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Mt. Merapi Climb

Sept 2, 1997

This past summer I was fortunate to spend almost six weeks in Indonesia, a nation of 13,000 islands located in tropical southeast Asia. There were many, many things that I enjoyed about this country and its friendly people.

Probably the highlight of the summer was climbing various volcanoes. One of these was Mt. Merapi on Indonesia's most populated island, Java. It is an active volcano and having had a first good look at the mountain from the volcano observatory at Kaliurang, I found the attraction of the climb almost magnetic. Here we viewed it on a clear day, and I remember staring at the whole mountain in awe, feeling such an urge to make an attempt at the summit, even though we were told 60-75% of the climbers normally don't make it to the top.

On the evening of Sept 2, we ( a group consisting of a Belgian couple, who would not make it to the summit, a gay American couple who were both avid hikers, a German mountain goat from Berchtesgaden, an American woman working in London, a Japanese student, and myself) were bussed from Yogyakarta to the village of Selo .

Selo is a small village on the north side of Mt. Merapi at a higher altitude than other villages in the vicinity and makes a good base for an attempt at Merapi's peak from the north. At the time of our climb, the trail up Merapi's south slope had been closed due to fresh lava which was escaping from the caldera. We stopped at a local home stay which was to be our base for the climb, and were fed tea, a cheese sandwich and cut pineapple. Our stay here lasted over one hour and ostensibly this was to get us acclimated to the intermittent altitude, which was much higher than Yogya's 105m above sea level. We also met the guides who would take us, and had a chance to get to know the members of our climbing party, as well as fill out registration forms - the "in case you don't make it back" type.

We set out at 12:50am with the goal of reaching the summit for sunrise. Helo was at an altitude of 1525m and Merapi's peak was at 2900 m. Early on the Belgians dropped off and one of our three guides stayed with them. The rest continued, taking breaks on what started out as a powdery track through a forest on the volcano's north slope.

The temperature stayed at a constant 8 degrees Celsius, so the bundle of clothes I had along seemed to be excess baggage on the climb, but as I later discovered, would be most necessary at the top. The wind was cold but for the first two hours of the trek we were sheltered by the trees, so we really didn't feel it. When I did become uncomfortable, it was caused by the perspiration which worked to keep our bodies cool while climbing, but then turned us to icicles if we rested for more than a few minutes. The rest stops did give us an opportunity to gaze at the myriad of constellations in the equatorial sky. Orion was the most easily identifiable.

At 2 am we were at 2000 m which gave me a chance to see if the altimeter on my watch was working. Seeing that it was accurate gave us another measuring stick to record our progress and it was fun to note the increasing altitude with each added rest stop.

At around 2400 m we cleared tree line. Our climbing was now sometimes done on all fours, which became even more precarious considering we were each carrying a flashlight. The terrain is now best described as rubble - volcanic rock strewn about the upper slopes - and I must say at this point I was struggling to keep up with the group. The one thing that did seem to help was if I positioned myself right behind the guide who was in the lead - at least the depressing feeling of fallling behind on a pitch black mountainside was something I didn't then have to contend with.

By 4am we were at 2700 m. The past hour had been pretty much straight up. At times we passed fissures in the side of the mountain where the ground was warm if not even hot. At these points the air of course smelled like "many rotten eggs", but it didn't last for long.

Surprisingly, the one factor I had feared the most didn't come into play at all. The thin air at higher altitude caused few problems in our group. Indeed the most difficult part of the climb was covering the terrain, which was often difficult for hikers even in boots not to mention those in solid tennis shoes. Although lava is a very abrasive stone, and although it seemed to tear our shoes apart, it did give us more traction than we had stepping through the fine ash on the lower slopes.

The last hour was virtually a vertical climb, but by 5am our party of 6 climbers and two guides, aged 17 and 22 had reached the summit. The feeling of accomplishment was indescribable. Everyone seemed to have their own inner celebration. We took many pictures, and wandered around near the apex. One of the highlights here was the many cracks in the mountain, where, because of the early morning darkness, we could see the red glow of the lava oozing out of the earth. These were far enough away that we could see them but yet could not attempt to get closer. Over on the southern slope of the mountain, I was lucky to see the latest crater, which had an opening from which a red glow and dancing fiery embers exploded like fireworks, only to be pulled back into the maelstrom once again. It was the final realization that we had indeed climbed an active volcano.

Selamat Pagi! The sunrise was spectacular as well. The sky was already starting to lighten when we reached the peak, and as we watched and took in the surroundings, day began to break. A band stretched across the horizon, first as a light purple, then turning to a greenish tinge, before melting into orange. What surprised us all was when the Sun God did make his appearance, it was actually well below this band which stretched across our field of vision!

With the advent of daylight slowly came the realization that a long downhill trek lay ahead. The good news that we didn't have to rely on flashlights was offset on my part by the fear of the insecure footing which was ahead. Indeed it would take us almost as long to come down off of Merapi as it did to ascend the peak in the dark of a moonless night. The early part of the downhill trek consisted of stepping across piles of molten rock from previous eruptions. This track took us down to 2500 m where we were again greeted by the trees which seemed to blanket the lower 2/3 of the volcano.

I was one of the slowest on the downhill, and the stretch from 2500 m to 2000m which seemed to be a magic number while heading down, was endless. The track here turned from the rocky lava to powdery ash, and coupled with tiredness, we all fell numerous times as our feet failed to find a solid grip. I was covered in dust from head to toe.

Near the end of our descent we passed fields of tobacco plants, and saw a few Indonesian farmers harvesting dried grass from fields near our trail. It was an amazing realization to think that these farmers lived in the shadow of one of the most active volcanoes in the world today and that sometimes on a daily basis they would make the climb to tend the fertile fields we had just passed.

Exhausted, we reached a shelter just above the village of Helo. Apa Kapar? I'm very tired. It was great to know we had succeeded, and that we had almost reached our starting point without injury. From here on it was a nice walk on a steep cobblestone street down into the village. We took many pictures of the villagers both in the fields and walking through the town carrying their load either on their head, or in two containers balanced by a pole which was stretched across one's shoulders. It was a scene often repeated in the villages of Indonesia.

As we reached the homestay we greeted the Belgian couple and took longing looks at the volcano which drew each one of us to itself this past night. It was 10 am.

Click here for pictures of Mt. Merapi. 

©1997 [email protected]

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