hike through it.
Along the way, I counted every milestones I could find. There were around fifty milestones started from the intersections of the trail. There was a sign that reads "5 km ahead to the summit". Five kilometers sounded not far, but with such elevation, I barely could reach the top in less than one hour. In the next thirty minutes, the voice in my head was screaming, "
What have I gotten myself into?!?" I tried to hum as I hiked, but it was too difficult to hum while panting and also moaning in agony. I'd never actually hiked a mountain before. Not even once!! The most similar experience I had is when I ran for
Bromo Marathon in 2014 with elevation up to 2400 m. However, that was running, not hiking, not even walking into the wilderness. So this would be my first time hiking to the summit, in one day trip!!
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| Best place for 'knee exercises' :) |
I asked myself, "
Would Mount Rinjani also be like this?" Though I've never gone backpacking but I've been planning to hike
Mount Rinjani in August. The sole reason why I joined Salak trip was to train myself walking on high elevation. However, I didn't expect that it would be this dangerous. Passing through open and active volcano crater, climbing the rocks, clinging on trees, crawling in deep muddy soil, and jumping above the cliff (!!), all were done for the sake to reach the summit. There were 10 milestones to go but I already ran out of supplies. I finished my last granola bar and the last drop of water. I stopped every fifteen minutes just to catch up my breath. The peak yet seemed far still. As I evaluate the land, I realized that I'd come far enough by now that the terrain had begun to change. The landscape around the crater was arid, dominated by dead trees that would creak while stepped on. While the vegetation around me was damp, packed by sagebrush and crammed with wiry branches and chunky roots. A rainforest, indeed. An unfriendly forest for visitors. I hiked the last 500 meter where thick fog resulting from condensation in the air from the earth's surface below was begun to rise and cover the whole peak. The cliff before me was covered with fog, no one could really measure how deep it was and how the ground looked like.
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| Thick fog |
With such painful trail, I was expecting to see magnificent view from the top. I came to small flat area where there was a signpost written "Salak Summit 2211 masl". I scanned the surrounding only to conclude disappointment for having nothing to see. The landscape was merely covered by tall weeds. Half of the open field in the middle was occupied by campers. There were many people camped for a night to see sunrise, for which they were speculating and finger-crossing for clear weather. I was relieved to find a place for me to lay down. I was hot, thirsty, hungry, and too tired to take selfies, I decided to take power nap instead. I closed my eyes, trying to sleep with humid air and blinding sunlight. It was 13:30 pm, I was worried of how long would it takes to arrive down there again, to come back at the starting point.
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| The big group |
An hour later we started to walk down the mountain, tracing back the same path we had been through. I was just hoping we could make it before sunset, otherwise it would be too dark to see. I thought it would be easier going down than going up because of gravity pull, but apparently it was twice harder. I had to squat and stepped my foot down carefully. Skidding and sliding down treacherous slopes and side by side of a cliff or crashing onto the rocks below. This trail did not make any sense. It's an absolute jungle, you could hardly walk through it, unless if you're a Tarzan or something. It's not a place for regular human being. I spent hours walking in tortured reverie, fantasizing about favorite things to keep myself entertained. I climbed down the trail by embracing trunks of tree or grasping branches until my palms blistered. Along the way I noticed a dung, not sure from which kind of animal, it seemed freshly laid, untouched from its spot. It looked like dark blueberries stacked in pyramid form. It might be laid by wild boar, monkey, or mountain lion. I came to realize that I was in wilderness, It's possible that mountain lions still inhabit this terrain, Mount Salak is known as sacred mountain, people coming up and stopping by at the crater then coming down again, only few would dare to hike the summit.
While pondering of how stupid I was for taking such risk, I realized that I was walking alone. The front group already disappeared before me while the back group was too far behind me. I was too slow catching up the first group but too fast for the other group to catch me up. I stopped for a while to scrutinize my situation. There was no sound, neither signs of movement. No crackle of twig, no rustle of bushes, not even a gust of wind, just silence around me. I was uncertain whether to continue walking or to wait for the latter group. Suddenly the rain started to pour. I cursed myself for not bringing raincoat or umbrella. I could have had suffered hypothermia, shivering and starving to death in deep forest. From distance I could hear my friends rumbling while taking their raincoats out of backpack. I was relieved to the fact that they were not far away from my location, that I was at the right track. I continued walking, half wet by the rain that went off and on and off again, resulting to muddier trail, forming potholes up to my ankles. Some parts of the trail was flooded by water. The route seemed apparent enough, I reassured myself, After an hour, I stopped, suddenly scared. "
Was I on the right track??" All the while, I'd been searching for plastic-made blue ribbon markers that occasionally tied to trees, but I hadn't spotted any. I decided to slow down my pace so my friends behind could catch me up. We eventually regrouped with 8 members just before the sun set.
