Climbing the Gunung Kerinci

“No mental image, no thought experiment can come close to what we really discovered up there…” 

—   So athletes, that's it, are you ready? Have you trained like beasts?

—   Pfff! Training is for the weak! We prefer to bet everything on the insolence of youth. 

Dear readers, believe me, it's one thing to show off in front of your friends in Singapore the day before departure, downing big pints of beer, it's another to find yourself in Indonesia two days later, with the big mountain to climb in front of you. 

The Kerinci is there in front of us, huge, as if floating above the horizon. With Andy, we observe it in silence through the dirty window of the guesthouse while the declining sun sets its summit ablaze. Tomorrow will be a day of suffering; we know it too well. 

The next day at 7:00 a.m, we set off by car on a small bumpy road through the tea plantations, fields of potatoes, cabbage and peppers that grow well on the fertile slopes of the volcano. The old Toyota painfully carries us up to the altitude of 1700 m, where the road ends. Above, the forest begins. The driver drops us off leaving the engine running, without saying a word, he points to the start of the trail and then leaves right away. Here we are alone with our bags at the edge of the jungle.   

 It is the border crossing, the moment when you must leave the familiar world of men to sink into the one of the wild and the unknown. The moment when the call of adventure becomes stronger than the apprehension and pushes us, after a last look back, on the small path that disappears into the vegetation.

 The forest is dense, oppressive, the atmosphere is humid, compact. The progression is difficult through this high-altitude jungle, territory of the last Sumatran tigers. We only see a few steps in front of us, our universe has been reduced to our immediate perimeter. We are in a bubble that moves with us at the bottom of a green ocean. The hours pass and we begin to dream of open spaces   

The slope slyly steepens, and the path gradually turns into a kind of endless staircase made up of tangled roots and slippery mud. It is the ascent to hell. I summon my available forces: the insolence of youth is missing, treachery! What's left? The pride of not giving up before Andy? Not very noble but hey, it'll do for now. At this point, we must use our hands to climb, two steps forward for one step back. We cross through layers of mist that cling to the volcano. Silhouettes of huge plants appear from time to time at a bend in the path then leave again for the dawn of time, while monkeys howl in the distance.

 As we transit from the jungle to the subalpine forest, we go up along narrow trenches dug by the torrents of mud which descend the slopes of the volcano during heavy rains. Like chimneys that suck us in from above, towards the exit and towards the light. Finally, after an interminable battle, the ground clears and the trees give way to a carpet of rhododendrons. We are exhausted. 

At 3300m in the middle of the steep and windswept slope, on a small terrace with just enough space to pitch our tents, we set up our camp for the night. The imposing summit cone towers over us like a huge wave about to break. At times, white smoke flies up to the sky. The clouds roll below, we are cut off from the world. Night falls and the temperature drops.

Our camp site, below the summit

Bundled up and fully dressed in our sleeping bags, we try despite the wind fiercely blowing on our tents, to find some rest before leaving in a few hours for the final ascent. In the middle of the night, I get out of my tent for an urge. Far down on the plain, the white lights of the villages twinkle through the clouds and echo the milky way above me, I feel like I'm alone onboard a night flight.

After a short sleepless night, around 4am, we set off for the summit. A violent and icy wind sweeps the desert slopes of the volcanic cone, the ascent is very steep. In the beam of our headlamps, the ground seems to consist of lava rock and hardened mud. We climb following a trench that shelters us from the wind. We are fast, very fast and reach 3800m a little before 5:30 am. We stop in a small crack to curl up sheltered from the wind while waiting for daybreak.  

When finally, the first lights appear on the horizon, we come out of our hole and cross the last meters that separate us from the long-awaited goal.

 This summit that has obsessed us since the moment the idea of ​​this ascent germinated in our heads. All that time wondering, “What does it look like? Is it flat? Is it strewn with rocks? Is the soil friable? What will we find up there? We try to imagine it, to visualize ourselves wandering it like an astronaut walking for the first time on a new world. But no mental image, no thought experiment can come close to what we really discovered up there: by setting foot on the summit, a lunar world of desolation is revealed to us. We are on the edge of a huge crater whose bottom we cannot see; fumaroles are escaping from it as well as an irresistible end-of-the-world feeling. We have reached the gate of hell. One step would do. At this precise moment, on this pebble perched on the border of absolute, we are alone on earth. And if I had to find a reason for the suffering that we inflict on ourselves to climb the mountains, it would be this. I'm fine here, I would like to stay longer, maybe even forever. But behind us, far below in the valley, the sheets of mist are adorned with colors that warm the heart in the emerging lights of dawn. So, we turn around and begin our long descent back to the realm of men. 

Summit, finally !