Steven's Peak-bagging Journey

August 15, 2023

2821m

Java, Indonesia

Gunung Cikuray dominates the Parahyangan/Priangan highlands of West Java and is subsequently one of the 5 ultra-prominent peaks in this province. This is a dormant volcano and the only view is from the very top. There are multiple routes on various sides of the mountain. I did not have the time to do a thorough research, and decided to just take Rob Woodall’s route from the NE, the Cilawu trail-head. The trail-head is way above the drivable end for normal passenger cars so hiring an ojek or a pick-up truck would be essential. It’s not impossible to walk the entire distance, but in the middle of a peak-bagging road-trip it’s important to conserve energy and do each of these peak in the easiest possible way. I had some concerns about the ojeks as Gn. Cikuray isn’t in a national park so we might not find any availability at the last-minute. The “basecamp” is somehow relocated to the trail-head and hence unreachable by our vehicle. Nonetheless Adam and I, along with our driver Alfian decided to give it a try. Our strategy was to drive to the village after checking in our hotel in Garut, and (hopefully) resolve the unknowns in the evening before the ascent.

The drive between Ciremai and Cikuray took much longer than I thought, that we didn’t check in until 5 pm, and by the time we left the hotel again it was already dark. I insisted that we must do this scouting outing because I did not want to deal with the uncertainties on the day of our ascent. Even driving to the start of the rough cobblestone road was an adventure as Google was trying to direct us onto some smaller roads. Upon arrival we soon realized there’s no way for us to drive to the actual “base camp”, and there’s absolutely no ojek nearby. This was when having a local guide/driver paid off because Alfian was able to communicate with the family living right next to the cobblestone road’s entrance. They were reluctant to help, but money wouldn’t be a problem for Adam and I. The owner eventually agreed to lend us his two ojeks, and we together also had exactly two drivers (himself, and Alfian). One of the ojeks did not have a headlight but Alfian proposed we could use our cell phones to help illuminating. I raised the question why we were doing this at night. There’s an obvious benefit to resolve the paper work “right now”, but was the reward worth the risks? Nonetheless I’m always up for adventures so off we went. The road was horrendous but our drivers were skillful, but I still called it after 2/3 of the way up. It was becoming stupid – no light, no helmet, shitty bikes, steep roads with sharp rocks, and driver/passenger pairs that had never practiced before. I felt okay to ride with Alfian on the way down, but Adam decided to walk the 4 km out. This scouting outing turned out to be a miserable fail, but we did gather enough information, that taking ojeks shouldn’t be the way unless that’s our only option. The house owner then promised to arrange a pick-up truck at 6 am, for round trip cost of 300,000 IDR, and we instantly took the offer. I wished he said that earlier as otherwise we wouldn’t be wasting our time riding these motorcycles up.

We were tired and beaten after a dark-to-dark kind of day, but it was actually not that late by the time we got back to the hotel (9 pm). The alarms were set at 4:30 am to ensure we could make to the house on time. We got there at 5:40 am with 20 minutes of spare, and the truck did not arrive until 6:20 am. I honestly was not expecting it to be on time because “on time” would actually be an anomaly in this country, and I thought 20-minute delay was already better than expected. Adam immediately jumped onto the front seat so Alfian and I had to sit on the back of the truck, and the ride was horrible. It was definitely much safer than the ojeks, but I did not find it to be any more enjoyable. I became airborne a few times as the driver was pushing the uphill speed over some very large rocks. Despite the unpleasantness and the complicated logistics with hassles I still think we made the right decision, as walking this entire approach both ways would basically mean to skip the next day’s objective. It’s a long ride to the trail-head/basecamp, over 5 km one way with 500 m elevation gain. There’s already someone there to do our registration.

The ascent might seem easy on paper with only 1300 m elevation gain, but turned out to be harder than expected. I finally learnt that the time of the day, the aspect of the route and the type of trail (conditions) mattered a lot. This route is on the north-east side of the mountain so we would be baked under the sun from the start to the finish. There’s canopy but we wouldn’t be completely covered. Not being able to start hiking until 7 am meant we would be dealing with the heat and humidity throughout the day. And finally, this trail is much worse than the popular ones such as the trail on Gn. Slamet. The entire way was basically a scramble on dry mud steps and tree roots, after passing the initial farm lands. We ended up taking several breaks and that was not to be expected for a 1300-m ascent. There was also no view whatsoever until the very summit, so our motivation was not very high. The key was perseverance, which thankfully was not an issue for goal-oriented peak-baggers. The reason of being here was to bag this peak and achieving the pre-made objective was not optional. There’s one massive campsite not far from the summit and that was kind of a surprise, because we saw nobody until that point. There’s also a hut on the very summit, and a massive group of students were already there celebrating. They definitely came up from another trail that I was not aware of.

While descending to that camp I suddenly noticed a huge ass wild pig. I was scared but the people there ensured the pig would not be a problem. A bunch of them actually fed the pig and apparently this pig is a frequent visitor in that camp. Quite a few online sources made comments about this boar. I actually remembered someone had given the basecamp a 1-star review on Google because his/her tent was attacked by that boar at night, but I don’t think that had anything to do with the basecamp services. After the pig’s excitements I dashed down the 1300-m descent in a single shot. I tried to enjoy the tree root scrambling. I actually did not find it to be that bad on the way down, but I cannot say I had a fun time there neither. Nonetheless the objective was to get down safely and we both achieved the goal. My round trip time was exactly 4 hours and Adam was again, 10 minutes behind. We spent the rest of the day driving to Lembang on the north side of Bandung to prepare for the next objective.