Steven's Peak-bagging Journey

July 25-26, 2023

3332m

Java, Indonesia

Gunung Raung on the far eastern side of Java is well known as the hardest/most technical objective on this island. The northern approach is nothing fancier than a “hike” but does not go to the true summit. The only way to access the true summit is from the south side and the route goes at exposed class 3/4. A guide is required and rope work is also mandatory, even though competent scramblers (by North America standard) should have no problem doing this route without a rope. This peak boasts over 3000 m prominence making it one of the top 100 in the world, by prominence. This was one of the main objectives in this trip and I found the guiding company through Instagram. The admin of this company does have good local connections and through his suggestions I managed to secure our guides for Agung and Batukaru in Bali. Eventually after bagging 4 peaks in Indonesia it’s finally the time for Gn. Raung. Adam found a good place (Kendi Villas) in Kalibaru and we’d be based in this hotel for a few nights. The only downside of this hotel was the difficulty to access local food as it required walking over 1 km each way, so from time to time we opted to just eat the expensive hotel food, which was honestly not as bad as anticipated.

The admin promised to pick us up at 4 am even though I didn’t think the approach day would require such an early start. I didn’t bother to argue as the guides would have no idea about our speed and ability and it’s logical to treat us as “the averaged”. We both woke up at 3:30 am and by 4 am we were already waiting outside the hotel’s gate with our bags. The admin did not show up so I called him. It seemed like he was sleeping but the calling did wake him up, and he promised he would be “on the way in 5 min”. This turned out to become an hour-long waiting and he did not show up until 4:59 am. Adam had already gone back to the room and decided to skip this peak because of the bad services, whereas I was more used to the lack of reliability of people through the various larger expeditions I’ve done over the years. I decided to forgive this guy and carried on solo. The drive to their “basecamp” took at least half an hour on rough roads, and to my surprise he charged me 1 million rupiahs (~70 USD) less than stated. I didn’t know if that’s a mistake, or he decided to offer a discount. In any case I got a decent deal for 1:1 guiding, and the guide also brought a friend who turned out to be my porter and translator, so I thought it wasn’t too bad. But this whole waiting game in the morning was definitely unnecessary because I did not get my Ojek (motorcycle) ride until 7 am. I spent at least another hour at their “basecamp” doing nothing, but they did offer me healthy amount of food for free, so I had no complaint.

The Ojek ride was the first highlight of this trip as this was my first time ever riding on the back of a motorcycle. I knew I would be doing a lot of this stuff in this trip so it was a good starter. I did ride on the back of a snowmobile a few times and I myself also have some mountain biking experience, so it wasn’t too difficult. The only stop we did was a ranger’s check point for IDs and photos. This would not be an ideal objective to try sneaking in without a guide. The driver then took me for at least 6-7 km up the trail (singletrack with some rough sections), all the way to around 1150 m elevation. The length of the ride was much longer than I thought, such that the objective was suddenly not that dauntingly long anymore. The guide did say that I was lucky because sometimes (wet and muddy) the last few kilometers would not be doable. I thought the ride was quite fun despite the thrill. My knees were also somewhat sore but the pain went away quickly. The approach to the camp (Pos 7) involved about 1400 m elevation gain from the starting point. After “Pos 4” the grade became steep with some tree roots scrambling required. I thought the approach was rather easy and we made there in about 5 hours. The guide made us stopping at every single “Pos/camp” to rest and the resting time was probably just as long as the moving time, but we still made there in 5 hours.

The entire afternoon was then spent resting and sweating in my tent. The tent was a good one, but the zippers were completely broken. The bugs were mostly absent so I didn’t bother to make them fix the zippers. The sleeping bag and mattress that they gave me was rather shitty. They were those classic “cheap shits” that were fine enough to get the objective done, but lacked any sort of luxury. I basically felt like laying on the rocks but I also had done many bivys without even having a mattress, so this would do. The food was the best part. Until this point I’ve experienced 4 different guiding companies/individuals and all of them provided excellent food with amazing quantity. The clouds cleared up in time to watch an amazing sunset, and then it’s time to go to bed. I had been socializing with another company’s 6 or 7 clients in the evening. They were all living in Jakarta but originally came from different parts of the world, and all of them spoke English well. One of the best things about travelling alone is that you tend to make new friends more quickly. They were shocked that I was alone by myself, but I explained why Adam refused to come here. The night was lousy with music and non-stopping cooking and chatting, but I’m usually not bothered too much by that. I nonetheless got some hours of sleep. I had explained that I wanted to start at 2 am in order to watch sunrise from the summit, but the porter/cook still came to wake me up at midnight saying it’s the time to start. I checked the time, and immediately said no. The porter came again at 1:15 am and I again refused to get up. I finally accepted the breakfast at 1:50 am and got up, because otherwise I would be summitting another beautiful peak in the dark, and I did not want that.

