Sorry for a little bit of postponement from the last post however here I am! As promised, I'll be continuing my post especially for the main part here; which is the climb of Mount Ijen.
On the last post, I left with the trip from Baluran National Park straight to the lodge that I'm sleeping in. It took us around 2 hours (or 1? kinda forgot) to our lodge; which was only 30 minutes away from the start gate of Ijen's climbing point.
We're staying only for 1 day, as we slept mostly on daylight instead at night, and at midnight we go straight for Ijen climbing. We arrived around 10.00 am at the lodge, bathe and slept, and play around until it reached 01.00 am where we finally took off for the climb.
We were told that it was "only" 3-3.5 kms of trip to the top of the mountain from the starting gate, and we thought that it should be not that hard for us beginners to climb, but HELL I WAS SO WRONG.
Yes, the distance were not as frightening as it sounds but the degree of the steepness in each hill were so excruciating. It took us several times stopping on the edge of the road just to catch our breath. Just after the climb we just knew that Ijen were quite famous for its 45 degrees hill steepness, which even quite challenging for experienced climbers. Not to mention that the texture of the road were mostly sand, making it twice more slippery than average wet soil.
It was a definitely a heaven-or-hell moment during the climb, but guess what? The view is so worth the pain. By the way it took us 3 hours plus hiking from the bottom to the top of Mount Ijen.
Below were a little glimpse of the sunrise we took before it was fully morning.
The gradation of the sky were so perfect. One thing which was unfortunate was that when we were there it was a little bit cloudy thus we can't see and catch the sunrise very clear; we only managed to take several photos and in no time it was suddenly bright morning.
Actually, as most of you already know too (maybe), that in Ijen it was not only the mountain that's incredible in sight, however there are 2 more spots: the Blue Fire, which is a crate that fumes eternal blue-colored fire as a reaction from the sulphur combustion reacting with oxygen; and another one is the Ijen Lake, which is its famous acidic lake.
However since it took another 45 minutes to hike down the crate to see the Blue Fire and I kinda can't stand the sulphuric smell, I gave up on that one and decided to just wait on the top of the mountain waiting for the sunrise.
Below were the photo of the blue fire which I got from my friends who went there.
Can't see much since it was very foggy that day, and WORST we can't even see Ijen Lake just behind. Oh well.
From there me and one of my friends took several more photos while we wait for the rest to come back from the blue fire. It was quite freezing at the top (around 7-8 degree-ish celsius feeling) but hell yeah anything for the photo, we will endure!
The crowd within the road to and from Ijen:
Since the sun were fully risen and it was getting hot (and I heard that it was more dangerous to stay for long during the day due to the sulphuric smell), we decided to went back to the hotel (with another 1 hour plus for the hiking-down trip). Our guide took us several more photos for us before we go back to the gate and finish our Ijen round-trip hike.
The main gate at morning, as a closing for our trip:
Now, for overall impression on Ijen: it was VERY VERY SATISFYING, even for a beginner like me. The pain during the climb were totally incomparable with the satisfaction for reaching the top, rewarded with breath-taking scenery and vast skies inviting to be captured. It was even still very memorable until the point when I write this blog post. It was challenging, yet super rewarding.
The only thing that annoyed us very much were the way the sand and the sulfuric smell stuck in our clothes; it took us forever to clean those shitty little pieces. After finish cleaning up, we slept like a dead meat for a while and continued our trip (as in sleeping in the car) to the next lodge where we will stay for our next climb to Mt Bromo.
I think that's all for the Ijen's climb (before it gets too long), and I'll see you again on the final post of my mountain climbing trip which is about Mt Bromo!
Thank you for reading and see you on the next post!
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