We arrived back at the crater around 18:00 pm, I was surprised to see how vast the crater had become, thick stinky smoke spread all over the landscape and lowered our vision. It seemed the volcano had become more active in the night that the natural thermal springs become hotter too. I could see some spots exposed with boiling sulfuric soil here and there. I climbed down the rocks carefully, searching for stones to grip. I startled when the stone which I was trying to grip felt so hot, my hand immediately released it. If I moved the stone from its original place, natural gas would made its way out from the soil, expanded and diffused in the air. I crossed the springs by tiptoeing the river stones, climbed up and down several times until I made it to the end of crater. I glanced around, the view of the crater was eerie and mystical. Nobody dared to take pictures. We presumed our journey back to entry point, still five kilometers to go. There's no shortcut, we could not bypass and we had no other option than tracing back the same route.
We turned on our flashlights and headlamps as the night comes. It was so dark and my headlamp beamed a small range of light. My eyes fixed on the track as I bracing myself for the trail ahead. Within the group, I walked in the middle, I felt more safer to be in between. Though there were eight of us, we were all quiet, we kept walking and concentrating on the track. It was a slow march because of thousands of spiked rocks and pebbles that scattered along the way of the trail. The trail's gravelly surface was palpable to the soles of my feet through the bottoms of my shoes. I was in a living hell. My feet felt like on fire, my soles rubbed raw, my ankles strained, my leg muscles and joints aching, yet the trail seemed never ending. The hunger, thirst, and exhaustion were unbearable, I never experienced such extreme fatigue before.
The situation was getting worse when my friend who walked at the front said that the path seemed like
deja vu. She was uncertain, we were too. Sometimes the path looked like a dead end, sometimes it has one or two false paths, and sometimes the path was hidden by shrubs. Fortunately one of us had GPS-tracker, he checked the route on GPS and confirmed that we were on the right track. That worried me less than the fact that I couldn't see the trail ahead because it was in total dark. It was 18:30 pm and I was sick by this endless trail. I was dehydrated for five hours, I craved for water more than anything else. The agony made everyone of us sensitive and wacky. We outcried for food and water. Hallucination slowly developed in my mind, I thought I was seeing a river but I was wrong. Another friend thought of seeing a ghost, startled for a second, but did not say it out loud and continued walking. I, too, had the same bizarre feeling. Rumours had it that Mount Salak is inhabited by spirits. There were several planes crashed into the mountain cliff. The most recent one was
Sukhoi jet accident in which 45 people died, zero survivor. The thought of it scared me. I hoped we could survive out of this jungle and be safely arrived home.
All of sudden, there was a sound of man coughing. We were not sure from which direction but we were elated, thinking there might be other people somewhere around, perhaps a village man passing nearby us. We called and yelled, "
Hello!?", but there was no response. We were confused by the situation, the voice of coughing sounded near but there was no sight of man. We continued walking until we found the water spring. It was miracle to eventually finding water source. I filled up my Hydrapak, drank half of it, and re-filled it to brim. We rested for five minutes and progressed walking. An hour later, by the grace of God, we arrived back at the entry gate. "
It's done, it's over!"
I thought with gratitude. I beat Salak Summit though my body was traumatized by what it had taken to get there.
It was 20:00 pm, there was still another group left behind. We rested and waited for them. I ate dinner prepared by local coffee shop which we booked the day before to provide us dinner. The owner confirmed our question about the sound of man's cough, it was actually the sound of wild boars inhabiting the mountain. So what we heard before was not a man but wild boar!! Thank goodness we didn't meet it face-to-face! I examined my legs, there were bruises resulted from frequent stumbling upon gravels and protruded roots. My running shoes were streaked with dirt, its pink colour had disappeared, replaced by brown muddy stain. The night was getting colder, I covered myself with emergency blanket, thinking of the latter group. There were ten of them, I was really worried. It was a hard trail, they must be facing and struggling the same difficulties. It was 22:00 pm but they had not yet come. Me and the girls went home earlier, leaving the boys who were waited for the last group that finally arrived at 01:00 am (!) I was grateful to know all of us went home safely.
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| The trail as recorded in GPS tracker |
I woke up the next morning with numbness. In Whatsapp group chat, everybody shared their own experience, one confessed for witnessing a mountain lion passed by, one pleaded for seeing a village near the crater which is never existed, another one said had noticing a face-like-ghost appeared on tree bark. I did notice some weird forms but I ignored it, assuming it was just hallucination resulted from weariness.
Despite of all the odds, I learned how it felt to be in the wild. With what it was like to walk for kilometers for no reason other than to witness the top of mountain. The experience was powerful and addictive. It seemed to me that I felt like a small being in the wild. Hiking Mount Salak would be my first and last time (one time is enough!). My next adventure will be Mount Rinjani in August 19-23. Can hardly wait. :-)
