Mount Rinjani, The Summit

1.30am - we crawled out of our tents pretty tired. Unfortunately sleeping on rock was very uncomfortable needing to keep rotating throughout the night and we probably only had an hour or two of sleep. We were given breakfast which was two slices of bread, not ideal for what was to come. Overall, we both felt the food portions were too small considering the intensity of the trek, but never mind. We began the summit trek at 2.20am with the climb taking us straight to the summit at 3726m. Although only another 1100m up, we had been warned about the technical difficulty of this part, with almost all of the terrain being loose, sandy volcanic ash. The hike was only 4km but with an elevation increase of 1100m and the extremely challenging terrain, it would take us four hours to cover this distance. As we began to hike, it became clear this was no joke. We had never hiked on anything like it and for every 2 steps forward we would slip at least 1 step back. 30 minutes in and completely out of breath, we stopped to ask the guide ‘surely it’s not this for the next 4 hours?’ He spoke little English but did understand our question and responded ‘yes, yes it is and it gets steeper as we ascent.’ Great! Nevertheless, we pushed on in the darkness with our head torches, taking it one step at a time. At this point, people in our group started walking at different paces so became separated. There was only one path to the summit, up a narrow ridge which at times was no more than 1m wide. Looking over the side of the ridge we could see a steep drop, where at times a wrong footing would have been our last. As we looked back we could see a line of glowing head torches along the ridge behind us. The final 1km of linear distance was the hardest with a 300-400m ascent. Although steep, this would've been manageable on solid ground, however the ground was far from solid, in fact we were now walking on the loosest and steepest terrain we had encountered yet. At times we had to physically scramble up the scree/ ash on hands as well as feet. It was so hard especially with the altitude and still the summit felt so far away. It was fair to say this final climb was extremely difficult both physically and mentally. Once we were half way up the steep slope, the sun started to rise and it was beautiful. We pushed and pushed, one step then the next sliding and falling down countless times. 20-30 minutes after the sun began to rise, we eventually made it, 3726m up!! It was 1°C and windy but the views were out of this world and this absolutely made the trek worth it! We looked down on clouds in the distance although luckily for us there were no clouds nearby to spoil the view. The sun was glowing orange and casting shadows on the land below behind the lower altitude peaks and into the crater filled with water. The tents at the crater rim now looked little more than specs of colour. Unfortunately a few members of our group didn’t make it, but we celebrated with those who had at the top. We stayed at the summit a little while but not too long as we soon cooled down. At this point the hard part was over but we still had a 2700m descent to make back down to the start point. The climb down to the crater rim was mentally quite draining as with each step we'd skid and slide everywhere. Climbing up, with each two steps up would be one step back. Going down was the opposite… with each step down we'd slide another step forward so concentration was a must. Everyone was falling over, including us both on multiple occasions. It was only at this point in clear daylight that we appreciated the craziness of the terrain we had just climbed. We eventually got back to the campsite at the crater rim and honestly breakfast could not have come sooner. The reward for the most intense activity we'd ever done… a single cold banana pancake! You can imagine our faces when we were handed that on a plastic plate.

After a short lay down in the tent it was time to move on and begin the final walk down from the crater rim at 2700m to the start point at 1000m. Trying to walk down hill was interesting as we kept skidding and losing our footing on the dirt as our legs were so worn out. Luckily the gradient started to ease as we walked further down. Although not easy on the legs, it was of course much easier going down. The porters carrying equipment literally jogged down the steep hill in their flip flops yet again. We cannot understand how they do it. We passed each rest point and said hello the unfortunate victims climbing up, with a slight smugness in our tone this time. As on the way up, our porter cooked us lunch at rest point 2. It was then the final push back to the starting point to be picked up. We had never been so happy to see the pickup truck. Our legs hurt, and in one day we had hiked to the summit and all the way back down again. All in all an extremely intense 28 hours with very little food and sleep; we had climbed 2700m up to 3726m and back down in over 60,000 steps. Jess burned 9000 calories and Dan burned 12,000 calories.

This was by far the toughest physical challenge we've both ever tried, but we’re so pleased to have completed it although felt it was made even harder having eaten such little food.

We then had the journey back to Senaru followed by a three hour journey to Kuta in the south of Lombok, our final destination in Indonesia. The journey was not fun especially after the trek, although we had the nicest taxi driver who willingly stopped at KFC and waited for us to scoff a KFC burger meal each. That alone didn’t quite do the trick so we ordered another bargain bucket to takeaway and also scoffed that in the taxi. After checking in to a rather nice homestay in Kuta, it was off to bed to at last recharge.Read more