Seat of Our Pants

The Gunung Inirie volcano is a beautiful, massively butt-kicking mountain that should not be underestimated by any prospective climber. I don’t have the exact height of the mountain, as there are conflicting reports. Some sources say that it’s 2245 meters, others leave it at 2150. It is very steep. The trailhead sits at about 1000 meters, and going up the mountain is a bit like a very sadistic stairmaster program. Coming down is far worse, but more about that later.

We got up at four am, since it is wise to get the climb over with before the mid-day heat kicks in. Our team consisted of the usual seatsofourpants.com gang, plus Mr Raphael from Montreal, a Canadian fellow that we befriended on the bus over from Labuanbajo. Our guide for the day was Franciscus, a local pig farmer that spoke about five words of English. He was also one of the most fit guides I’ve ever had to follow up a mountain. Supposedly, the hike up the mountain should take four hours. Franciscus whipped us up to the summit in 2:45, including a break for Oreos and chocolate at the crater.

The hike up begins with a quick stroll across a meadow. After that, the real mountain begins, and a steep, dry path leads upwards along a grassy and quickly eroding mountainside. Deep cracks where rain water flows in the wet season line the mountain on all sides.

After a grueling hour of climbing up the path, the grass gives way to a precariously unstable field of pumice-stone pebbles. The pebbles are small, sharp and lightweight: every step causes a foot-long landslide. Going up this field is pretty strenuous – a decent cardiovascular workout, to say the least. At this point there is no real path to speak of, and you make your way up in as straight as a line as you can.

A slightly alarming feature of the mountain is the enormous red gash that sits next to the route. It must have been one heck of a landslide, and going up we told ourselves that it must have happened ages ago. The lack of vegetation in the slide area told us otherwise.

About two thirds of the way up, thick clouds began to roll in, obscuring the view in all directions. Had we not had an experienced guide with us, I would probably had wanted to turn around at this point. As it were, we trudged on in the fog – a fog that was turning into rain just as we reached the crater.

From Bajawa, it is hard to see that the mountain would have a crater at all, but in between the quickly shifting clouds we could look down into a great, vegetation-filled caldera. We sat down at the edge and munched on some snacks. Behind us, we could glimpse the looming peak, almost completely obscured by the fog.

Since the weather was not looking to improve in a hurry, we decided to summit and see if we could get a nicer view from the peak. The final ascent goes along a brittle pumice-stone ridge. The weather made it hard to see more than twenty feet ahead, and again I would have been very reluctant to go on had we not had the guide that we had.

The weather did not improve at the summit, so we had a quick photo session and high-fived each other. Three metal crosses have been erected on the peak, and in the fog it looked as foreboding as anywhere I’ve ever been.

Immediately upon starting the descent, I realized that we were in for a knee-busting one. As the hike down isn’t just very steep, the pumice-stone pebbles make every step crucially important. Our walking sticks were of enormous help, and since we had gone up so fast we could take our time on the way down.

It is mentally exhausting to go down a mountain like this one – every step has to be very deliberate, and you have to be prepared to parry sliding actions in any direction at all times. In the end, it took us almost as long to descend as it took us to walk up. Franciscus the guide, of course, had no problems with the path. I guess it has something to do with him weighing about 50 lbs and having been born on the mountain.

To conclude: climbing Inirie takes a bit of stamina on the way up, and a walking stick and patience on the way down. As long as the weather is nice, there is no immediate need for a guide. However, since the army had to rescue a Dutch group a few years ago, the locals are loath to allow you to go up by yourself.

We definitely deserved our beers that night.

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