The night was cold and windy so I made an in-situ decision to bring the cheap shit sleeping bag. I still thought we’d be on the summit for 1-2 hours waiting for the sunrise, and I wanted some sort of comfort if I ended up doing that. It turned out that I slightly underestimated this objective but we still summitted about half an hour before sunrise. We then quickly made our way past Pos 8 and Pos 9 to the treeline. This time I insisted to stop and rest at each Pos “Camp” because I didn’t want to summit in the dark. The howling winds also didn’t sound very appealing. The guide spoke out some concerns but I said to me, this wind was not a problem at all, unless he was worrying about himself. We then resumed. Sofyan (guide) then led us traversing over the first bump into some scrambling terrain. All three of us were able to move through this kind of terrain efficiently so in no time we were at the first crux, an exposed class 3/4 corner. A rope was already fixed there (presumedly by other guides from this company) and we all climbed it using the rope as a fixed line. I was the only one wearing harness, so I clipped into the rope for some added safety. Sofyan then took the rope, and we traversed across some exposed ledges on the east side of the second summit, locally known as “peak 17”.

To descend into the sadde between “Peak 17” and the true summit, aka. Puncak Sejati we had to down-climb a somewhat exposed stretch of class 3 chimney. In the dark it wasn’t very obvious what’s laying ahead, but it turned out to be just scrambling terrain. Sofyan made Yoni to descend using this rope as a fixed line, and then made me to rappel it. Sofyan then down-climbed and left the rope there for the return, as from here onward we would not need the rope anymore. There were another few steeper stretches to descend into the saddle, but those stretches all had fixed lines. It was either Yoni or Sofyan leading, so all I needed was to follow what they just did. The push from the saddle to the summit was a long haul on rough terrain, mostly class 2 scrambling but with loose blocks. Sofyan dislodged several rocks and Yoni almost got hit by one basketball. I then made sure to be 120% alert of the above. There were some fun scrambling near the top but in the dark it was difficult to get the full picture. It turned out that we had just passed those few famous rock towers that I regularly saw on Instagram posts. Sofyan and I arrived at the summit about half an hour before sunrise and I did end up wrapping myself in that sleeping bag as it was very windy, cold and miserable. Yoni arrived 20 minutes later as he needed an urgent bathroom break. I gave him my toilet paper as he forgot to bring his own. The actual sunrise show was great, but I didn’t find it to be that spectacular, probably because of the cold.

The descent had to be made soon because not everyone had brought their own sleeping bag here to survive the winds. We made quick work down the loose terrain into the saddle and jugged up the fixed rope back onto the ridge of “Peak 17”. Sofyan made me to make a traverse over this subsidiary summit for variety. I didn’t care much about this bump, but figured why not. The other side of this subsidiary bump required one short rappel over a slight overhung, and the guide set it up for me. I blindly went down assuming it’s alright. All of the gears were not mine so I was mostly being lazy, and I was also not very familiar with the rappelling using a figure 8 and I was also in a bit of a rush. Just when I went into the overhung something broke and I was suddenly hanging there, hand-grabbing the rope. My initial thought was the biner or the harness was broken, so I just down-climbed the rest of that pitch and got the hell out of there. I was still confused about what had just happened, but the guide was filming and the entire process was caught in the video. I want to say here that you should always double-check what the guides set up for you. In this case Sofyan made a beginner-level mistake that could easily end me in a hospital, but I also made the horrible mistake by blindly trusting the guide. For the second rappel down that exposed corner in which a mistake would actually kill someone, I opted to not trust anything including the harness they gave me. I just down-climbed it while being attached to the rope, and I felt that to be much safer and more reliable as at this point, I trusted the rocks more than anything else.

While traversing back across the first bump we learnt that the other team mostly turned around except for one girl, who had several guides now accompanying. Most of them did not have the experience to handle this kind of terrain and the guides in that team were also very slow. Though making some mistakes, my guide was at least fast and strong. I actually think he’s faster than me on any of the terrain we encountered there. We took a lengthy break (over an hour) at the campsite to cook, rest and refuel before committing to the grueling 1400-m descent. I didn’t find the downhills to be that bad despite the 2300 m elevation loss from the summit, but I also had porters and guides to carry most of my shits. At this point the company was finally doing the job excellently with two Ojek rides arriving with hardly any delay. They also offered me a free meal (basically their own Warung) and offered me a free drop-off in hour hotel.