Mount Rinjani – Day 3; To The Top

BEWARE Lots of Pics!!

My previous post ends with me freezing because of the rain ( Mount Rinjani – Day 1 & 2 ) and then finally became warmer with fresh dry clothes. We didn’t stay up late because we had to wake up at 1 am to start our hike to the top of the mountain.

At 1 am, the rain had stop but it was the coldest temperature I had ever felt my entire life. I said I won’t go, it’s freezing. I bundled myself with jacket and sleeping bag and even so it was still sold. I decided to make hot tea and see what happen next. The hot tea really helped a lot, I felt a bit warmer and decided to join the people who were ready to go to the top of the mountain. My friend stayed in the tent because she knew she wouldn’t make it.

We left around 2 am. It was pitch dark but the stars were sooo beautiful. The sky was clear because the rain fell all night. I had made up my main that I will not go if the rain continues (note: the next morning was raining and some people dared themselves to go up and I met one man who said he stop in the middle because it was so cold and he had frost on his mustache).

The hike was very difficult for me. It was slippery. It wasn’t soil I stepped on, it was deep sand made of small rocks. It was two step up and the sand brought us one step down. I held on so tight to my natural trekking pole (it was made of fallen wood…you’ll see it later 😉 ). Sometimes, I was half crawling with my hand grabbing every possible rock. Sometimes, my fellow tent-mate pushed me up to boost my climb.

The trek was much better after that challenging sand trek. The trek was still sandy but it wasn’t as difficult as before. we could actually see the top. It looked so close but it was actually so far. I saw lots of Westerners walked pass me, they were so fast. I envy them. Few hours later, the trek once again was deep sand. The sand made us walk twice harder. Somewhere around 5 am, we reached this beautiful spot. Segara Anak Lake was clearly visible.

The top of the mountain was still several hundreds away.

The top was that highest rock. Seemed small from here

From that spot, I made a metal judgement. I could still go up with all the strength I have, BUT I knew for sure it would be difficult for me to go down using only my (not so good anymore) sport shoes. I should have bought more proper shoes.

So I stayed on that spot and took as many pictures as I could 🙂 … For this time I am not going up but I will make sure I come back again someday and reach the top, that was my promise at that time.

Here are some view taken there:

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And … of course I had to take picture for my babies (and my favorite band – coming up in the future post). I had shared their pictures earlier in Underneath the Shell.

The top of the mountain looked something like this (one of my tent-mate went on without me and my other tent-mate)

As I have predicted, it was bloody difficult to go down!! I had to hold on to my tent-mate almost all the time, otherwise I have fallen hundreds of time. My shoes were very slippery (a case of wrong shoes). By the time I reached the came, some parts of my shoes had gone loose.

 Even thought it was a difficult walk, I still managed to capture and record the beautiful scenery. I even captured the beautiful green lake from many spots.

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 Segara Anak Lake was not the only beautiful view there. The other side of the mountain was also beautiful. I love all the clouds seen from up above. I feel like flying above the cloud.

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See the colour on the top of the hill. Click this picture to see clearly

Yup….our camping site looked so close but it was so far!

I had to pass through the deep sand again…and I think fell down more than five times. My butt and my legs were all in pain. I was so tired when I finally reached the camping site.

The plan was to start packing our stuff and the tents, be ready to walk down to the lake. We will have our next camping site there. I was totally exhausted and couldn’t imagine walking again after a 30 minute rest. Fortunately, many of our group hadn’t come down yet…so we had to wait for them. Before everyone even came, the rain started falling down again (I sort of prayed for the rain to fall so we can postpone going to the Lake).

In the end, we didn’t go down at all because the rain didn’t stop. At night, there was storm. Our tent was shaken so badly by the wind. We were fortunate to have our tent between other people’s tents because a tent next to us was lifted a bit during the storm. One of my friends was in that tent and she told me how her feet was lifted because of the wind.

I will continue Day 4 soon 🙂 I hope you enjoy this post 🙂

I will close it with two pictures I like the most:

I use this for my header of my facebook account

I always wanted to have a pic with the cloud behind/below me…and I finally have it

And a video I took on our way down