Steven's Peak-bagging Journey

August 10, 2023

3153m

Java, Indonesia

Gunung Sindoro is slightly lower than Gunung Sumbing although the two look very similar from afar. In the previous day Adam and I ascended Gn. Sumbing from Kledung Pass. The most popular way to do Gn. Sindoro is also from Kledung Pass, but we preferred the north side approach from Sigedang as that’s actually the shortest way. Our reference was once again, the 2022 reports by Rob and Deividas on peakbagger.com and they also took the north side approach. None of them rode an ojek nor did they even mention the possibility to take ojeks but the first few kilometers would be on some farm roads that’s clearly drivable by the motorcycles. Adam and I preferred to shorten these hikes to the maximum possible extent so we would ask around for ojeks. In the previous afternoon we drove to the north side “basecamp” hoping to find something, but we arrived too late that there seemed to have nobody inside. The gate was also locked. I did not want to “give up” and started to talk to some random people on the opposite side of the street. Our driver helped us to translate. One of them responded quickly and helped us to actually find someone inside that “basecamp”. We were able to do the registration process right away and secured the two ojeks for 6 am in the following morning. This scouting outing turned out to be more satisfactory than anticipated.

The hotel’s breakfast was not supposed to be ready until 7 am but we made them to pre-make our meals and that was ready by 5:20 am. We arrived at the basecamp at exactly 6 am and the ojeks arrived about 10 minutes later. I guess not a lot of trekkers go up from this side and the drivers were certainly not as confident/skillful as the previous ones. The steep roads are made of those sharp cobblestone pavement so one must have excellent driving skills to take a passenger. As a result the ride was very bumpy and sketchy. After about 1/3 of the way (100 m up) Adam decided to call it and walk from there as he nearly fell 3 times. I was not particularly happy about the ride neither but I decided to just stick with it and got up to “Pos 2”. I had already paid my fee and I was not looking forward to walk more than I had to. I only needed to wait 15 minutes for Adam to show up so the ojek was actually not that much faster than walking.

The morning was chilly which made for a quick ascent through the lower forest. The trail condition was not the greatest with a shit ton load of ball-bearing stuffs on steep and dry dirty ground. Going up was not too bad, but coming back down was brutal. I would assume the trail on the southern approach to be “better” as that could explain why everyone opted to go up from that side. In the entire day we encountered not a single hiker on our (north) side, but at least two dozen people on the summit rim. There were only a few higher “Pos” and those ones were sparsely placed, contrary to what we had been observing in this country.

About 300 m under the summit we started to smell the sulphur. We came here expecting that as Gn. Sindoro is currently very active. A short while later we decided to don buffs which probably helped a little bit. The buffs are the best solution for dusts, but I’m not sure about their ability to filter the sulphuric gases. The ascent onto the crater rim felt like a long haul as the view was extremely foreshortened. Rob and Deividas had made a circumnavigation of the crater rim as there are definitely more than a few contenders to be the true summit. The east side is mostly likely to be the highest but nobody’s sure. Adam and I were “forced” to the same, making a circle around the crater despite the high concentration of toxic gases. The winds were blowing in from the SW so the south side rim was actually free of smoke, so after a clockwise navigation we joined the hordes there and took a long break. The east side rim was the worst but we must go there to safely claim this summit, and we tagged two more high points on that side.

I led us making a short-cut to avoid re-ascending that north rim and then we did the same thing as the previous few hikes, that was to descend separately at our own pace. I went ahead but I quickly realized that I could not go much faster due to the slippery and loose terrain. The trail runners felt like a liability but I did not bring any other type of footwear in this trip. I ended up taking two massive spills in addition to several near-falls, and covered myself completely with the filthy dusts. I had to take one break about halfway down and the lower trails were not that much better neither. For the entire way down I must stay concentrated and as a result I did not enjoy a single minute of the descent. We had already decided to not hire those ojek drivers on the descent, but walking an extra mile on those sharp cobblestone pavement was rather painful and frustrating. Thankfully there were a few short-cuts available in the farm fields and I took every single one of them. The last leg of the short-cut was long and a little bit bushy. I had been considering to do a bonus objective in the afternoon, but Sindoro involved more work than I thought, so we drove straight to our next hotel (homestay). We basically rented the entire house with 3 separate bedrooms, for only 45 dollars.