Mount Salak – 2211MDPL, Day 1 (Part 1)

Even though it’s in the middle of school year, not in the middle of long weekend either…BUT I miss hiking. I miss seeing the greenery and the challenging track and the fun of camping and meet new people. Even though I know it will be incredibly tiring to go to work after a long hiking on a mountain…but it’s a nature call I can’t ignore.

This weekend I went to Mount Salak, the mountain is not that high but my God the trek is amazing!

Mount Salak is famous for its mystery. A lot of people think that Mount Salak is haunted because there were a lot of weird story about it. A lot of ghost stories and a lot of other mythical stories. There was also that famous plane crash back in 2012 (here). Someone even told me that once a group of hikers was lost for few days there. Despite all of those rumours, I went there anyway. The amount of hikers there wasn’t as much as other mountains I have visited. The mountain also famous for its blood sucker annelida: pacet and lintah (leech).

Mount Salak can also be seen from South Jakarta if the weather is really clear (image from: kumpulantugasUNJ)

First day was easy, second day was tough.

My friend, Chi Chin told me about the trip. At first I said I couldn’t go because I wanted to see Rurouni Kenshin on Sunday but then I had a change of mind and told her I would love to go. We went with a new travel (new to me, second time for Chi Chin). The travel is called Jelajah Jakarta. Although there was a miscommunication at the end of the trip but I really like the people on this travel.

We gathered at Jelajah Jakarta’s basecamp in Tebet. There were 27 people there and we went to Bogor by rented bus. We left at 11 pm (Friday, October 24) and arrived at Pasir Reungit around 1 am (Saturday, October 25). We didn’t go straight to the mountain. We stayed at a small warung and slept there till morning to have our morning pray (to those who wanted to pray). After that we started our hiking around 5.30 am.

The trek was not as difficult as Mount Cikuray (for today’s trekking). It was like a walk in the park 😉

Unfortunately, I didn’t bring my camera…stupid me left it on my table and or the entire trip I relied on my mobile phone’s camera…so, do excuse the bad quality. At the beginning, the trek was a man-made trek. It was a narrow road with arranged rocks.

But that didn’t last long. We soon found the natural trek. It was a bit muddy because I think rain poured down the day before. It’s not surprising because here in Mount Salak rain pours down almost every day. I lived in Bogor for 3.5 years, so I know how this city is well-known for its daily rain. Funny thing is, I once lived in Bogor but never went to Salak till last weekend.

Trekking here is quite peaceful because along the trek there’s water stream. I really liked listening to the sound of the water while walking, it really felt like true nature. Fresh air, all around green and the noisy but peaceful sound of water.

The trek, like most mountain’s trek was narrow which made it impossible to walk side by side but we can still communicate with others.

We soon found open ground and had a little break. I was still in the mood for walking but some decided to have at least 1 five minute rest. We ate a little snack and drink and then continued our walk.

We passed through some small streams. Once in a while there was a simple bridge but most of the time we could pass it just by walking from rock to rock.

Sometimes we had to walk on the water path. It was easier to walk in the area where the water wasn’t that much, but there was one area where we had to walk in the water stream because there was no other way. It was quite scary because there was a lot of leech in Mount Salak. Fortunately I didn’t get any on me, but two men got sucked by it.

We finally had our real rest in an area where there were two water streams, one was a proper size small river while the other was more like small stream. We had small bites and took some pictures. Basically, we were trying to enjoy the view and got to know each other more.

We continued walking and heading to Kawah Mati (translation: dead crater). The trek heading there could be seen from the changing of the water’s color. It was a bit cloudy.

I like the view there. The guide told us that up ahead the view is more stunning. The water was sulfuric and causing some tress to wither and die. But not sulfuric enough because there were still a lot of green tress around.

We didn’t spend much time there and continued our walk. The trek became muddier than before and it was slippery because the mud was mixed with sulfur….but I think it was a fun trek. There weren’t a lot of slope but sometimes we had to climb this kind of root.

We descended down to reach Kawah Mati Danau Situ Hiang (Dead crater of Situ Hiang Lake)

Here are the view in panoramic mode (click the image to see better)

View from higher ground

View on site

Here, there are more yellowish rocks then in Kawah Mati

Again, we didn’t spend much time there. We continued our walk heading to Kawah Ratu (Queen Crater) with its fantastic view. For me, the view in Kawah Ratu is more memorable than on the peak of Mount Salak.

Part 2 of Mount Salak – 2211MDPL, Day 1 will be posted on Thursday as I am going to share some view from Kawah Ratu. Hope you enjoy reading this post and continue reading the next part 🙂