Conquering the Volcano

by Mike McCaffrey (UC Santa Cruz) and Renee Eng (UCLA)

The guide, who picks us up an hour before midnight, doesn't need to know our room numbers because the small village of Pura Besakih has only one place to stay--a guest house with a total of three rooms, one of which is occupied by the owner. The guide speaks to us in broken English and waits patiently for our final preparations. With a smile, he sets off while we struggle to keep up in the pitch-black night. He ventures off the rural roads into the fields. "So the dogs won't get us," he explains. This is when we first realize we are glad we hired a guide.

We have traveled to Bali for a week of adventure during our semester break. We have scuba dived with white-tipped reef sharks, surfed Kuta beach, and eaten seafood while watching the sun set over white Balinese sands. Now, we are climbing in pure darkness, for almost seven hours, to reach the summit of the highest mountain in Bali so we can watch the sun rise over Indonesia.

One of the great things about the Education Abroad Program is that it sends you places where you do not feel at home. No more lying on the couch watching television, or sitting around with your friends. You are forced to venture out and make new friends. All that television time is used for adventures you never would have had. Our adventure takes place in the northeast region of Bali, a small Hindu island in Indonesia.

The tribulation actually started around nine o'clock at night, when the village locals helped dress us in traditional Hindu apparel: a sarong around our waists, traditional jackets, and scarves around our heads. We climbed 2,000 steps up the side of the volcano to a 2000-year-old temple where we prayed for a safe journey up the mountain. Balinese mountains are sacred to the locals, so to climb them you must show respect by praying at the temple first. This mountainside temple is truly outstanding. It survived the volcano's last eruption in 1963 virtually unscathed while surrounding villages were demolished.

"One of the great things about the Education Abroad Program is that it sends you places where you do not feel at home. No more lying on the couch watching television, or sitting around with your friends. All that television time is used for adventures you never would have had."

After praying at the temple, we returned to our hotel, put on our trekking gear and waited. You can try to sleep, but the anticipation is too much. They say it takes about six hours to climb the mountain. The idea is to start out at around midnight to reach the top at sunrise. A six-hour climb up an active volcano seemed plausible, however we did not think the consecutive six-hour descent would prove to be one of the most grueling activities we have ever undertaken.

There are three distinctive sections to this to this 10,300-foot peak called Mount Agung. The first part of the climb is through dense jungle. The route does not switch back and forth; it extends straight up the face of the mountain. We climb up and over the steep crumbling ledges. With a flash light in one hand, I make sure the tree roots I'm grabbing as holds are not snakes or the large black spiders I saw hiding under my bed an hour ago.

As the trees spread out, another environment begins to emerge. The guide stops for a water break and carves everyone huge walking sticks with his machete. The air gets thin and cold as we move above the timberline and the ground turns into volcanic gravel. With each step you take, your foot slips deep into the gravel and sinks partially back down the mountain. It is like climbing up an endless sand dune, with large volcanic rocks in your shoes, and volcanic dust clouds like deathly auras around your body. Our feet are causing small avalanches down the steep slope of the mountain behind us, but by this point we are too tired to even call out warnings. Our feet are battered from the rocks in our shoes. Our legs are starting to falter from the continuous trekking. Our arms hurt from constantly bracing body weight against our walking sticks to keep from tumbling back down the mountain and our lungs burn from inhaling volcanic dust.

After about two hours of this, we reach the summit section where the barren windswept volcanic lava is so steep that most of the time we are scrambling on all fours like monkeys. It is still pitch dark, but our survival instincts tell us that a slip on this section of the mountain would be a certain broken limb, or worse. It starts to get cold, and our sweat-drenched beach clothes make the harsh summit gales seem even colder. When delirium from climbing for five hours on no sleep sets in, you start thinking about your family and your nice warm couch.

But then the ground becomes so steep that we know the summit cannot be far. We start to smell the mountain's defeat. With adrenaline pumping, we scurry up the last few feet, and reach the summit, still in complete darkness.

We can see the distant lights of Kuta and the stars feel close enough to grasp—a true sense of victory. We see the whole island surrounded by ocean. As the black sky turns to blue, the volcanic crater is revealed. Coveting any available warmth, we huddle together to watch the blues turn purple then deep red, orange, and yellow. The odyssey that brought us here seems distant as the rising sun yields the clouds, now far below us. Twenty minutes later, when the sunrise is complete, we realize that we are more tired than we have ever been. We are freezing, sore and weak, and on top of a 10,000 foot active volcano.

The trip back down is ridiculously hard. The summit section we scrambled up on hands and knees now requires us to walk down leaning backwards at such an absurd angle that we feel like limbo dancers. Our water is running low and food is a long lost memory, but we push downwards into the avalanching ash, and through the now monkey-infested jungle. The jungle is a lot more comforting during the day, with its brilliant red ferns, and towering trees and vines. The urge to nap in the foliage dominates our thoughts as we struggle to keep up with the guide, who simply runs down the mountain without a backward glance.

Just when I am thinking that this next step will be my last, the 13-hour ordeal comes to an end. We reached the Hindu temple in which we had paid our respects to the mountain. One last journey down the 2000 steps and we are done.

Was it worth it? Did 13 hours of intense pain and abject fear rectify themselves in a 20-minute sunrise? The answer lies in the smile I share with my EAP summit team every time I see them, in the pride I feel in completing an exceptional feat, and the true appreciation I have gained for a lazy day on the couch in a nice warm house.

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