They climb this rocky mountain, carrying up to 80 pounds on their backs. They are young Indonesian porters and many of them barely weigh 100 pounds themselves. How can they do this? Our group struggles to do the all day climb up Mount Rinjani, the second highest volcano in Indonesia. Mount Rinjani is comparable in height to Mount Fuji in Japan. The porters, carrying our supplies, pass us by on the climb. We all have on hiking shoes and some carry hiking poles. The small porters are wearing flip-flops and carrying our supplies, including our tents and sleeping bags and extra water! The backpacks weighing almost as much as some of them do!

Indonesia has many active volcanoes . Gunung Ringani is one of them. It tops out at 12,224 feet! Today I took a trip to the mountains outside of Senggigi to climb this volcano. It's one of the most daunting climbs in Indonesia. 

Climbing this mountain is not an easy task and is not one everyone can do. We are informed it takes good physical fitness and a lot of stamina. Some hikers have died trying to climb this mountain. It is a two day hike and the first night we will camp out at 3,000 feet from the summit. It's warm at the start of the hike but it will be cold at the campsite at night.

We are a group of maybe 10 people. Some of us are solo travelers, like myself, and there are a few young couples. Most of them are in their late 20's.

We hire porters to carry our supplies, food, water and tents. We each carry our own small backpacks with personal items (like warm clothing) we will need further up the mountain .

The trail soon turns rocky and steep. We hike at own pace. Our guide lingers behind with the slow hiker in our group, a man from Japan. 

Soon there are three of us far ahead of the others. We chat and become friends along the trail. The other two guys are not solo travelers, but the girls need to climb slower, and the guys are hiking at a faster pace, so we end up together. Soon they are calling me Larry the wonder guy! I'm sure it's because I am so much older than they are, they are very impressed at how I hike. Hiking has always been fun for me. This hike is the most challenging I have done, though. We all are surprised at the difficulty of it. We were warned about the climb, but often things are made to sound worse then they are. This time, though, we were told the truth about the climb.

We climb all day. Every hour or so we stop to rest and let the rest of the group catch up . Our porters have long ago passed us by. They are small guys, as Indonesians seem to be. Some look very young. 

One girl asked our guide how old the porters were. He said they had to be at least 15 to be hired as a porter. Some of these look so much younger. Some look no more than 12 or 13, but Asians seem to look younger than their age. The weight they carry is almost as much as some of them weigh themselves. We are all amazed at how they can climb with that weight. They wear flip-flops, also, and make about $15 a day.

Our legs cramp and we have to get salt from snacks and energy drinks as we climb. There is no rest on this climb. The rocky trail is unforgivingly uphill. Some are having trouble breathing and must stop often to rest. The 3 of us in the lead soon are far ahead of the rest of our group, but it's not easy for us either, we just naturally hike at a faster pace.

By the end of the day the 3 of us reach the campsite for the night . We reach the crater's edge and cannot believe what we see. This is one of the most amazing views I have seen anywhere. It is breathtaking. I take photos but they do not come anywhere near showing the true colors of what we see. 

This is so amazing it seems unreal, like a movie set made for camera! We are looking at the crater. A new volcanic cone has formed inside the caldera lake that covers about 20 square miles. The lake catches the hot lava from the volcano and prevents it from reaching the villages at the bottom of the mountain.  
 
We take in the views while waiting for the rest of our group to arrive. We cill camp here tonight. The porters have already arrived and prepared out tents for the night and set up the larger tent they will prepare our meal in and then sleep in themselves.

As the sun sets over this active volcano high in the Indonesian mountains, we all sit around the camp and try to snap as many videos and photos of the awesome sunset as we can . We temporarily forget about our tired bodies and sore legs as we sit in the cold, far away from the real world on Mount Rinjani, on one of the many Indonesian Islands.
 
As night falls, the temperaure does too. The porters and guide, wrapped in their heavy, warm clothing prepare a hot meal in the dark. What a meal! It's fantastic. How can they fix a meal like this under these conditions high up in the mountains? We sit around the campsite, now with our warm clothing on, and admire the sunset over this mountain. 

The next morning we hike down a ways to a place to swim, for those that want to brave the cold water. Most do not swim but hike a ways further to some hot springs instead.

By noon we are back at camp for lunch before heading to the summit, about 3-4 hours uphill. The trail has turned from climbing over large rocks to being lava sand. Each step we take we slip back a little ways. The uphill lava sand trail is very difficult to climb . The views from the summit take your breath away. 

We need to hike back down from the summit to the spot we slept last night before beginning our downhill hike the next day.
 
On this, our 3rd day, we will hike back to the start of the trail. The downhill hike is exhausting and by the end of the day, when we reach the bottom of the mountain, we all sport sore legs and are maybe the tiredest we have ever been.

I made some good friends on the hike and I think this crater view was maybe the most spectacular I have seen anywhere. Oh, how I wish the photos would have captured this awesome scene better. It remains in my memory as one of the most fantastic I have ever viewed, and as one of the most challenging hikes I have ever done.

Next: A World Without Autos!